Saturday's football game marks to a certain extent an epoch in the development of the eleven, for Dartmouth's team was strong enough to test pretty thoroughly the progress made thus far. The result, when we think it over carefully, is not, on the whole, calculated to cause over-confidence. In comparison with the records of the other big teams, in their games played this season, it is apparent that Harvard does not stand at the top of the list, and that if she expects to do so there is plenty of work on hand for all concerned.

But we wish to point out that this present backwardness is a logical part of the deliberate policy undertaken at the beginning of the season. We mean the policy of carefully guarding the men from injuries and of developing them slowly. This policy is, we believe, unquestionably sound.

The reaction, however, from last year's do or die method of daily practice carries with it two dangers which must be strenuously guarded against. The first is a danger that the men themselves, selected partly on their past record, and treated with a novel tenderness, shall let up in their individual efforts, and fall into fatally listless habits. The other is that the coaches, unconsciously influenced by the same radical change, shall fail to infuse enough energy into the signal practice and short line-ups. After all the real object of the change is this-to get the chance to train the same men together until they can be turned into a perfect machine. Of course then, if practice be short, it must be so much the better in quality.

Now, these two dangers are so inherent in the present system that one is tempted to magnify them and to consider them permanent defects. Defects they are not. They are dangers, serious, but still perfectly possible to avert. In these respects, the CRIMSON looks forward with confidence to gradual but steady improvement. Coach Forbes and Captain Cabot entered upon this fall's work with their eyes open to these difficulties. To their credit be it said that they have stuck to their purpose consistently. The men have, as a rule, been kept in good condition, and, in spite of inevitable criticism, their development as a team has not been hurried. The work has, it is true, been only begun, but we expect to see it carried out to a logical and successful conclusion before November 13.