With the close of the present term at the Christmas recess, Harvard leaves off an old and begins a new athletic season. During the next few months crews, nines, and track athletes will be carefully trained for the outdoor work of the spring, and everything will be done by the management of each organization to make its work successful. Of this we feel assured. But there are requisites of success other than the conscientious work of captains and managers, necessary as these are. Men must be found who are willing to train earnestly and long, else we cannot even hope for victory. All this is of course very trite and uninteresting, but it is nevertheless the foundation truth of athletic success, and needs to be practiced as well as understood. We do not propose to launch forth into extended exhortations-a style too common in college and school publications-but merely to call to mind the facts. Harvard tried her very best in football this past season. The result was she put into the field the best team she has ever had, and made a better showing than she has ever made before-this with an unbroken line of defeats in the past for encouragement. In other branches of athletics she has a better record to encourage her. There seems to us no reason, therefore, why she should not do as well in these as she has ever done before. The first requisite of such an athletic future is a wholesouled enthusiasm like that which we have already seen this college year in football. If we show this after the recess is over, we shall at least begin our work aright.