The members of the track team and Mr. Lathrop deserve the sincerest thanks of the University for the plucky showing they made last Saturday in the first intercollegiate games of the year. Pennsylvania turned out to be much stronger than was expected, and as has already been explained in this column, the Harvard team was deprived of the services of one of its best runners in maintaining the discipline of the team. With regard to this latter circumstance it might be well to emphasize how responsible each individual member of the team is for his own good condition: if the athlete in question had been in a position to run he would almost surely have won points, and would thus have given the games to Harvard without the decision of the protest. This same protest and consequent disqualification of one of Pennsylvania's men in the half mile run seems to have aroused much dissatisfaction; in fact, some, apparently, would rather have had the games a tie than win them on a foul. While it is of course, unfortunate that the result of the whole meeting should depend upon this, we feel that the protest and decision were perfectly just. All will agree that in order to make competition on the track fair there must be certain rules governing the contestants with this end in view; and if a man enters a race it is just as much his business to pass his opponents fairly as to finish ahead of them. If a Harvard man had been guilty of the foul we should have felt that the victory belonged to Pennsylvania.
On the whole, Saturday's performances averaged high, and one seems justified in saying that the Harvard team is a bit the stronger from an all around point of view.
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Notices.