With Saturday's hockey triumph over Yale, with the crew and baseball squads called out, with over a hundred men reporting daily for track, and with murmurs of renascent football plans, the revival of athletics at the University is now fairly under way. For the first time in two years we see today all the major sports functioning once more and many of the minor ones raising their heads from the outer darkness to which they had been temporarily relegated. A most auspicious beginning it is, with victory over the Blue as an omen of success.

No doubt can now exist that intercollegiate athletics must and will be maintained. They are the one means of making the University a unit. With so many students, living over so scattered an area, it is almost impossible to arouse a feeling of common interest on any other matter. But every Harvard man will rally to the defense of his team. A football game in the fall creates an enthusiasm throughout the University such as nothing else could.

But athletics cannot exist for the benefit of the man who excels and the man who watches. In fact the latter class must be reduced. Athletics must be placed on such a basis that there will be room for the University teams and for scrub teams of all kinds. The man who regards competitive sport as a means of obtaining good exercise should be encouraged as much as possible.

Though the athletic ship has been launched under such auspicious circumstances, it cannot hope to pursue an entirely satisfactory journey unless it has a strong captain at the helm. For a successful season a firm guiding policy is a requisite. Of course sports will go on indefinitely under their own momentum, but unless the attitude of the athletic authorities is definitely know both players and managers will be under a big handicap. The managers will not know how far to plan, and the players will feel the lack of strong support.

Now is the time for initiative. Procrastination will only kill the spirit of reform. Some day the Athletic Committee will see fit to come to a decision. Meanwhile the University waits.