Tlhc Xutbecan IDtgttor
- GOD’S WORD, OUR RULE; CHRIST, OUR PATTERN; A PURE FAITH, OUR WATCHWORD.,
Vol.^XXXVI—No. 2. NEWBERRY, S, C., THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1902. Whole No. 1701
Wethink the strong
Recklessness words of Professor
and Brutality. Stevens of Wash
ington and Lee
should open the eyes of those in
authority to the growing abuses of
the brntal sport of foot ball. We are
in favor of all manly and elevating
forms of athletics, boys at college
need wholesome exercise, bnt when
any form of sport is known to be
injnrious and debasing it should
be abandoned. Hear his judgment
on foot-ball:
“The idea that springs most
promptly into consciousness about
football is its -reckless brutality.
Yet this js the special feature that
seems above all others to ensnre its
popularity. The element of sav
agery in bntnan nature that makes
crnelty the pasttime of the small
boy remains latent througbont life
among perhaps the majority of
men. The knowledge that blood
may be shed, that danger to life or
limb mnst be incurred, has an in
describable charm for a large pro
portion of the spectators at the
football field. Everybody knows
that life may be lost by railway
accidents, or by summer bathing,
or even by paralysis dne to long
sermons in cbnrch ; bnt the num
ber of snch casualties in propor
tion to the number of persons
directly concerned is too small to
produce any excitement. Risks
mnst be taken in everything we do,
bnt it is only the obvious and dan
gerous risks that bring pleasurable
agitation. There is then a wide
spread and enthusiastic demand for
football because it is dangerous,
because it is war, even thongh on
a small scale. One of the best
known of medical journals, the
London Lancet, chronicled 23
deaths due to football in England
during the year 1892, and 28 in
1893. The number of casualties
that escaped notice is not known,
bat 109 were serious enough to re
quire hospital treatment, including
34 broken legs, 20 broken collar
bones and three cases of concnssion
, of the brain. Daring the season
just ended, despite improvements
in the rules of the game, there
have been at least seven deaths
dne to football in the United Stages,
and over 70 recorded injui *N>0 so
severe as to require surgical treat
ment, with a large number un
recorded. ' Within sight of the
writer’s home there have been two
cases of concussion of the brain
requiring hospital treatment.
“In comparing football with other
sources of danger we are not con
cerned so much with the absolute
number of casualties as with the
ratio of casualties to participants.
At West Point in 1893 a careful
statistical comparison was made
by local medical officers between
gymnastic exercises, horseback
riding and football, as sources of
injury to the cadets. Of the 80
cases 9 were due to the gymnasium,
17 to riding, 54 to football, or six
times as many to football as to the
gymnasinm. Of the days lost from
scholastic duty 11 were due to the
gymnasium, 54 to riding and 277 to
football, or 25 times as many to
football as to the gymnasium. The
average enrollment of cadets that
year was 260 The percentage
danger dne to football, more than
20 per cent of the enrollment, is
thus seen to be extraordinary. But
in reality to obtain the comparative
percentages of football and riding
those of football should be multi
plied by three, since football was
played only once a week and riding
was done three times a week. To
obtain a comparison for football
and gymnasium accidents, the foot
ball percentage should be multi
plied by six, since gymnasium ex
ercise is taken six times a week.
“It may perhaps be said that all
cases of brntality in playing foot
ball are indirect violations of the
rales of the game. But if this must
be granted, the actual resnlt in
deaths and broken limbs and shat
tered health is a stubborn answer.
No game is civilized that requires
the presence of surgeons and hos
pital equipment. ’Intercollegiate
football is as merely collective
prize fighting for championship
and gate money. Its essential
brntality can never be trne. The
victim of slagging feels bound to
avoid informing on his assailant
becanse he would be regarded as
pusillanimous for doing so. Slug
ging generally passes undiscovered
by those whose duty it is to pre
vent this evil, since the very con
ditions of the contest make it impos
sible for one man to see or control
the actions of nearly two dozen
in the confusion of snch play.
Despite its rongbness, it may be
reasonably tolerated among stud
ents in the same college; but eo
soon as the intracollegiate feature
is replaced by intercollegiate com
petition a Pandora’s box of evils is
opened. It may seem as if a com
petitive same between two colleges
ought to involve no principle dif
ferent. from that of a contest be
tween classes in the same college.
But experience has shown that the
difference is great. To quote the
words of Dr. Wiler, who at Cor
nell nnivserity has had exceptional
opportunities for information, be
tween the intracollegiate and the
intercollegiate forms, the distinct
ion is snbstautially as between re
creation and destruction, liberality,
and extravagance, emulation and
hostility, zeal and ferocity, music
and noise, enthuasiasm and hyster
ics, hilarity and rowdyism, moder
ation and excess.
Ferocity in competition and
recklessness in rivalry are evils
inherent in contests that are inter
collegiate, but absent to a large
extent from those that are kept
within the college. The question
of the control of these evils is beset
with difficulties. Perhaps the great
est is the attitude of college fac
ulties, whose members regard
athletic success as an important
means of drawing students. Re
cognizing the nniversal demand for
athletics on the part of the stndents
themselves, both actual and pros
pective, they believe that as a busi
ness proposition it pays to encour
age what seems to aronse the en
thusiasm of young men far more
than any scholastic attractions that
the colleges can offer. No one col
lege feels strong enongh to prohibit
the participation of its own stud
ents in intercollegiate matches,
an less most of its competitors agree
to do 'the same. So strong au
institution as Harvard prohibited
intercollegiate football in 1885,
but the prohibition lasted only a
year. Regulations for the control
of intercollegiate athletics have
been drawn up by committees
organized for that purpose, but
what suited one college failed to
suit another; and general agree
meat has thus far been impossible.
The fundamental idea that should
be grasped by all college authorities
is expressed iu the following words
by President Schurman of Cornell
university, who says, (Forum
January, 1894), “A liraitatio
which will, I think, be deemed
fair and manly, is that these con
tests between students should be
regarded as exhibitions for
students, and not primarily for the
public They are prostituted when
they are treated as money making
shows. The proper place for them
is the college field; and in cities
this should not be given up to the
crowd. The aim of athletics should
be to give every student a round,
harmonions physical organization,
not to tram a doz-in or two semi
offi'dals to win matches.”
A writer in the Advance on“ Dea
conesses in Methodism,” says:
“Methodism is but a pioneer in the
movement. Giber denominations
are inquiring. Some are even mov
ing. God hastens the day when in
all our allied ranksthe women who
pnblish the tidings shall be a great
host.”
The Lutheran World makes a
very appropriate addition to the
above when it says: “This is a
queer sort of a history. It was
Theodor Fliedner, a German Luth
eran minister in Germany, in 1836,
who was the first in modem times
who called women to a deaconess
sis'erhood, trained them for work
and organized them into bands. He
is the true ‘pioneer in the move
meat.’ It was a Lutheran min
ister also, the late Dr. W. A.
Passavant, who in 1849, in com
pany with Fliednfr, introduced
the deaconess work into this coun
try. “Credit to whom credit is
due.'”—The Lutheran.