ation, and one cannot help but admire him for having the courage of his conviction. But the Volstead Act has not cured the evils of drunkenness, and a great many sober and intelligent people think it never will. What is needed in athletics is not a Volstead Act, but a common-sense point of view by those who play-by those who govern play-and particularly by those who look on. It is due in a large part to the utter selfishness of the latter that our sports have been degraded. It is overemphasis on the necessity to win, to satisfy a supporting alumni, that is to blame. In other words, we have ourselves, not the boys who play, to thank. "Defeat is a portion of every man born into the world. He must learn to accept it and, if he is to amount to much in his community, he must get from every check a certain stimulus to appeal from decision." "The alumni who are normally intelligent on popular subjects are surprisingly unintelligent in their demands for athletic victories. The teams must always win, and one defeat is longer to be remembered than ten victories." Why do we not act on this plain fact? The carping alumni know this well, but refuse to believe and be led by it. "Any alumnus who stops to think knows that a good team does not prove a good college." It is at least fortunate for schools that the alumni have not as yet assumed the controlling influence-that committees of alumni do not direct school athletic policies. May such persons who are rightfully interested, but who are not the proper administrative bodies, never gain control. The college athletic program for afternoon recreation should no more be planned by the alumni than the college scholastic curriculum for the forenoon's intellectual work. With one purpose in view-education, mental, moral and physical-the school or college faculty should shape the policies for which they are alone responsible.

"Only once," writes Heywood Broun, "did I ever hear an official football speech which met with my entire approval. It was made by a Harvard captain. His team had lost to Yale by a smaller score than was expected. It had been a fast and interesting game. At the dinner when the team broke training the captain said, 'We lost to Yale but I think we had a satisfactory season. We have had fun out of football and it seems to me that ought to be the very best reason for playing the game.' A shocked silence followed his remarks. He was never invited to come to Cambridge to assist in the coaching of any future Harvard eleven. His heresy was profound. He had practically intimated that being defeated was less than tragic."

I had the satisfaction, when Director of Rowing at Harvard, to receive the following letter from a university crew captain, but, like the football captain, no doubt his point of view was also tragic:

"I don't know that you remember my position in general-we discussed it at Concordbut my conviction has only grown with time that the chief end of sport in the University is indicated by the word itself. It is a delectable luxury to beat Yale but the necessity is to row a good race, win or lose, with no disgrace attached to the latter event."

What Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn wrote in an article on "What are College Games for?" applies also to schools. "There are two primary motives from which college games spring, out of which the essential spirit of the games is made. The first is a desire of the players and of the undergraduate community which they represent; it is the desire for fun, for the sheer joy of competition with another college and its team. Taken all in all, there is no 'outside' interest of the undergraduate years which is so compelling or, within proper limits, so worth while as this. The second motive is the desire of the players and communities for victory in the games. This, too, is essential. There can be no game without it. If one does not wish and strive for victory, then one does not play at all. To play is to play to win." There was never a truer saying than this last. But because the hope to win springs eternal in the athlete's breast it does not mean that defeat cancels automatically all the joy of having played. This belief is what is killing true sport in this country. The hope of winning is the actuating cause; defeat the incentive to try again.

The cheering at college games has come to provide one of the salient features, but it has lost its spontaneity, its sincerity. "All shade and sensitivity is sacrificed in football by the pernicious practice of regimentation. A long cheer with three Harvards on the end,' cries the man in the white sweater through his megaphone. It is entirely possible that at the precise moment he calls upon me and my fellows to declare ourselves there is stored up in none of us more than a short cheer. It may even be that we have no inclination to cheer at all. Still, the duty is heavy upon us and we must do lip-service," again writes Heywood Broun. The same was true of the crowd in the Colosseum-a purely selfish one that brought man to the level of the beast.

No, we cannot condemn games and shut our eyes not alone to their value, but to their definite place in an educational curriculum. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" remains and always will remain a truism. The elimination of athletics would be followed automatically by more time devoted to scholastic work. It has been proved time and again that the reverse is true. It has been my invariable observation that during the autumn and spring terms in school when sports are at their height, a quite parallel apex is reached in scholastic attainment.

So much for the benefit derived in relation