Last year fewer people went to football games than had gone in 1947, 48, and 49. This was true not only at Harvard but all across the nation. The National Collegiate Athletic Association would like to know why, and at the moment it is pointing a shaky finger at the Blinking Monster, television.

Although the finger is shaky, it is not wavering in direction. Last Spring, the great man of the people from Minnesota, now a college president at Pennsylvania, said it was unfair to the residents of. These United States to limit the number of football games the people could see. A controlled experiment, testing the effect of TV football on the stadia going public, was unconstitutional, according to Harold Stassen, but when he finally decided to give up his charges, he found that he had only succeeded in losing the right to televise one of his games.

So the experiment will go into operation this fall, testing whether this college or any college can endure the competition of the Flickering Screen.

The Noble Experiment will take this form. 1) The telecasted football schedule will cover ten weeks, starting this Saturday 2) On three Saturdays each of the 48 television areas throughout the nation will show no college football; these dates will be different for each station 3) On one Saturday, last week, there was no television showing of any college game 4) On each of the remaining seven weks each region will see at least two games from its own region, two from another, two games which will get nation-wide coverage, and one other game to be chosen from any of these categories.

What does this mean to Harvard? In the long run it may prove something but the large share of the proof will have to come from the results turned in at the end of the season by the other colleges in the country. According to the schedule, the two weeks when there will be no television in the Boston area are October 6 and November 3. On the former the Crimson plays Columbia in New York; on the latter, the Crimson has an open date.

The rest of the local TV schedule shows a Pitt-Duke telecast during the Holy Cross game, an away game at Cornell during the Notre Dame-SMU game, a mediocre team at the stadium with Yale and Cornell in the bars, the Dartmouth games both in the stadium and on the air, Notre Dame against Michigan State while the Crimson plays Princeton Columbia plays Navy on the air while Harvard plays Brown, and Michigan playing Ohio State while the classic takes place in New Haven.

The effect of these offerings upon Soldiers Field attendance will be interesting to watch. How many people, for example, would rather see what comes out of the Yale-Cornell match than wander to the color-laden stadium to watch the depleted Cadets face the team which it last year defeated 55-0?

Although the schedule may not prove much at Harvard alone, it is well-planned throughout the country. The results should be interesting. What would happen, if it were proven that the broadcast of the Yale-Cornell game kept some 10,000 potential customers from the local stadium gate? Suppose this were duplicated all over the country. Would the NCAA forbid Notre Dame from telecasting? Would it keep the television revenue from Harvard when it was shown that its games kept no one from doing anything?

The experiment is necessary and its results will be eagerly awaited; but what then, Mr. Hall, what then?