Now that the football team has left for its one game away from Cambridge it seems appropriate to bring before the eyes of the public the admirable arrangements made by at least one telegraph company for vicarious cheering. Experts of the sort who made "don't write, telegraph" famous have brought forward their contribution to the overemphasis problem in the form of ten suggested pep messages to be delivered to the boys a few minutes before the game. At present writing no statistics are available as to the relative number of telegrams delivered to winning and to losing teams during the past season, but if there is a possibility of sales arguments in such figures one can be sure that Western Union actuaries will soon supply them.

Carnegie report enthusiasts may feel that the Western Union is out of touch with the best athletic thought of the time, since a cursory glance at the ten pep messages reveals at least eight of them as playing too great an emphasis on winning. In fact the compilers of the list frankly confess that its purpose is to "send the players out on the field with fire in their eyes and a keen determination to win." They have obviously failed to catch the amateur spirit and have made the mistake of fainting athletics with the same sort of commercialism which grew out of the annual touching remembrance to mothers. But the same methods which have been so beneficial to the maintainance of purity of affection in American home life have still another defect when applied to the gridiron. Telegrams are delivered on paper of a hue the mere mention of which in a locker room is enough to make every shower in the place run cold.