IN her refusal to play Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania except on a strictly undergraduate basis, Princeton has set forth clearly her position in regard to collegiate athletics. By her action she indirectly states that the odds of a university team against a college team are too heavy for her to bear, or, at the least, that she does not care to compete with any but strictly college teams. Princeton has thus lowered her athletics from a university to a college standard. If she persists in her present attitude, she must expect that, in rating her, it will be according to the college standard.

This conclusion, it seems to us, is inevitable. We do not deny Princeton her right to do as she pleases in the matter. Neither can Princeton deny Harvard her right to place her own standard. It can be said authoritatively that Harvard will never agree to narrow her athletics down to a strictly college basis. It would seem, then, that future contests between the two universities must cease permanently unless a compromise is effected, by which Princeton will broaden her stand. If she, for her own reasons, declines to do this, there are other universities, whose rapid growth of late has convinced us that Harvard need not go a-begging for want of worthy rivals.

There is, however, another aspect to the situation, which concerns Princeton more than it does us. Princeton stated that her objection to playing Harvard was a matter of consistency; that having refused to meet the University of Pennsylvania on any but an undergraduate basis, she must impose the same restrictions upon Harvard. She apparently intends, then, to arrange baseball games with undergraduate teams only. This involves a principle which ought consistently to apply to other forms of athletics. But we know that the various teams at the inter-collegiate meeting this spring will, by a vote of the association, be teams composed in part of graduates. Will Princeton, then, following her present line of argument, drop out of the intercollegiate games and thus prove conclusively the sincerity of her reasoning; or will it be found that the principle varies with the form of athletics to which it is to be applied?