THE REGULATION OF ATHLETIC SPORTS IN COLLEGES. 639 
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dent in the game, and should not be so magnified as to become the sole 
object for which the game is played, that before which everything else 
must give way. A team which cannot win on its merits, often resorts to 
:rickery. The motto seems to be : ““ Get there honestly if you can, but 
get there.” Codes of signals are practiced behind closed gates, spies arc 
sent to discover the enemy’s tactics; in fact, an outsider is apt to think 
a civil war is about to break out, instead of a friendly trial of strength 
between two sister institutions. This intense rivalry smothers the spirit 
of fair play, and leaves the game shorn of one of its greatest attractions. 
The newspapers make capital of this in exaggerated paragraphs, and the 
annual football match assumes the appearance of a gladiatorial show. It 
is played before enormous crowds, on neutral grounds hired for the occa- 
sion. The question of gate-money has the first consideration in choosing 
the scene of action. For example, in 1893 the receipts at the Yale- 
Princeton football match were over $30,000 ; about $12,000 of this went 
‘o each club, and wus used principally in training the team, paying 
attendants, hotel bills, and railway fares—everything, expenses included, 
being on a truly gigantic scale. 
This money-making value of the game is dragging sport down from its 
rue place as a recreation, and, together with the rivalry before alluded to, 
must tell against its best interests. But the evil does not stop here, for 
she smaller colleges, like small boys, try to imitate their big brothers, 
and so offer distinguished players large salaries to coach their football 
seams that they may compete with some hope of success; and thus many 
of the men who become noted in college athletics have professionalism 
thrast upon them. 
Our Canadian colleges occupy a position entirely unique. Their strong 
leaning toward American forms, to be expected from their social and 
geographical relationship, is offset by the influence of British customs, 
traditions, and official connection. The form and character of the sports 
are therefore rather more English than American. A football match is 
always played on the ground of one of the competing colleges ; the com- 
petitive and professional elements do not enter so much into sport there 
as they do further south, the visiting team being entertained as guests. 
The annual *Varsity-McGill Rugby match is always followed by a compli- 
mentary dinner, and the rivalry is most friendly and good-natured. 
In no college in Canada do the university authorities have any voice on 
she athletic boards, except as honorary members or officials of the games. 
But experience goes to show that some government is beneficial and even 
necessary ; that if left entirely in the hands of the undergraduates, without 
assistance from those who have been through the mill, blunders are made, 
time, labor, and money are wasted yearly by raw committees, and the 
athletic interests of the college have to bear the loss. If members of the 
teaching staff were also members of the athletic committees, these faults