The management of a large downtown Chicago eleemosynary institution recently has been admiring publicly the athletic policies of the Ivy League. A one-time member in good standing of the Big Ten, the University of Chicago, under its prodigal chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins, abandoned intercollegiate football in 1939 and converted its field house into an atomic laboratory. At Chicago, Mr. Hutchins, now of the Fund for the Republic, had assembled what the New Yorker called "the greatest collection of juvenile neurotics since the Children's Crusade."

This situation has been changing since the departure of Chicago's enfant terrible, and the Big Three have been cited as model examples of how to operate the revamped Chicago. Included in the Ivy planting at Chicago, says the New York Times, is a return to intercollegiate football on an independent basis by 1957.

Ivy League Entry?

This quiet announcement should be viewed in Cambridge, New Haven and other way stops on the Ivy circuit with more than academic interest. An independent schedule for Chicago seems to preclude any attempts of the Maroon to regain its seat in the Big Ten. Chicago could schedule teams like Washington University of St. Louis, but the field of big-name midwestern schools playing amateur football is limited. It is not unlikely that Chicago will seek a few billings on the select fall engagement calendars of the Ivy League.

The Ivy League has been trying to win converts to its sanitized policies, but naturally every new entrant to the sanity circuit cannot be rewarded with a spot on the crowded Ivy schedules. Chicago, however, is not a newcomer. Harvard, in fact, helped administer the coup de grace in Chicago's final season with a 61-0 affair at Stagg Field--one year after a 47-12 rite in Cambridge. Perhaps Harvard might atone for this gridiron homicide by welcoming the once disgraced Maroon back to intercollegiate football.

Air travel is here to stay and an occasional junket to Chicago for the Crimson eleven might not unduly strain Mr. Bolles' budget. Harvard has a large alumni clan in the greater Chicago area, and the Ivy teams have always drawn well in the midwest. Chicago itself is a well-known institution and a Maroon eleven of Ivy League caliber should be a good gate attraction.

It is still too early to predict when Chicago will be ready for Ivy competition. But this matter may soon move from the speculative arena of a newsroom to the practical precincts of Chicago and Ivy League athletic associations.