The abolition of what has lately come to seem to many an unfortunate tendency towards undue specialization in our athletics may very possibly be one of the more important results of President Eliot's recent movement towards the reform of college athletics. Indeed, this may fairly be conjectured to be one of the chief aims of the movement. That college sports of late years have arisen to so high a degree of excellence and have developed teams, as well as individual athletes, of such exceptionally fine records, is surely a matter of congratulation to everybody. But that, at the same time, there has arisen a certain unconscious tendency towards an unwise exclusiveness in our sports, we think cannot be doubted. To produce a team that will play an almost faultless game, or athletes whose records excel the best, should not be the sole end and aim of all our college sports. It is true that by success in this way a general interest in all these things can best be fostered; but, when we sacrifice to this aim all the better uses of college sports and very nearly subvert the fundamental principle of amateur sports and pastimes, which seeks to afford to the greatest number the freest chance for exercise and sport, then it may justly be doubted whether the means justify the ends. Our colleges cannot afford to let all active interest and participation in athletics fall entirely into the hands of those who, by nature or special training, have come to excel therein. To excel is not our only aim; but to afford to the largest number the best chance for physical exercise and enjoyment in all our various games and sports. Tennis, lacrosse and all those sports in which men of comparatively little experience and skill can take part, are of value to this end. The revival of class ball games, of scratch races, of every thing that tends to induce men to participate in athletics more generally, is to be welcomed. The gymnasium of course offers unsurpassed advantages to unlimited numbers for bodily exercise; but gymnastic exercise can only well be continued with advantage through a portion of the year, and it is, moreover, but a poor substitute for the sport of the ball field or of the river. Furthermore, it is evident that, with the increase of general interest and active participation in all these events, our chances for success in all inter-collegiate sports will be increased; for the recruiting field and army of the reserve for all these will be thereby so much the more enlarged.