before our college authorities and leaders of student sentiment is
how to check the fierceness of the big contests-shortening them,
perhaps, possibly forbidding entirely the more strenuous and how
to provide sports for all members of the college; so that, instead of
a few overstrained athletes and a lot of fellows who under exercise,
we shall see every man out on the field daily, and no one overdoing.
This ideal necessitates far larger athletic grounds than most of our
colleges have reserved. It may necessitate the abolition of some of
the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But
it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must
not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit
him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly,
vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke?
Statistics taken with care at many American colleges show with apparent
conclusiveness that the use of tobacco is physically and mentally
deleterious to young men. [Footnote: See, e.g., in the Popular Science
Monthly for October, 1912, a summary by Dr. F. J. Pack of an
investigation covering fourteen colleges. Similar investigations have
been made by several others, with generally similar results.] It seems
that smokers lose in lung capacity, are stunted slightly in their
growth, are lessened in their endurance, develop far more than their
proportion of eye and nerve troubles, furnish far less than their
proportion of the athletes who win positions on college teams, furnish
far less than their proportion of scholarship men, and far more than
their proportion of conditions and failures. It is perhaps too early
to be quite sure of these results; but in all probability further
experiment will confirm them, and make it certain that tobacco is
physically harmful as has long been recognized by trainers for athletic
contests. The harm to adults seems to be less marked; perhaps to some
it is inappreciable. And if there is appreciable harm, whether it is