We have before this given our reasons for believing that in college dailies athletic news is bound to occupy more space than can any report of the intellectual work done in the college. With the public press this is even more true. The account of an athletic contest may easily be given a sensational tone which matches the popular taste; but the doings of the student are too quiet and unexciting to hold the interest of the reading public. Let him enter upon the field of competition, so that college may be pitted against college in scholarly contest, and the resulting element of excitement will win for him the notice of the press, perhaps to a large degree; but so long as he confines himself to quiet, individual work, no matter of what importance, he will receive but slight mention.

Debating is a case in point. Until intercollegiate debates were begun, the press found nothing of much comment in the forensic efforts of undergraduates, though those in their initial stages were even more significant than they are in the present development of the art of debate. Given, however, the exaggerated interest of intercollegiate competition, and each debate receives almost the attention of a football game.

The difference is a natural one; it is found, without the sensationalism, in the college dailies as well; but the interpretation put upon it by the public is in a way unfortunate. True, it has rebounded much to Harvard's credit, and increased her reputation as a seat of learning, that she has been victorious in the only intellectual contests of the time; but the concentration of interest in the public debates tends to delay the recognition of the scholarly spirit which is cultivated in private by a steadily increasing body of students. People think that the undergraduate interest in debate is largely, if not wholly, stimulated by the prospect of intercollegiate contests; that it is effect rather than cause. They forget to regard it as but one instance of the general quickening of intellectual life in the college, and accordingly deny to the college due credit for the real vigor of this life. That it is vigorous they have no evidence through the daily press; they do not, therefore, check at the injustice of assuming, and even asserting, that it is not.