To the Faculty-Committee on Out-Door Sports, Princeton College:-

GENTLEMEN:

We have received from the President and Treasurer of the Princeton University Foot-Ball Association an "official statement" dated Nov. 27, 1889, in regard to the members of the Princeton and Harvard eleven for the present year. This statement contains:-

First, a "Faculty certificate" that all the members of the Princeton Eleven are "bona fide students on the rolls" of Princeton College or university.

Secondly, the certificate of Professor Sloane, a member of the Committee on Out-Door Sports, that no member of the Eleven is in any way a "beneficiary of the College."

Thirdly, a declaration made by the officers of the Princeton Football Association ("without any qualification whatever,") and certified by Professor Sloane as true "to the best of his knowlege and belief," that no member of the Eleven has been benefited in any pecuniary or business way by belonging to the team.

Fourthly, an allegation that the officers of the Princeton Association have in their possession "evidence that a number of the Harvard Eleven were offered pecuniary inducements to enter College to play football, and are at present beneficiaries of the college funds." A "portion" of this evidence was enclose to us, but was not published by the officers of the Princeton Association with the statement.

Fifthly, the request that "since the Harvard Football Association has publicly based its withdrawal from the league upon the charge that Princeton defeated Harvard with a team partly composed of paid and irregular players the Harvard Football Association make a public retraction of the general charges made against the Princeton management."

We need not further specify the contents of the "official statement," since the whole appeared in the public prints some days before we received it, and has been the subject of much public discussion.

Under ordinary circumstances any statement of the officials of the Princeton Football Association in regard to the constitution of their team would have been transmitted by us to the officers of the Harvard Association, with the request that they make answer. But since the communication of the Princeton Association contains grave public charges against one of the athletic organizations over which this Committee has supervision, we have undertaken to examine the evidence transmitted to us and also such other evidence as we could discover. This letter, which we beg leave to address to you, states the result of our investigations; and explains the present attitude of Harvard students towards Intercollegiate athletic contests. Since the public has been led to believe in the existence of "evidence" too damaging for publication, affecting the character of "a number of the Harvard team"; and since the attitude of the Harvard students has been seriously misunderstood and misrepresented, you will not regard us as discourteous if we give the public full opportunity to compare the evidence with the facts.

We shall consider the five parts of the Princeton statement in order.

1. The Academic Status of the Princeton Players.

We beg leave at the outset to correct a misapprehension on the part of the officers of the Princeton Football Association. The officers of our Association do not doubt that the members of the Princeton team are all duly registered students in Princeton College or University. Instead of establishing this uncontested fact, the Princeton Association should have explained how it happened that two members of the Princeton team, Mr. Cash and Mr. George, were so late, the one in entering and the other in returning to college. The latter is now an instructor in a great preparatory school, and resumed connection with Princeton College as a graduate student several weeks after the work of the year had begun. The other entered Princeton College for the first time, as a special student, only a short time before the Princeton-Harvard game on Nov. 16, which was the first game in which either of them played. The natural, although perhaps mistaken, inference is that these gentlemen were brought to Princeton to play football The inference is strengthened in the one case by the engrossing nature of the duties of an instructor in a large preparatory school; and in the other by the fact that the gentleman referred to is said on trustworthy authority to have entered the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1888 for the purpose of becoming a member of the Eleven, and to have left it as soon as the football season was over. It is further strengthened by the following admission of Captain Poe, published in the New York Evening Post, of November 2, in regard to a third player, Mr. Wagnehurst, who was lately a member of the New York professional Baseball Club: "We do not deny that the reason of his returning for a post-graduate course is to play football."

We cannot but regard it as contrary to the best interests of colleges and of college sport that players should return to college merely to engage in athletic contests. Last year there was a similar case at Harvard. So convinced was this Committee of the evils of the practice, that this year all candidates for the Eleven about whom any doubt was felt were sharply inquired about. The cases of five among thirty-one candidates were thus specially investigated. All of these five gentle men were and are "bona fide students on the rolls" of the University; against four of them efficient protest was lodged by this Committee or some other authority of the University; so that only one of them played in the games against Princeton and Yale.

2. The Question of Beneficiary Aid to Princeton Players.