Last winter the undergraduate rule was abopted by a mass meeting of Yale students, and Yale agreed to live up to this rule at least until the year 1894. Her object, it was represented, was to effect purity in athletics.

It was found that Yale had acted not altogether wisely. The undergraduate rule made the college, not the university, the unit in athletics. It tended to break the bonds that existed between the different parts of the university; it ignored the fact of university development in this country, and expected that Pennsylvania and Princeton and Harvard universities would be content to be represented by Pennsylvania and Princeton and Harvard colleges. It was evident also that the undegraduate rule meant a curtailment of the possibilities of amateur sport, and that such curtailment was unnecessary. A bona fide student-one doing some real work with some definite degree as his object-is to be welcomed, whether from college or professional school. Amateur sport wants only men above reproach, but it wants all these attainable.

On these lines, Harvard and Pennsylvania made their agreement, which is not a whit less strong for purity in athletics than the undergraduaate rule, and which saves the university feature of university teams. It is to this agreement that the rules adopted last week by the Intercollegiate Football Association almost exactly conform. That Yale has seen the impracticability of the undergraduate rule, we are heartily glad. The fact remains, however, that Yale has voted in mass meeting to abide by the rule till next January, independent of the action of other universities, and that one man on the eleven is not eligible under that rule. The action of an intercollegiate association to which Yale simply sends representatives cannot release her from a law which she gave to herself. It is for Yale to show whether she will be consistent, and abide by her own decisions, or whether she will be inconsistent and abide by what is most advantageous to her present needs.