It was with great pleasure that we noted in the table of contents of the January New Englander an article on "Gentlemanliness in College Athletics," by Mr. A. L. Ripley of Yale. When we came to read the article our pleasure was even more extreme. Mr. Ripley declares that our college sports are characterized by a spirit that is unbecoming among gentlemen, and that the remedy must be obtained by the students themselves raising their low ethical standard. There is nothing particularly new in either of Mr. Ripley's assertions, but, in view of the quarter whence they come, considerable importance should be attached to them. Hitherto one great difficulty in the way of reform in our college sports has been that at Yale, where the athletic championship has lain, public sentiment has been unwilling to admit that the need of reform existed. Thus it was the position of the Yale authorities that checked our faculty in its earlier attempts to improve athletics, and the Yale papers have never, within recollection, advocated athletic reforms. Under these circumstances an article from a Yale pen, calling for a higher standard in college sports, is a happy sign of progress. Take these two sentences of Mr. Ripley's, for instance: "The leading principle," he says, "in contests between gentlemen, should be that the best man should beat, and in a gentlemanly way." Again, he says that the howling which was a feature of certain base ball games last year, "indicates a deplorable lowering of the general tone of college sentiment." These are golden words, and from them we gather encouragement for the cause of athletic reform. Not that we believe that Mr. Ripley reflects the general sentiment of Yale; but a little leaven of this sort introduced there can not but work some change.