The article in the Student and Statesman entitled "A Defence of College Athletics," an abstract of which is given on our first page, is a valuable contribution to the discussion in regard to the value of inter-collegiate sports. The writer takes up a phase of the question which has thus far in the discussion received far too little attention. As he says in the introduction to his article, writers on both sides of the question have up to this time made the false assumption that very few men receive benefit from inter-collegiate athletics. It is natural for one who knows nothing of the training of the candidates for the various teams through the winter to imagine that the nine, the crew and the contestants at the inter-collegiate athletic games are the only men who receive benefit from college sports, and it is a subject for congratulation that a college undergraduate who understands the inside workings of the system knows how to express himself in clear and forcible English, has come forward to call attention to the falsity of this opinion.

Even undergraduates are very apt to have an inadequate conception of the amount of influence exerted directly by inter-collegiate sports on college students. The assertion that fully one-sixth of the students of Harvard College were during the winter in training for teams and crews which will represent us in inter-collegiate contests this spring, would probably be credited by very few who have not looked into the matter for themselves. And yet such an assertion would be true. Out of the 928 undergraduates of the college, including special students, there were 150 who trained more or less faithfully through the winter with the hope of getting into the University nine or crew, the freshmen nine or crew, the lacrosse team, or the "Mott Haven" team. This does not include members of the University and freshman foot-ball teams, which are organized simply for inter-collegiate contests, because their training, though strict while it lasts, ends with the coming of winter. The three upper-class crews are also left out of the account, although not nearly so many candidates could be kept in training for them if it were not for the great interest in boating created by the University race with Yale.

These figures are significant and indicate clearly how great a change would be wrought in the life of the Harvard student if inter-collegiate sports should be abolished. In regard to the question as to whether the influence exerted is deleterious, we would commend a perusal of the article on our first page. Of course there is no danger of such a step being taken here as has been taken by the Amherst faculty; but a consideration of results which would follow such action at Harvard, with its numerous provisions for occupying the time and attention of its students, may be of value in helping to reach a conclusion in regard to the feasibility of such actions at smaller colleges.