League of Alumni

Long has emphatic U. S. college football been publicized and editorialized. Nearly every educator agrees that Something Should Be Done. Last fortnight a suggestion appeared: that "the importance and influence of gate receipts" for athletic contests be ended; that football and other sports be endowed by potent, enthusiastic college alumni. Author of this suggestion was Dr. Nicholas ("Miraculous") Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, in his annual report. He revealed that Columbia had given "serious and prolonged study" to the football question (Columbia gave up in 1905, resumed it again in 1915 for a five-year trial, which proved satisfactory). Present policy at Columbia is that the University provides and maintains athletic plant and facilities, that students and alumni pay all current athletic expenses. Said Dr. Butler: "The abuses of intercollegiate athletics are many and various. . . . What is the remedy? . . . Perhaps what is needed is an academic League of Nations to take jurisdiction over this entire field of endeavor and to preserve what is excellent while shutting out what is unbecoming and unworthy. . . . Until something of this sort is done Columbia must remain one of those colleges which pays the penalty, if penalty it be, of insisting upon the primacy of intellectual ideals and intellectual accomplishments." Many a university official agreed in principle with Dr. Butler, few with his proposal as it stood. Forthright in approval were Chancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown of New York University ("Would be glad to enter such a combination"); President Daniel L. Marsh of Boston University ("Full accord"); President William Wistar Comfort of Haverford College ("Perfectly evident"). Less sure of the scheme as it stood were Dean of Men Fraser Metzger of Rutgers University ("Dr. Butler's position . . . is well founded"); President Ernest Martin Hopkins of Dartmouth ("Certainly worth considering"); President Thomas Sovereign Gates of University of Pennsylvania ("Sympathetic consideration"); President Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore ("Evils of academic sports . . . come really from the spectators"); President Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern ("Fine idea . . . but I do not believe that the endowment will be forthcoming"); President James Lukens McConaughy of Wesleyan University ("Proposals . . . must have general consideration"). But no enthusiasm: for Dr. Butler's scheme had Athletic Director Fielding Harris Yost of University of Michigan ("No possible value"); Coach Glenn Scobey ("Pop") Warner of Stanford ("You hear a lot of funny things sug-gested"); Major John L. Griffith. Big Ten athletic commissioner ("Absurd").

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