The position on the football question which President Eliot took in his annual report is not strengthened by the Nation's endorsement, which we quote in another column. There is a very suggestive difference in the respective attitudes of President Eliot and the Nation. From beginning to end of President Eliot's severe arraignment of the game of football as it is now played, there is nothing said in criticism of the game itself to which any reasonable man can take exception. It is a forcible statement of valid objections to the game. His failure to mention the beneficial features of football does not strike one as a denial of them. The only inference is that he thinks that the objections to football are so strong that so long as there are other opportunities for athletic training, the present game should be given up. However one may disagree with the President, it cannot be denied that his attitude is a legitimate one and although on some points, such as "the state of mind of the spectators at a hard fought football match," he seems to be ignorant of the actual facts, there is throughout his remarks on the subject a sincerity which adds greatly to their force.

The Nation, on the other hand, while claiming to endorse President Eliot's attitude, seems really to have little in common with it. Through all of the excited utterances on football of which the the Nation has delivered itself of late, there has been a wilful disregard of facts, an unwillingness to admit anything good of the opposite side, that entirely shuts it out from any claim upon intelligent attention. Such phrases as "brute instincts which they have been sedulously cultivating," "animal gratifications," and the like, indicate an attitude of mind the opposite of candid or dignified. It may be that we are taking the Nation too seriously, and that the expressions we quote are acknowledged hyperpolae, assumed for rhetorical effect. Admitting that, we cannot see that there is any increase of dignity.