The decline of interest in minor sports in the University since the war has been noticeable in no one sport more than in lacrosse. And in view of the former popularity and success of lacrosse at Harvard, this development is surprising. Everyone, does not remember that the University won six times and shared twice, the Championship of the Intercollegiate League in the eleven years preceding 1916--although the recent lack of complete success is not unfamiliar. But apparently, lacrosse has achieved a gruesome and quite undeserved reputation for savage ferocity, and even the boldest spirits are dismayed by the prospect. The result has been small squads and necessarily, less keen competition for the positions and less material from which to draw.

Merely winning championships, of course, is not the only function of the lacrosse team. Lacrosse offers perhaps one of the best kinds of exercise--and the small squads now in vogue only partially put to use the available facilities. It will be a poor compliment to Mr. Harry Berbert who begins his first season today as the University Coach, after exceptional success at Syracuse, if this year's turn-out be no larger than the usual one. After all, lacrosse at Harvard is firmly enough planted in tradition to satisfy the most meticulous. The first college lacrosse contest in America was a Harvard-Yale game.