In treating the question of exclusion of graduate students from University teams, one should consider the effect such exclusion would have,--first, upon the University, second, upon the country at large, including those smaller colleges whose policy is materially affected by the athletic position of the large Universities, third, upon the efficiency of the teams, and fourth, upon the individuals affected.
In regard to the first consideration, that with reference to the University, the exclusion of graduate students would seem advisable. Those questions as to eligibility which have attracted notoriety in the newspapers of recent years have been chiefly those of graduate students, and whether or not in any such cases there has been anything to bring any just unfavorable comment on the University, the mere circulation of the matter has brought a disagreeable prominence and tended to hurt the University's athletic reputation by such notoriety. If graduates were debarred, such cases would practically disappear.
In the second place, exclusion of graduate students would, as the example of one of the great universities, be probably followed by the smaller colleges, and the good there might be in such action would be almost universally spread.
As to the third consideration, the effect of exclusion upon the efficiency of teams, little weight should be given. The efficiency of any transient team should not affect judgment upon the right and wrong of a permanent policy.
But the fourth consideration, while not upsetting the general theory of graduate exclusion, would seem to limit its application. By graduate exclusion hardships would be wrought on earnest men and good students from other universities who wished to enter into Harvard athletics for the fun there was in them. Such individual injustice, however, for the sake of the general policy, must be overlooked. But the injustice to men who have been through Harvard College and are thus debarred would be great. They are bona fide Harvard men--the men in general the best and most reliable on a team. The records of these men are known; the records of graduate students from other colleges depends only on hearsay or on the testimonies of other athletic authorities often having dissimilar standards to our own. The reasons making advisable the disbarment of these latter men would not apply to the first.
In conclusion, then, I should say it would be well to bar out graduates from other colleges, but not men who have gone through Harvard College and taken its degree. W. T. REID, JR.
J. W. Farley '99.
The question of limiting the membership of Harvard teams to undergraduates is one which is of great importance, for it must necessarily greatly affect both the general feeling in the University, and the character of the teams.
It seems obvious that there are two points of view from which to consider the question--that of competition with Yale solely and that of the general effect on the University.
From the first point of view it seems obvious that it would be a great handicap. From year to year a good many men from the graduate schools make the teams and the very fact that these men beat out undergraduates for the positions, shows that the teams must be strengthened by them. Owing to her small graduate schools. Yale plays few graduates. Such a rule then must inevitably be to our disadvantage. At present the graduate school in some manner offsets the advantage Yale gets by her careful system of attracting the best athletes from the preparatory schools. That Yale does this, by entirely fair means (it is perhaps granted), her own men acknowledge. Can any graduates be more justly put in the class of veterans than Sheldon, Glass and Hogan, who were each 25 years of age. Rightly or wrongly Harvard has not yet done this. If we are to continue on a par with Yale it seems probable that it must be done even under the present rule; a fortiore then, if we put ourselves in the disadvantage in this new way.
Merely from the point of view of competition with Yale then, the proposed rule is one all to their advantage, and leading with us, either to an unfortunate system of seeking for school athletes or consistent inferiority in material.
From the point of view of its general effect on the University the argument is more important and involved. On the one hand it is urged that athletics are an undergraduate's recreation and that the main interest and support is among the undergraduates. Moreover, that it is apt to be among the graduate students that the doubtful cases arise. But, on the other hand, our teams are after all University teams, the presence of older men adds an element of balance--and the interest felt by the schools represented helps knit our loose-jointed system into a whole. Is not this latter perhaps the final argument? If we are to be a university, if the graduate schools are to be considered and treated as a vital fact, is it not wrong to prevent their participation in that, which, deny it who will; after all is one of the strongest factors in creating common feeling? J. W. FARLEY.
R. P. Kernan '03.
There has been a great deal of discussion lately as to whether or not men in graduate departments of our universities should be eligible for university athletic teams. Looking from a Harvard point of view, in fact looking from any point of view, I believe such men should be allowed to play.
In considering this question we must remember the reason for making any set eligibility rules. They are made in order to put all teams on an equal footing; to give every man an equal chance. For example, a professional is not allowed to play on an amateur team, because he is one who makes the playing of a game his life's work, and is believed to have an unfair advantage over a man who is playing the game merely for the sport's sake. A man who has played four years has had more experience and should be better equipped than one who is merely following the regular four year course in college.
A man who goes to college merely for the sake of playing on athletic teams, better known to college men as a "ringer," is to all intents and purposes a professional, because he is making athletics his one aim in life, and he should therefore be debarred. Thus all eligibility rules point toward the same end. But if a student in a graduate school stands in the athletic world on an equal footing with other athletes; if by playing him our university teams are not taking an unfair advantage over their opponents, the men in graduate departments should be eligible to play.
Many people claim that such is not the case. They say that these men have more experience; that it causes more cases of professionalism to be brought up, and that these men are too old to play on college teams. In the first place, the four-year rule is just as strict for a graduate student as for an undergraduate, so the difference in experience is generally very slight. As far as professionalism is concerned. I cannot see why an older, more level-headed man, should try to evade these rules any more than a young student just out of preparatory school. I admit that men in graduate departments are usually older than men playing on college teams, but I consider this advantage a perfectly fair one, because college teams do not consider themselves on an equal footing with university teams. Every player on a university team considers it a personal disgrace to be beaten by a college team, whereas a college team generally expects to be beaten. This shows that there must be a difference in the personnel of a college and university team. The mere fact that one university has an advantage over another university in the respective playing abilities of the members of its graduate departments does not enter into the argument at all.
For these reasons, it seems to me that a university playing members of graduate departments on its teams is taking no unfair advantage over its opponents, and therefore these students should be allowed to play. R. P. KERNAN '03