Englishmen at Harvard
The English track team drove out to Cambridge yesterday morning at 11 o’clock, and was met in front of Massachusetts Hall by about three hundred men. After the cheering, the guests were taken about the yard, and then to the Museum to see the glass flowers. They then went through the gymnasium and to the Union, which they inspected thoroughly....
President Eliot welcomed the visitors to Harvard, and spoke of what American athletes should learn from the English. In the first place, they should learn to prepare for athletic contests with a shorter period of training. Judging by English experience, training in American colleges covers a period unnecessarily long; and athletics are taken too much as hard work and not enough as genuine pleasure. In England men go into athletics primarily for pure sport, and are not inclined to overestimate the value of victory, as we are. We should also learn from the English to keep our games the same from year to year, without attempting to vary them by new and tricky plays which have to be practiced in secret behind high fences.
—Oct. 1, 1901
45 Years ago
Four Professors Attack Removing of Honors Latin
Four Faculty members yesterday attacked the removal of the Latin requirement for English honors candidates.
“I can only deplore the action,” J. Petersen Elder, professor of Greek and Latin and Dean of the GSAS, said last night. “A knowledge of Latin literature is necessary for a knowledge of English literature.”
Elder was supported by John Finley ’25, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature. “It is a mistake, he said. “I don’t see how anyone could study English profitably without some knowledge of Latin.”
—Oct. 3, 1956
25 Years ago
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