[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest. The Crimson is not, however, responsible for the sentiments expressed in such communications as may be printed.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

One of the heaviest charges brought against intercollegiate athletics is the extravagant way in which they are conducted. Undoubtedly, the training tables form one of the biggest and most extravagant items in the expense, and are accordingly the object of violent attacks by the opponents of collegiate commercialism, who decry the general recklessness which attends the management of these tables, and who are continually exhorting the undergraduates to put more fun and good fellowship into their sports. Let all such critics consider the fact that the training table is the largest contributor to the democratic side of athletics and to "athletic good-fellowship" that we have. By its means men from all positions and phases of our diversified University life come to know to sympathize with and to appreciate each other in a way which could be effected by no other institution.

That the training tables are conducted extravagantly I am more than ready to admit; but why attack such an important institution blindly, because of its apparent faults, and entirely disregard its inestimable benefit as a factor in our athletic life?

In examining this subject, I have tried to find out what is the average amount men pay for their board, and how this price compares with the charges at the training table. From all I can gather, very few men pay more than $7 a week for board, and the average man pays approximately $5. Granted that a man in active competition requires more nourishing food than the inactive man, one concludes that training-table board should be offered for $8 or possibly $9 a week, allowing for a reasonable margin.

The spirit of the training table today is to have the best at any cost. On this supposition we find broiled capons on the menu rather than beef and lamb, which medical authorities consider unquestionably to be more nutritious; and strawberries, asparagus or grape fruit at the very season when these only moderately nourishing delicacies are most expensive.

In the minor and class sports I realize the value of the training table to be equally great as in the case of the varsity sport; but, as the minor sports are run on a smaller scale, let them have their training table with a proportionately less expensive outlay and make it as near the average board as possible. Thus they would receive all the advantages of this institution and escape all censure for extravagance.

I should like to see the training table considered primarily as a social institution, which has the additional advantage of providing all who partake of it with the food required to make them strong, well-nourished men. It seems to me indisputably true that the more we look on our training tables as such an institution, and the less we consider them a series of free meals of unnecessary delicacies, served to a few athletic idols, the purer, cleaner and better will be our athletics.

To utilize the full value of the training table, the Athletic Association should provide some place, preferably an adequate section of Memorial Hall, where suitable and unextravagant food could be served to all the major and minor teams and their more promising substitutes. Some such "wholesale" system as this, in the hands of men who made a constant study of it, would eliminate three-quarters of the training-table expenses of the Athletic Association, and, moreover, would give to our athletics a democratic unity and comradeship which they could never attain in any other way.  W. MINOT '07.