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 FACTSANDFldjRES 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 WALTER 
 CAMPdb 
 
 
FOOTBALL FACTS AND FI 
 
 A SYMPOSIUM OF EXPERT OPINION 
 ON THE GAME'S PLACE IN 
 AMERICAN ATHLETICS 
 
 COMPILED BT 
 
 WALTER CAMP 
 
 AUTHOR OP "AMERICAN FOOTBALL" ETC. 
 
 /z 
 
 i/^Ol^'Z 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1 894 
 

 Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers. 
 All rights reserved. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The statistics contained in this volume were collected by a committee 
 consisting of the Hon. James W. Alexander, President of the University 
 Club, of New York ; the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, of the Yale Corpora- 
 tion ; the Hon. Henry E. Howland, of the New York Bar; the Rev. 
 Midicott Peabody, of Oroton School; Robert Bacon, of the Harvard 
 Board of Overseers ; and Walter Camp. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAOK 
 INTRODUCTION — ORIGIN OP THE COMMITTEE ... V 
 I. FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL AS EX- 
 PRESSED BY THOSE WHO HAVE STUDIED THE SUBJECT 1 
 II. STATISTICS OF UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS AS 
 
 COLLECTED BY THE COMMITTEE 59 
 
 ni. LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OP THE FACULTY AND HEAD- 
 MASTERS 66 
 
 rv. LETTERS PROM CAPTAINS 139 
 
 V. LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 160 
 
 VI. CONCLUSION OP THE COMMITTEE 233 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE COMMITTEE 
 
 The stir that had been created last fall * by the whole- 
 sale attacks upon football was sufficient to leave parents 
 of boys in an uncomfortable uncertainty as to what 
 I their duty was, and this uncertainty finally led a promi- 
 nent Boston gentleman to formally ask the Harvard 
 Board of Overseers for an investigation. No one, up to 
 that time, had felt called upon to present the other side 
 of the question, and those most familiar with the sport 
 had been disinclined to take up what might, they said, 
 be termed a defence of football. But when it was made 
 evident that in such an enquiry there was only the 
 desire for a full and complete investigation, it seemed 
 both possible and just to secure a wide expression of 
 opinion from past players, and from those most com- 
 petent, through their connection with schools and col- 
 leges, to judge as to the effects of the game, Mr. 
 Robert Bacon, of the Harvard Board of Overseers, 
 was on the committee to whom this question was re- 
 ferred, and in November he came to New Haven and 
 asked Mr. Walter Camp if he would consent to act as 
 chairman of a committee or body of investigators who 
 should look into the matter thoroughly. He further 
 stated that the gentleman who asked the question of the 
 Harvard Board of Overseers was in no way opposed to 
 football, but was, like many others, anxious to possess 
 some definite knowledge as to the facts. The plan 
 seemed practicable, and after obtaining their consent to 
 act, the following gentlemen were asked to attend a 
 * 1893. 
 
VI INTRODUCTION 
 
 meeting in New York : Rev. Jos. Twichell of Hartford, 
 Conn., a member of the Yale Corporation ; Rev. Endi- 
 cott Peabody of Groton School, Mass. ; James W. Alex- 
 ander of Princeton, vice-president of the Equitable Life 
 Assurance Society ; Honorable Henry E. Howland of 
 New York ; Robert Bacon of the Harvard Board of 
 Overseers, and Walter Camp. Dr. Pepper of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania had also been invited, but press 
 of work prevented his accepting. Mr. Camp submitted 
 a plan of investigation which the gentlemen discussed 
 and ultimately authorized. This plan was to secure an 
 expression of opinion from head-masters of schools, | 
 members of faculty of colleges, and former captains of 
 football teams. In addition to this it was planned to 
 institute a compaiuson between football and some well 
 known sport. After investigation it was found that the 
 only thorough enquiry into the question of the number 
 benefited and injured by any sport was one made by 
 Dr. Morgan of Oxford, regarding the boating men of 
 his university. It was, therefore, determined to take 
 his summary as the basis of comparison. It was found 
 that by taking the players of the Harvard, Princeton, 
 and Yale teams from the introduction of Rugby foot- 
 ball into America, down to the present date, the number 
 would be very close to the number of men who rowed 
 in 'varsity races during the years included in Dr. Mor- 
 gan's research. A quotation from McLaren gives the 
 best idea of Dr. Morgan's work : 
 
 " For many a long year strange tales of the risks and 
 dangers of rowing, or rather of boat-racing, have had 
 a floating existence in the universities, and, gaining 
 strength and circumstantiality by time and repetition, 
 have extended to wider circles. While the old tales 
 lived and held their own, other and more startling 
 legends sprang up and also grew into importance — 
 legends so alarming, and related with such circum- 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 stantial detail, that the most sceptical began to think 
 'there must be something in it.' Wliole crews, it was 
 stated, had been swept off in a few brief years by their 
 terrible struggles and efforts at the oar. This feeling 
 of uneasiness, if not of absolute alarm, attained a sort 
 of climax a few years ago by the letters of an eminent 
 surgeon published in the Times. For reasons which 
 seemed to his professional judgment sufficient, he took 
 the side of the alarmist, and pronounced an opinion, 
 strongly expressed, against boat-racing as now practised. 
 These letters were answered with more or less ability by 
 votaries of the oar, men then actively engaged in row- 
 ing, or who had recently been so. The ample lists in 
 Dr. Morgan's book, the liberal extracts from his corre- 
 spondents' answers to his queries — his correspondents 
 being the oarsmen themselves — tell us all ; tell us Avhere 
 they are, what they are doing, what they did when with 
 us and how they did it, and, in their own lanj'uag^, tell 
 with characteristic frankness, and in words wlich v ? 
 can still recognize as their old modes of expression, what 
 they think and believe for or against their old favorite 
 pastime." 
 
 His table of conclusions was as follows : 
 
 Benefited by rowing, 115 
 
 Uninjured by rowing, 132 
 
 Injured by rowing, 17 
 
 It was the purpose of this committee, expressed at its 
 first meeting, to lay before parents, faculty, and all in- 
 terested as complete an investigation as possible of the 
 results of the game in this country since it became a 
 recognized sport in 18V6. In order to do this they have 
 followed up every player on the Harvard and Yale teams 
 with one exception, and all but some half dozen on the 
 Princeton teams, during that period of eighteen years. 
 They have replies from the living, and, in the case of 
 
VIU INTRODUCTION 
 
 the dead, the testimony of friends or family as to the 
 cause of death. Regarding the latter, in only a single 
 instance was death attributed in any way to the sport. 
 In that single case overtraining in several athletic lines 
 was supposed to have weakened the constitution of the 
 man, although no direct connection existed. Similar 
 enquiries were made by Mr. John C. Bell regarding the 
 players of the University. of Pennsylvania, and the pro- 
 portions are practically the same as in the other three. 
 
 The committee have also assembled the opinions of 
 members of the faculty and head-masters of schools 
 that the reader might know what the effect of the game 
 was from the standpoint of the expert observer who 
 would be particularly tenacious of the rights of study 
 and discipline. In order to have a fair showing of both 
 sides, aW the letters received from this source are printed. 
 In the case of the letters from players, the opinion was 
 so unanimously in favor of the sport that only a few are 
 given. 
 
 For the sake of comparison, and not in any way as 
 reflecting upon rowing, for Dr. Morgan's report shows 
 the value of that sport, Dr. Morgan's investigation into 
 English university rowing has been taken. 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 3 
 
 men over another, but it is a contest for supremacy, in 
 which supremacy is gained not by physical strength 
 alone, but by this strength rightly directed by mind. 
 
 In the first place the rules of the game must be 
 observed by every playei*. The interpretation and 
 application of them in every moment of play calls for 
 no ordinary quickness of mind in a successful player. 
 
 Though each man has a special line of play belonging 
 to his position on a team, yet his play is so related to the 
 plays of the rest of the team, that he cannot act without 
 regard to the other players. It is eminently a game of 
 combinations. Individual play is important, but team- 
 play is more important. The signals of the captain must 
 be heeded by all the players, even if they seem to be 
 given for only two or three men. 
 
 Then, through weeks of preparation, these signals 
 have to be studied, to be memorized, to be practised as 
 thoroughly and faithfully by the men as the laws of any 
 science by successful scholars. 
 
 The only other college game which is to be compared 
 with it in respect of team-play is the game of base-ball. 
 Yet in this game the players have fixed positions. 
 Though team-play is important, it is not as important as 
 in football, while individual play, as for instance that of 
 pitcher or catcher, is more important. 
 
 In rowing, the work, though requiring skill and severe 
 training, is largely mechanical. In track athletics the 
 individual is everything. 
 
 That the game has had attractions for intellectual 
 men in the past is shown by the fact that the average 
 scholarship of men on the football teams has of late 
 years been higher than that of men in the other athletic 
 organizations. Notwithstanding the present style of 
 mass play, which puts a premium on physical strength 
 and weight, it was a surprise to me to find that the 
 average scholarship of the sixteen men from the aca- 
 
4 FOOTBAi^L FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 demic department, including players and substitutes, was 
 higher than the average of any class which ever gradu- 
 ated. I cannot believe, however, that the high scholar- 
 ship of football players will always prevail unless the 
 style of the game be changed to one which admits of 
 more open play. 
 
 Another advantage of the game is that the practice of 
 it engages a large number of players. A regular team 
 has two more men than the base-ball nine, and three 
 moi'e than the crew of eight men. The substitutes, hav- 
 ing a systematic training, are more numerous than the 
 substitutes for either base-ball or for the crew. Track 
 athletics only can be compared with it in the numbers 
 brought into it. For a short period of the year this 
 latter sport may exercise more men, but taking into 
 consideration the various class teams of football, and 
 especially the team of the Freshmen class with substi- 
 tutes, it is doubtful if even the numbers of those engag- 
 ing in track athletics exceed the numbers engaging in 
 football. 
 
 Of the benefits accruing to the players, the physical 
 benefits are the least noteworthy. Yet the play brings 
 into activity almost every muscle of the body. The 
 legs, the arras, and the trunk are all used. No part of 
 the muscular system is developed abnormally. But 
 great as are the benefits of the sport to the players in 
 mind and body, they are not to be compared with its 
 moral effects. If there is one virtue more to be desired 
 in a manly character, without which indeed the character 
 ceases to be manly, that virtue is courage. And of the 
 college sports there is not one which cultivates this 
 manly virtue more than football. Neither is the courage 
 required entirely physical. Indeed, the best players 
 feel and see the danger which they brave. Conscious 
 of injuries received, they often continue to face plays 
 which may exaggerate their pains. 
 
 \ 
 
PACTS AND OPINIONS KEGARDING FOOTBALL 5 
 
 Then the need of self-control in the midst of strong 
 excitement is another valuable lesson learned. Self- 
 denial is taught in the voluntary abnegation of the 
 delights of college life, in the forsaking of indulgence 
 in the luxuries of life. To training in courage, endur- 
 ance, and self-control must be added the valuable lesson 
 of obedience to authority. The discipline in this respect 
 is as strict as the strictest military discipline. Men are 
 required to obey captain and coach, and to obey silently. 
 This unquestioning instant submission to word of com- 
 mand is not the least of the excellent lessons of a foot- 
 ball season. It shows its effects in the whole college 
 life and college world. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, a good claim can be made of 
 a necessary connection between good character and 
 good football in its best development. In every thing 
 requiring the best results, the best success depends upon 
 the best men. As there is no other college sport which 
 so brings out the best virtues in a man, so there is no 
 other college sport which is so dependent for its success 
 upon good all-round men. Though this statement is 
 measurably true for all amateur sports, it is emphatically 
 true of football. It has been borne out by facts. The 
 best teams in Yale have had not only the best players, 
 but the most successful teams have contained the most 
 moral and religious men. In a class prayer-meeting I 
 once heard a man, who was for two years a most valu- 
 able player (a captain one of those years), declare tl)at 
 the great success of the team the previous season was, 
 in his opinion, due to the fact that "among the team 
 and substitutes there were so man)" praying men." As 
 it was with this man, so it has ever been with the suc- 
 cessful captains, as Avell as the successful coachers at 
 Yale. They have been God-fearing men, upright in 
 action and clean in speech. 
 
 The good effects of the game of football, in com- 
 
6 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 mon with the good effects of the other sports, need 
 only a passing mention. Among these may be in- 
 stanced the esprit de corps to which the other sports 
 give rise, the healthy excitements necessary to young 
 men which they furnish, excitements which, for many, 
 replace and moderate, if they do not entirely drive out, 
 the old excitements of gambling and drinking, gate 
 stealing, contests between town and gown, formerly so 
 prevalent and so difficult to deal with on the part of 
 the college authorities. But in addition to these and 
 other benefits to the college world, football Math its 
 contests and training comes at a time of the year when 
 it does the most good, not only in the directions men- 
 tioned, bur in two other ways. Boys who are just en- 
 tering college, and for the first time in their careers are 
 freed from the restraints of school or home, it intro- 
 duces to a new discipline, a discipline of their fellows, 
 and to new ideals which, if not the highest, are at least 
 respectable and worthy of imitation. It brings many 
 of them in contact with the best men in college, and 
 saves not a few of them from wasting their idle hours 
 in foolish and hurtful dissipation. Again, it absorbs 
 the attention of all the college to such a degi'ee as to 
 divert the minds of many of those upper-class men who 
 formerly thought they had a mission to perform in 
 acquainting the new men with the submission required 
 of them in their college home. The discipline of the 
 sport, coming at the time it does, has almost entirely 
 done away with that occupation. The Freshmen have 
 learned their lesson in a better way, under better instruc- 
 tors. The discipline of football has almost banished 
 the discipline of hazing, or left it tame and without 
 excuse for its existence. 
 
 Brutality. This is the hardest charge to meet because 
 there is such a difference of opinion as to what con- 
 stitutes brutality. In the eyes of timid people any 
 
PACTS AND OPINIONS EEGABDING FOOTBALL i 
 
 collisions between young men in the most properly con- 
 ducted game would seem brutal, though these same 
 collisions would seem tame fun to the average school- 
 boy. Personal encounters of some kind seem absolutely 
 necessary to the education of young men, especially 
 men of the strongest character. Such young men, judi- 
 ciously trained, constitute the best citizens of a state. 
 And a state full of such citizens becomes thereby the 
 safest to live in, for such men are its best defence. At 
 the dinner given by Colonel Higginson to the teams of 
 Yale and Harvard, it was remarked by Mr. Ropes, the 
 historian, that those nations which practised semi- 
 military games like football were not only the strongest 
 nations but that they were the least likely to push into 
 war, whereas other nations seemed to carry a chip on 
 their shoulders, ready to fight on the smallest prov- 
 ocation. Certainly those who have been intimately 
 acquainted with students and student life for the past 
 twenty-five years can bear testimony not only to the 
 decreasing brutality of college customs, but also to the 
 generally mild and gentlemanly characters of the foot- 
 ball players. They, by their influence and example in 
 the college, have largely contributed to this better state 
 of college life. 
 
 If violent encounters on the football field do lead to 
 the temptation of inflicting needless personal injuries 
 on an opponent, they also give opportunities for resist- 
 ing this temptation, and consequently for the develop- 
 ment of the highest forms of courage and self-control. 
 According to the observations of the writer, these op- 
 portunities are embraced by the majority of the plaj'^ers. 
 Only the minority yield to the temptation, and few of 
 that minority attain to prominent places on a team. If 
 the contrary were the fact, football would long ago 
 have vanished from the list of college spoi'ts. 
 
 With reference to the evils of public contests and 
 
8 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 gate money and strains and injuries, the writer sees no 
 reason to change the views already expressed : 
 
 " If field athletics are to continue, the expense of them 
 must be met in one of two ways : either by gate money 
 or by subscriptions. Most young men prefer to give 
 their money at the gate and thus to pay for what they 
 see. If a club knows that it has to spend only what it 
 earns, it will be stimulated, first, to play as good a game 
 as possible ; and, secondly, to spend its earnings witli 
 prudence. It seems only just, too, that if the public 
 desire to see a good game, they should pay for the 
 exhibition." 
 
 The evils of liability to strains and injuries in ath- 
 letics cannot be entirely obviated. It is well to bear in 
 mind at this point the fact that even those who are not 
 athletes do not, therefore, enjoy immunity from acci- 
 dents. Yet so far, according to the recollection of the 
 writer, no regular member of a Yale crew, team, or nine, 
 has been permanently injured by participating in a race 
 or match. Still, it is possible that a slight injury, to a 
 person having organic weakness, might result in a fatal 
 lesion. Such an issue might be avoided by the re- 
 quirement that every candidate for trial should be ex- 
 amined by a competent physician, and, in default of 
 pi'ocuring a certificate of physical soundness, should be 
 excluded from participation in physical contests. 
 
 As to the interference by the faculties in the way of 
 measures limiting the game, I have already hinted at 
 one, namely, the requiring of a certificate of physical 
 soundness for every candidate for athletic honors. I 
 would also limit teams to undergraduates. This meas- 
 ure would bring the teams better under control of fac- 
 ulty supervision, and Avould besides put a certain limit 
 to competition. In the first place, the professional 
 schools do not exercise a strict personal supervision over 
 the students. They assume, and rightly, that a man who 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 9 
 
 commences the study of a profession lias begun the se- 
 rious business of life, and is capable of directing his own 
 time. He may be absent from every exercise of the 
 school, except the examinations. Passing those, he can 
 still be a member of the school in good and regular 
 standing. Such a student, when in competition for a 
 place on the team with a member of the undergraduate 
 department, who is held up to attendance on daily ex- 
 ercises, has a great advantage over him. His freedom 
 from restraint exercises a pernicious influence on the 
 the man who is subject to restraint. Concert of action 
 between the faculties of undergraduate departments and 
 those of graduate and professional schools in the way of 
 control of any sport is almost impossible from the very 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 Instead of appointing committees to act with the stu- 
 dents in the regulation of the sports, a better wa}'' to 
 control them would be the appointment of a director of 
 athletics to a seat in the undergraduate faculty, who 
 should be the medium of communication between the 
 students and the instructors. Such a man ought to 
 have the confidence of the students and be in sympathy 
 with them. He ought also to be a gentleman and a 
 scholai", a graduate of the college, and a man holding its 
 best traditions of righteousness and scholarship sacred. 
 Such a man would be open to the responsibilities of 
 both sides, of the scholarship side as represented by the 
 instructors, and of the healtliy boy side of student life. 
 I would not have the management of athletics taken 
 out of the hands of the students, but I would have him 
 help them with advice and with instruction too, if nec- 
 essar}'-. I would have him attend the practice games 
 and the races ; oversee the coaches and trainers, watch 
 the players and students. He could prevent, without 
 recourse to "reporting to the faculty," repetitions of 
 mistakes and follies on the part of the students. He 
 
10 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 could keep out bad men from the list of trainers. He 
 could prevent many a promising lad from wrecking him- 
 self by making the excitement of college sport the be-all 
 and end-all of his existence. By his presence among the 
 instructors he could, as opportunity offered, with timely 
 words, fend off those sad mistakes which worthy gen- 
 tlemen of the best intentions sometimes make in their 
 dealings with boys, mistakes of which I think I am 
 justified in saying that Yale has not often been guilty 
 in the past fifteen years. The director would earn his 
 salary if he did faithfully what his hand found to do. 
 If such men were appointed by all the colleges, and if 
 joint action by the colleges seemed desirable, these men 
 would be best fitted to deal with questions which might 
 arise, and to suggest solutions of existing difficulties, 
 without recommending unpractical and impossible plans. 
 
 Professor Richards, in ' ^Popular Science Monthly " 
 
 There is in every large college a body of men, many 
 of whom may be at bottom very good fellows, but who, 
 as a class, are not the best representafives of youthful 
 manhood. These are the dudes, for whom athletic 
 sports are too hard or too "brutal." They are an 
 increasing class in the colleges Avhich draw their mem- 
 bership largely from the cities. Where this class is 
 most numerous, athletics flourish least. The best anti- 
 dote to the dudish spirit is to be found in athletics. It 
 will be an evil day for any college when this effeminate 
 class is large enough or influential enough to call for or 
 support measures which are designed to strike from the 
 list of college sports a game like football. It is a 
 rough game, but it requires, in a successful plaj'^er, the 
 fearlessness, coolness, and quick thinking which make 
 it, beyond all others, a manly game. 
 
 To throw light on this question, the writer obtained 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 11 
 
 from Dr. Seaver of Yale College two sets of measure- 
 ments of members of one class, so as to ascertain the 
 growth for one year. The first set of measurements 
 was made soon after the class entered college, and its 
 second set was taken in its sophomore year. Complete 
 double measurements were procured from 102 men, the 
 remainder of the class — between 20 and 30 men — hav- 
 ing neglected to submit to the second measurement. 
 Of these 22 were out-of-door athletes and 80 were 
 not, though they were under instruction in light gym- 
 nastics during a large part of their freshman year. 
 The question, therefore, was considered under condi- 
 tions as favorable as possible to Dr. Sargent's point 
 of view. The results are j^resented graphically on 
 page 12 and in numbers on page 13. 
 
 In the table, the items of strength of back and legs, 
 and of weight, are given in pounds. Capacity of lungs 
 is given in cubic inches. The other figures denote 
 millimetres and tenths of millimetres. 
 
 The chart gives the average growth of the athletes 
 as compared with the growth of the non-athletic men. 
 The lighter parts of the chart indicate the excess of 
 growth of one class above the growth of the other. 
 
 Of the 22 athletes 2 were base-ball players, 6 foot- 
 ball players, 6 rowing men, and 8 were ti'ack athletes. 
 Of the football men 5 were also rowing men. The 
 averages are given for the four sets of men, as well as 
 for the two classes (non-athletic and athletic), that the 
 reader may see for himself how each kind of exercise 
 has affected those taking it. The figures for the special 
 athletes are derived from so small a number of men that 
 they can hardly be taken as conclusive. They are merely 
 significant. The small gain in the average of " strength 
 of legs " of the football men was due to the loss of 
 strength on the part of one man. Without him the 
 remaining 5 gained an average of forty-eight pounds. 
 
12 
 
 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGAKDING FOOTBALL 
 
 13 
 
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14 
 
 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 The growth of girth of neck of the athletes, in com- 
 parison with the same item for the non-athletic men, is 
 worthy of attention. The gain in strength of back of 
 the track athletes and their gain in strength of arm 
 ought to be noticed. 
 
 To test the question of symmetry of growth, the dif- 
 ferences between the sizes of right arm and left arm, of 
 right forearm and left forearm, of right thigh and left 
 thigh, of right calf and left calf, were taken for each 
 year. The sum of the differences of the second year 
 (being less in both classes of students) was subtracted 
 from the sum of the differences of the first year. The 
 remainder was a gain in symmetry. This remainder, 
 divided by the sum of the differences of the first year, 
 gave the percentage of " gain in symmetry." 
 
 Report of Dr. Conant, in charge of the Harvard Teams 
 
 Including all the serious accidents, not only to the 
 ^varsity squad, but to the other class teams : 
 
 LIST OF FOOTBALL INJURIES 
 
 Fractures of the nose 
 
 Dislocation of the shoulder 
 
 Dislocation of the elbow 
 
 Injury of the knee joint with effusion 
 
 Injury of the knee joint without effusion. . . 
 
 Sprains of the ankle 
 
 Fracture of the metacarpal 
 
 Fracture of the radius 
 
 Fracture of the tibia and fibula 
 
 Teno-synovitis 
 
 Sprains other than knee and ankle 
 
 Scalp wounds 
 
 Injury to shoulder (Tackle's shoulder) 
 
 m. 
 
 '91. 
 
 '92. 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 '93. 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 8 
 10 
 9 
 3 
 1 
 
 8 
 7 
 3 
 4 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 15 
 
 Professor James Barr Ames of Harvard University 
 
 The successful football player must possess strength 
 and endurance ; he must think and act quickly; he must 
 be brave ; he must control his temper in the face of 
 strong temptation and be always ready to subordinate 
 his individual action to the interest of the team as a 
 whole. 
 
 The merits of a game demanding these qualities will 
 be obvious to every one. Are they outweighed by the 
 objections most frequently urged against the game, 
 namely, that it is physically dangerous and that it inter- 
 feres too seriously with the scholarship of the players ? 
 I think they are not. There is certainly weight in these 
 objections. The valuable statistics which you are col- 
 lecting will doubtless show that common opinion greatly 
 exaggerates the physical risks of football. At the same 
 time I think football players will generally agree that 
 the game hitherto has been unnecessarily dangerous. 
 The changes recently formulated b}^ tlie " Rules Revision 
 Committee " will go far to minimize the physical perils 
 of the game. If further intelligent legislation follows, 
 as experience shows its necessity, and if parents and 
 school and college authorities adopt the principle, already 
 in force in many institutions, that no one shall be 
 allowed to play football until his physical condition has 
 been passed upon favorably by a competent physician, 
 the objection of physical danger will, I believe, lose 
 almost all its force. 
 
 The figures of your forthcoming book will be the best 
 possible indication of the effect of football upon the 
 scholarship of the players. I am convinced that in 
 recent years the demands of football upon the time and 
 attention of the Harvard players have been excessive, 
 and have worked to their detriment both as players and 
 students. The salutary rule that no student who is on 
 
16 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 probation for neglect of study shall take part in a public 
 athletic contest has not worked so effectually in foot- 
 ball as in the other sports, since the returns of the 
 November examination have not always been made 
 before the final contest. But this difficulty will doubt- 
 less be remedied without delay. 
 
 Extract from Report of Colonel O. H. Ernst, the Superin- 
 tendent of the TJ. S. Military Academy, on the subject of 
 Athletics at the Academy, December 12, 1893 
 
 ... It may be assumed at the outset that the 
 physical development of cadets is sufficiently pro- 
 vided for in the regular curriculum, or, if not, that 
 improvements in that direction should be made in a 
 more systematic way than by the mere encouragement 
 of voluntary athletic sports. If needed at all, they 
 should be made to apply to all cadets. Football is to 
 be considered as a recreation and a sport, and not as 
 a means of instruction. The important questions con- 
 cerning it are : 1. What are its effects upon scholar- 
 ship ? 2. What are its effect" "ipon discipline ? 3. Is 
 it unduly dangerous to lift id limb ? 4. Is it too 
 expensive ? 5. Should the annual match game between 
 the cadets and the cadet midshipmen be permitted? 
 
 I. Effect upon scholarship. — Any innocent amuse- 
 ment which during the hours set aside for recreation 
 will take the mind of the cadet absolutely away from 
 his books will benefit him. He will return to his studies 
 refreshed and invigorated, and the net result of his 
 day's woi'k will be greater than if his entire time had 
 been devoted to them. Fc '^ accomplishes this 
 object more completely than ^ ^ttior known game. 
 Its effects in that respect are not confined to the actual 
 players, but extend to practically the entire corps of 
 cadets. From one-quarter to two-thirds of the corps 
 may be seen looking on or taking part in the daily 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 17 
 
 practice games, while with all it is a subject of absorb- 
 ing interest and conversation, and at the match games 
 on Saturday afternoons nearly the entire corps are 
 present, exhibiting every sign of the most enthusiastic 
 enjoyment. Is the excitement too great ? Does it 
 extend beyond the hours of recreation and interfere 
 with studies ? If it does the effect should be noticeable 
 among the thirty-one cadets constituting the first and 
 second teams and supernumeraries. These have been 
 in regular training, have devoted all their spare moments 
 since the 1st of September to practice, and have un- 
 doubtedly given more thought to the game than any 
 other cadets. To obtain specific information with 
 reference to their progress in studies, I addressed to 
 the members of the academic board a circular letter. 
 I invited them at the same time to express their views 
 upon the subject of athletics in general as now practised 
 at this place. The perusal of their replies shows wide 
 differences of opinion. 
 
 Of the players in the first class, in the case of Cadet 
 Bn. there was not muo^ "oom for further improvement 
 for he was already at c^'hear the head of his class, being 
 first in general merit at the last June examination. He 
 held his own. Of the others, two showed decided im- 
 provement, one held his own, one showed loss in two sub- 
 jects and gain in two, with a preponderance of loss, and 
 one showed decided loss in all. In this class, upon the 
 whole, was more gain than loss. 
 
 In the next class two cadets lost places in both 
 branches of study. Pnth of them had been over last 
 year's course twio'-' ng been turned back in June, 
 
 1892. As is nsilal" Hi oi*oh cases, a decided fall in class 
 standing occurred after entering upon a new course of 
 studies, and would have occurred independently of foot- 
 ball. All of the others gained in one branch of study 
 while losing in the other, or held their own in one while 
 3 
 
18 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 gaining in the other, or gained in both. Among them is 
 Cadet St., who stands second in his class in philosophy 
 and who held his own. In this class the gain in scholar- 
 ship exceeded the loss. 
 
 In the third class are twelve players. Of these, three 
 gained in both branches of study, and four gained in one 
 while losing in the other. Among them was Cadet Sn., 
 who stood first in general merit at the last June examina- 
 tion. He lost standing. In this class the loss exceeded 
 the gain. 
 
 In the fourth class are four players. As this class had 
 not been arranged according to merit at the beginning 
 of the term, there are no figures for determining the 
 effect upon them, except in the case of Cadet C, who, 
 in the opinion of the professor, will be first in his class 
 in mathematics, and who has the fourth best mark in 
 English studies. 
 
 The figures given are of course not to be taken in any 
 individual case as a direct measurement of the effects of 
 football. The greater or less aptitude of the student 
 for the new studies taken up in September always 
 causes many variations in class standing. But taken as 
 a whole, they indicate that the general effect of the 
 game upon the scholarship of those taking the most 
 active part in it is not injurious. There are exceptions, 
 but that is the general result. If not injurious to 
 these, then the general net result to the entire corps 
 of cadets must be beneficial, if my assumption be correct 
 that complete distraction from books during the hours 
 of recreation is beneficial. 
 
 This does not include the subsequent effect of the 
 match game at the end of the season. 
 
 II. Effect upon discipline. — There are no figures 
 which can be used as an indication of the effect upon 
 discipline as in the case of scholarship, but there are 
 some considerations from which certain conclusions may 
 
*?1 
 
 FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL K 
 
 be drawn. The discipline of the corps has been good and 
 remains good. With very few exceptions the offences 
 are of a minor character, due to boyish heedlessness. I 
 cannot see that they are any more or less in number 
 than they were formerly. But there are two offences 
 of not uncommon occurrence which have for many years 
 defied the efforts of the authorities to eradicate them — 
 smoking, and hazing new cadets. 
 
 At one time even the attempt to prevent smoking 
 was abandoned, and for many years the practice was 
 permitted. It is now forbidden, but the difficulty of 
 enforcing the regulation is as great as ever. The train- 
 ing rules which the football players adopt while in 
 training prohibit smoking. Tliis by demonstrating the 
 value of the regulation cannot but aid in its enforce- 
 ment. 
 
 Hazing new cadets has been the object of severe re- 
 pressive measures for many years. Time and again the 
 authorities have flattered themselves that it was eradi- 
 cated, but new instances have not been slow to follow. 
 Among the cadets who went to Annapolis this year were 
 four members of the fourth class. They had been 
 selected by the cadets themselves. The search among 
 the new cadets for their superior phj'-sical qualities 
 which this implies cannot but aid in reducing the ten- 
 dency to hazing. 
 
 At first glance it might seem that if any special priv- 
 ileges were granted to football players it would be 
 favoritism, which would be resented by other cadets 
 and would be injurious to discipline. It must be re- 
 membered that the players are selected by the cadets 
 themselves, and not by the authorities. It is probable 
 that many distinctions might be made without causing 
 the non-players to consider the players more favored 
 than themselves. As a matter of fact, however, the 
 only distinctions have been that the players were pro- 
 
1 
 jO football facts and figures 
 
 vided witli a special training table in the mess hall, were 
 excused from marching to supper in order to take that 
 meal a little later than the others, and were permitted 
 to go to Annapolis. 
 
 The special training table constituted a daily object 
 lesson in the effect of sober living upon the human 
 frame, which can hardly fail to be of much practical 
 value. 
 
 Dress parades for the entire battalion were omitted 
 during November, That ceremony at that season loses 
 much of its practical value, on account of the cold, 
 since overcoats and benumbed fingers are not favorable 
 to precision. 
 
 In all other respects the full pi'ogramme of military 
 and academic duty has been carried out by all. 
 
 The officers of the Academy have as a rule taken a 
 lively interest in the game, and have contributed largely 
 by voluntary subscriptions toward paying its expenses. 
 This has produced a kindlier feeling by the cadets 
 toward their officers, which I think is favorable to dis- 
 cipline. The minor punishments in the way of depriva- 
 tion of recreation hours become more potent as the value 
 of those hours in the mind of the cadet is increased. 
 The surplus animal spirits of the young men finding a 
 vent in football are much less likely to find it in mis- 
 chievous pranks. 
 
 Upon the whole I conclude that the game is an aid to 
 discipline. 
 
 III. Danger to life and limb. — The post surgeon has 
 prepared, at my request, a statement of the casualties 
 which occurred during the months of September, 
 October, and November in football, riding, and gym- 
 nastics. Fifty-two casualties occurred in football, 
 of wliich 9 were serious ; 40 casualties occurred in 
 riding, of which 2 were serious ; 9 occurred in gymnas- 
 tics, of which 1 was serious. Ultimate recovery is 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 21 
 
 expected in all cases. During November, 11 casualties 
 occurred in football, and 34 in riding. A new 
 class began riding in November. Among players else- 
 where a number of fatal accidents during the same 
 period were reported in the public press. With its 
 present methods and rules the game appears to be 
 dangerous to life and limb, but probably not much more 
 so than riding, and much less so than coasting in winter 
 or swimming in summer. This feature has attracted 
 the attention of observers elsewhere, and the sentiment 
 appears to be general that the methods of play must be 
 changed. It is probable that the game will be less 
 objectionable in that respect hereafter than it is now. 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to state that the brutality 
 which has been reported to have occurred at some places 
 does not exist here. As played here the game is rough, 
 with an element of danger, but not brutal. 
 
 IV. Expense. — The total amount expended this year 
 in athletics was $4219.71, of which 13623.70 was devoted 
 to football, including the cost of the training table, 
 $506.20 over and above the cost of ordinary board. Of 
 the football expenses the cadets paid $1438.40, includ- 
 ing the training table, and the remaining $2185.30 was 
 contributed by the Army Officers' Athletic Association, 
 or by subscription of the officers and professors stationed 
 here. This latter subscription fell heavily upon some. 
 Clearly cadets cannot afford to play football without 
 some outside assistance. There appears, however, to be 
 no difficulty in procuring such sums of money as may be 
 necessary. 
 
 V. Should the annual match game betvjeen the two 
 National Academies be permitted P — What has been said 
 of the effects of football upon discipline and scholarship 
 refers to the general effect during the three months prior 
 to the match and not to the match itself. The latter 
 has undoubtedly for some days a bad influence upon 
 
22 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 both. The excitement attending it exceeds all reason- 
 able limit. Whether the injurious effects at this time are 
 sufficient to counterbalance the good effects obtained 
 previously is somewhat a matter of speculation. I am 
 inclined to think that thus far they have not been, 
 but I should expect the excitement over this match, 
 if it should be regularly established, to increase from 
 year to year and eventually result in unmistakable 
 injury. 
 
 The argument in favor of the match is that some 
 kind of match game with a foreign team at the end of 
 the season is considered necessary to keep up the interest 
 in the game. The season's work (or play) is the prepara- 
 tion for a contest. It is quite impossible for the cadets 
 to compete upon equal terms with the students of other 
 institutions such as Harvard, Yale, or Princeton (though 
 they have played this year with teams from two of them), 
 for the reason that those students give much more time 
 to practice than the cadets can give. Tliis points to the 
 Naval Academy as their natural and only real competitor. 
 To stop the annual match will be to remove much of the 
 vitality from a game which plays an impoi'tant and, as I 
 believe, useful part in the life of a cadet. 
 
 The four matches which have been played have 
 engendered an intense rivalry, not without a shade of 
 bitterness, which does not tend toward improving the 
 relations between the two services. 
 
 The match constitutes a distinct and, in my judgment, 
 dangerous departure from the traditions of this institu- 
 tion. The corps of cadets are required to accomplish 
 moi'e work in a given time than any other set of young 
 men anywhere. They accomplish this without extra- 
 ordinary exertion because of the regularity of their lives 
 and the continuity of their application. Absence from 
 the restraints of West Point, brief though it be, renders 
 them irksome for some time thereafter. For this reason 
 
PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 23 
 
 it has always been the rule to grant very few leaves of 
 absence. With the exception of the furlough at the end 
 of the second year, they are never given except in cases 
 of emergency, and to a few specially meritorious cadets 
 at Christmas as a reward for exemplary conduct. This 
 system receives a violent shock from the match game. 
 While thirty cadets are allowed to go to Annai^olis to 
 play football, it will not be easy to say to the cadet 
 whose motile r is ill or whose sister is to be married that 
 the rules of the Academy forbid his absence for even a 
 day. 
 
 Conclusions. — My conclusions are that football as con- 
 trolled here has been beneficial to scholarship and an aid 
 to discipline, and should receive a proper degree of 
 encouragement ; but that the match game with the 
 Naval Academy has done much to undo these good 
 results, and will, if continued, entirely undo them, and 
 being objectionable otherwise should not be permitted 
 to recur. 
 
 From, the ^^ American Journal of the Medical Sciences,^^ 
 September, 1894. Football and the physique of its devo- 
 tees from the point of view of physical traininy. By 
 Henry G. Beyer, M. D., Ph. D. {Johns HopMns Uni- 
 versity), Surgeon, U. S. Navy 
 
 We deem ourselves rather fortunate in succeeding 
 in getting the measurements of five visiting " teams," the 
 success being almost entirely due rather to the winning 
 and persuasive ways of some of my more diplomatic 
 associates on the athletic committee than to my own 
 efforts. 
 
 The points that were more especially taken notice of 
 were the age, height, weight, lung-capacity, and " total 
 strength " of each individual player, and the position 
 which he occupied on the field. 
 
24 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 1. Height. As regards height, I may at once dismiss 
 this item by stating that there never was any appreci- 
 able change produced in it during the above-mentioned 
 period of two months' training. 
 
 2. Weight. As regards the influence of football on 
 the weight of the players, a most decided increase has 
 been noticed. The average increase in weight whicli 
 was observed and calculated from seventeen players, 
 examined in the fall of 1882, immediately before and 
 after the period of training, with regard to tliis point, 
 was found to be 3.6 kilos, or 7.9 pounds. The same 
 observations, being repeated on twenty-five pla^^ers in 
 the fall of 1893, resulted in showing an average increase 
 of 3.28 kilos, or 7.2 pounds. 
 
 3. JLung- Capacity. On October 15, 1892, the first 
 examination of seventeen players was made with regai'd 
 to their lung-capacities, and at the end of November the 
 second examination was made. The result of these two 
 examinations was quite surprising, for all the men, 
 except two, came back with the same lung-capacity on 
 their second examination that they had shown on their 
 first. The only increase that had taken place was noted 
 in the two half-backs — who, as is well-known, have to 
 do a great deal of running during the game. Thinking 
 that it was possible that the lung-capacity increased in 
 the beginning of the period of training, and that I ought 
 to have taken my first observations on the 1st instead of 
 the 15th of October, the same observations were re- 
 peated this year (1893) on the twenty-five players. The 
 results show that the twenty-five players, after a two 
 months' course of training on the football field, exhibit 
 an increase in lung-capacity of eleven cubic inches, or an 
 average increase of 3.9 per cent, of their original lung- 
 capacity. Notice, however, that the percentage amount 
 in increase in weight is 0.8 higher than that of the 
 lung-capacity, a circumstance of some weight in its 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 25 
 
 relation to the subject of " vital index," or the result 
 of a simple division of lung-capacity by weight, and 
 to which we shall again refer later on. 
 
 4. Total Strength. The average increase in total 
 strength of the seventeen players examined in the fall 
 of 1892 was 105 kilos, or about 16.4 per cent, of their 
 original strength, and that of the fifteen players noted 
 in the fall of 1893 amounted to 85 kilos, or 14,2 per 
 cent, of their original strength. On examining more 
 closely into the distribution of this increase in strength 
 we have found that about 75 per cent, of it extends 
 over the lower extremities and the back, showing that, 
 although all the muscles are engaged in playing the 
 game, there is a quantitative difference of degree. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of total strength, I must 
 add what appears to me to be a point of considerable 
 interest. It might quite naturally occur to the reader 
 that this so rapidly acquired strength was but a tempo- 
 rary affair, and would vanish again as quickly as it was 
 acquired. As I was myself under this impression, I 
 searched my records, and found that I was but somewhat 
 mistaken. In the seventeen players of last fall (1892) 
 the maximum loss six months after the close of the 
 season was only 5 kilos, or less than 1 per cent. Thus, 
 no matter what we may find with regard to the staying 
 qualities of the strength acquired through other sports, 
 football strength, according to these observations, seems 
 to stay pretty well. 
 
 Summary. — In summing up the facts ascertained in 
 the above observations, we obtain as a result of two 
 months' football training on the seventeen players ex- 
 amined in the fall of 1892 : (1) No increase in height, 
 (•2) no increase in lung-capacity, (3) an average increase 
 of 4.9 per cent, in weight, and (4) an average increase 
 of 16.4 per cent, in total strength. In the twenty-five 
 players examined in the fall of 1893 we get : No increase 
 
26 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUBES 
 
 in height, an average increase of 4.7 per cent, in weight, 
 an average increase of 3.9 per cent, in lung-capacity, and 
 an average increase of 14,2 per cent, in total strength. 
 In both series of observations we have to record a 
 decrease in vital index. 
 
 In some studies made on fifty naval cadets, and pub- 
 lished in the report of the Surgeon-General of the Navy 
 for 1893, the following average increases were noted as 
 a result of six months' systematized exercise in the gym- 
 nasium, viz. : 0.5 per cent, in height, 1.3 per cent, in 
 weight, 3.8 per cent, in lung-capacity, and 32 per cent, in 
 total strength. The average vital index at the beginning 
 was 0.067 and at the end of the term 0,066, consequently 
 there was a slight decrease. The average age of the 
 fifty cadets was exactly eighteen years. 
 
 According to the measurements in our possession of 
 eight oarsmen, including about two months' hard train- 
 ing for a boat race during the spring months of 1893, 
 we are enabled to record the following avei'age increases, 
 viz.: 0.2 per cent, in height, 4.7 per cent, in weight, 7.3 
 per cent, in lung-capacity, and 28 per cent, in total 
 strength. The vital index at the beginning of the 
 period at hard training was 0.066 and at the end it was 
 found to be 0.068 ; there was, therefore, a slight increase 
 in the latter. 
 
 The figures shown, so far as they may be of value, 
 would lead one to conclude that both the regular sys- 
 tematized gymnasium drill and boating would furnish 
 results superior to football. Boating, considering the 
 large percentage of increase in lung-capacity and total 
 strength which it here shows, must be considered the 
 best training of them all. 
 
 Has the football field exercised a certain natural selec- 
 tion in the clioice of its devotees, to complement that 
 of the "coach," or are our fine athletic players indeed cre- 
 ations de novo of the football field alone ? We have in 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS BEGABDING FOOTBALL 
 
 27 
 
 our possession an abundance of material to show that 
 the sport attracts superior types of men from the very 
 start. 
 
 (1) The average age of the thirty-six football 
 players is but two months ahead of that of the fifty 
 percentile grade cadet, and represents, therefore, the 
 average cadet so far as age is concerned, in accordance 
 vi^ith the fact that players are admitted from all the 
 four classes alike ; (2) in height we find the football 
 player in average 4 per cent, superior ; (3) in weight 
 he is 28 per cent, superior ; (4) in lung-capacity 21 per 
 cent., and (5) in total strength 49 per cent, superior to 
 his average fellow. 
 
 Compare him with the fifty percentile grade of 
 the Yale students from tables published by Seaver, 
 and we find that the average American football 
 player is (1) one year and one month older, (2) 
 2.8 per cent, taller, (3) 20 per cent, heaviei', (4) has 
 10 per cent, more lung-capacity, and (5) is 40 per 
 cent, stronger than the fifty percentile grade of Yale 
 students. 
 
 Making, finally, a similar comparison with the Am- 
 herst student of the fifty percentile grade, and using 
 for this purpose the tables but recently published by 
 Drs. Hitchcock and Seelye, we find a similar superi- 
 ority: 
 
 
 <0 
 
 < 
 
 1. 
 
 "S 
 
 a 
 
 i 
 
 p. 
 
 a 
 V 
 
 B 
 
 
 o 
 
 m 
 
 o 
 
 d 
 15 
 
 Av. American football player 
 Amherst student, 50 per cent. 
 
 Yrs. mo8. 
 20 8 
 
 22 6 
 
 1778 
 1720 
 
 76 
 61.7 
 
 4.55 
 3.77 
 
 662 
 
 482 
 
 77 
 2330 
 
 Superiority in per cent. 
 
 .... 
 
 3 
 
 23 
 
 20 
 
 37 
 
 
28 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 What, now, it may be asked, have we learned from 
 these observations ? Do they prove that gymnastic 
 exercise is a mere fad, and that football is wortliless ? 
 They do neither ; but on the contrary, if they prove 
 anything, they plainly show that, if we have placed the 
 football ideal unadorned on the balance, we have not 
 found it wanting ; and while it cannot be considered 
 the best game in the world, and much of its vaunted 
 superiority is due to popular clamor conjured up by the 
 newspapers, it must, nevertheless, be considered as one 
 of the best games extant. Based on these observations, 
 we may feel ourselves on much firmer ground than we 
 did before, even if we have to limit our arguments to 
 the point of physical training alone, and cannot from 
 the nature of our enquiries-extend our conclusions to the 
 other manifold beneficial results produced by the game, 
 the investigation of which must be relegated to the psy- 
 chologist. 
 
 The greatest danger that threatens football, by unan- 
 imous consent, seems to be the introduction of the 
 professional element into its constitution. This, again, 
 must be looked upon as the direct consequence of news- 
 paper clamor. 
 
 « Unless, therefore, our college faculties will get to- 
 gether and arrange a special selective course leading up 
 to the degree of Bachelor of Athletics, thus dignifying 
 the game at once as a- prof ession, which, I fear, they are 
 not prepared to do, we will have to use a certain amount 
 of discrimination and play football with more moderation, 
 confine the game to the undergraduates and to the col- 
 lege campus if it is to continue to live. 
 
 But how about the number of injuries and even deaths 
 that have been recoi'ded as having been produced on the 
 football field ? While it must be admitted that acci- 
 dents may occur here as elsewhere, and in spite of all 
 proper precautions having been taken, it is, nevertheless. 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 29 
 
 probably also true that, were all the circumstances sur- 
 rounding these cases known, all the recorded deaths, 
 without an exception, would be found traceable to gross 
 carelessness of one kind or another. At any rate, since 
 we cannot eat our pie and have it too, we shall have to 
 pay a certain amount for the good we derive from it ; 
 and, if we should find that our investment does not turn 
 out a gold mine, we may be satisfied with a silver one. 
 But, certainly, all the injuries produced on the football 
 field, in games played between gentlemanly and well- 
 matched players, that have come under our observation 
 have been amenable to treatment and have resulted in 
 perfect cure. 
 
 The one precaution mentioned by President Warfield, 
 viz., to make the medical director in charge of physical 
 training omnipotent in excluding boys who are unfit to 
 play in tliis game by reason of certain pliysical condi- 
 tions or injuries existing, cannot be too strongly urged 
 upon college faculties and those who wish to see the 
 game survive. 
 
 Investigation by C. W. Whitney, ^^ Harpers Weekly" 
 
 The futile crusade against football into which the 
 editor of the New York Evening Post has recentlj'' 
 flung himself with well-developed hysteria and a Roget's 
 Thesaurus would hardly excite comment were it not 
 that undoubtedly many worthy readers of the Post are 
 as ignorant — if less irascible — on the subject as is the 
 editor. I pass over the diatribe of a Philadelphia medi- 
 cal trade journal as too absurd even for censure. Mr. 
 Godkin must have been put to sore straits for argument 
 to quote such a hodgepodge of misstatement and igno- 
 rance. Nor is it my purpose here to enter into a lengthy 
 refutation of the Posfs many absurd misstatements about 
 the game. Any student of the times, any common- 
 
30 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 sensed man who keeps his eyes and ears open, knows 
 perfectly well, without my telling him, that football 
 and all athletics have done and are doing magnificent 
 work for the physical development and moral better- 
 ment of our boys and young men all over the country. 
 
 If Mr. Godkin really doubts this I commend to him 
 the editorial columns of the New York Sun and Tribune, 
 where recently much good matter on this subject has 
 been printed ; and further, to him and to all who ques- 
 tion my statement, I commend the Superintendent of 
 the Young Men's Christian Association, which, with its 
 branches all over America, has been one of the most 
 active workers in the good cause. But these facts are 
 patent to all save the editor of the Post, who writes : 
 " But the fact is that, however valuable football may 
 be as a means of moral and physical discipline, none of 
 the universities profit by it." 
 
 The veriest tyro of a reporter on the Posfs staff could 
 have told his chief better ; the faculties of Harvard, 
 Yale, Princeton, and of every college in the country 
 would have been glad to tell him how athletics, of which 
 certainly football is an integral part, have elevated the 
 general morale of the undergraduate body by absorbing 
 the animal spirits that formerly were wasted in dissipa- 
 tion. Still further, the reporter could have informed 
 Mr. Godkin that American and English universities 
 have none of the duelling and sanguinary scandals 
 common in European colleges, where football and 
 athletics are not practised ; he could also have told 
 him that only so recently as December 1, the Bavarian 
 War Minister at Berlin publicly declared it to be im- 
 possible to do away with duelling ; that if it were 
 abolished " men would have recourse to fisticuffs," and 
 I might add that if football were introduced, there 
 would be no need for legislation on duelling. 
 
 A man argues himself an ignoramus when he dis- 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 31 
 
 putes the value of athletics at our schools and univer- 
 sities in the moral and physical development of boys 
 and young men. There is no need of a sermon on this 
 subject to any thinking fatlier who remembers his own 
 boyhood. 
 
 Wading through the columns of vituperation which 
 the Post and some of the provincial papers on its ex- 
 change list have printed against football, I am able to 
 discover but three points at issue : 1. Does the game 
 play an important part in the education of the boy ? 
 2. Is it brutal ? 3. Is the tide of popular favor setting 
 against it ? 
 
 I have already answered the first. We must have 
 the game ; we need it. As for the third, pick up any 
 Western, Southern, or Eastern paper in season and note 
 the attendance at the game and the amount of space 
 the newspaper gives to it. 
 
 Now as to the game being brutal. Distinctly it is 
 not, as played by thoroughly trained and competently 
 coached teams. It may be and in some instances has 
 been made brutal, but the same men could make any 
 game brutal. Much has been made by the Post over 
 several sad deaths resulting from accidents on the foot- 
 ball field. From all I can learn, however, only one 
 received his hurt in a scrimmage, and he was not in 
 condition to play. Most of the "serious accidents" 
 result from a reporter's desire to wax sensational and 
 fill space. 
 
 There ai'e two charges which may be brought against 
 the game and sustained : one, that as it has been grow- 
 ing in the last few years it absorbs too much time of 
 the students ; the other, that there is not enough open, 
 and too much closed or " mass," play. 
 
 Both of these matters will be remedied in the coming 
 year. 
 
 Any game that develops so enormously and so rapidly 
 
32 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 as has football must of necessity require new rules, as 
 experience teaches their need. But these are to be 
 made only after very careful and thorough considera- 
 tion by practical, level-headed men, and not by a hysteri- 
 cal editor who knows nothing of the game, or of the 
 grand work athletics are doing for Young America. 
 
 Wedges, and all mass plays, flying plaj^s, and inter- 
 ference, will be legislated upon before the next season 
 opens. 
 
 And again I wish to propose the University Athletic 
 Club to all colleges as a balance-wheel in this kind of 
 legislation. I regard the club, with its board of gov- 
 ernors composed of the most prominent and ablest alumni 
 advisers, as the balance-wheel of college sport. 
 
 It is my opinion that this is the very time when it 
 should act, by calling a congress of university men 
 competent to consider and advise on football legisla- 
 tion. The opinions of fifty men such as the club could 
 gather would be invaluable. 
 
 As for the time spent on the football field, that also 
 will receive attention, and next year we shall see the 
 game develop along more skilful and more interesting 
 lines. 
 
 Let us have an end, therefore, to all this sensational 
 hullabaloo about the game being tabooed. Football 
 will not die out, never fear ; it is more firmly implanted 
 in our affections than ever ; it will continue to be im- 
 proved as we learn by experience, and athletics will 
 continue to fill an important role in making us " the 
 people." 
 
 While the Evening Posfs football editor, Mr. Godkin, 
 has been allowing his imagination to run riot in sensa- 
 tional accounts of the appalling " brutality of football," 
 I have been busy gathering statistics throughout the 
 country of just how frightful have been the " shocking 
 calamities " of this "terrible" game, and how wide- 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 33 
 
 spread the "wave of indignation " about which he has 
 been telling his readers. I have written to a trust- 
 worthy and painstaking correspondent at the repre- 
 sentative colleges of the different sections of the 
 country, and I will let them tell the story in their own 
 language. 
 
 University of Virginia : " The men are in very good 
 condition, nor have we had any kind of an accident 
 that laid any one off, notwithstanding the fact that our 
 grounds are very hard." 
 
 University of Michigan : " We have had no serious 
 accidents here this fall. Several men have suffered 
 with bruises and sprains at various times, but all are 
 nearly well now, and there is not one of them who will 
 not be perfectly sound in a few weeks. We have had 
 this fall ten different class and department teams, and 
 played the hard game taught by Yale coachers." 
 
 University of Wisconsin : " Our record as to acci- 
 dents this year is a clear one. Each man has played in 
 his place from the beginning of the season till the end, 
 and each has come off without a hurt. During the 
 season we have substituted in games just three times, 
 and the men laid off at those times mended in a day or 
 two so as to go back to practice. In practice games we 
 have been just as fortunate, no one having received any 
 injury of account on our campus, I say fortunate, but 
 it is rather through good handling. Mr. Davis of 
 Princeton has been with us this year and conducted the 
 training of our men. From my experience and obser- 
 vation on the gridiron, I believe that football is no more 
 dangerous or brutal than most other athletic games 
 when played, as it should be, with proper instruction. 
 There have been two fatal accidents from the game in 
 the West this season, but both came from gross care- 
 lessness. One was at Delevan, and the man killed was 
 a deaf mute, and, of course, out of his sphere, as a 
 3 
 
34 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 football player needs all his five senses. The other was 
 a Dulutli high-school boy, who was untrained, and knew 
 really nothing of the game. I feel I can say that the 
 men have been improved fifty per cent, in appearance 
 from what they were when they commenced training in 
 the fall. They have all stood the season's work without 
 any apparent inconvenience, have kept up their work in 
 the university, and are among the best students in it." 
 
 University of Iowa : " Our team began training 
 September 24, and has had many hard games ; but 
 our men, although not in the strictest of training, have 
 finished the season's work in good physical condition. 
 But one of the players has had a day's sickness since the 
 season opened. The only severe injuries sustained by 
 our team were a broken nose, received by a ' scrub ' in a 
 practice game, and an injured ear. The men are now 
 in the best physical condition they have been in this 
 year." 
 
 Lake Forest University (Illinois): "Our accidents 
 this year have been few, and not of any serious nature. 
 In seven regular games only two players have received 
 any injury, and both of these were not serious. Sprain- 
 ing the ankle or the knee sometimes happens, but its 
 effects only last for a day or so. No one has ever been 
 seriously hurt on our teams in four years. Our boys 
 have stood the season sj^lendidly, and express themselves 
 as feeling better physically for the time spent at the 
 game." 
 
 Portland, Oregon : " The only football we have here 
 on this northwestern coast is furnished b}^ the athletic 
 clubs of this city, and Tacoma and Seattle, Wash- 
 ington. The games this season have been better than 
 any ever seen here. The football spirit has increased 
 much, and the standard of the game been raised. There 
 have been no accidents except the ordinary bruises and 
 sprains." 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 35 
 
 Denver, Colorado : " The Athletic Club team went 
 into training the 1st of September, and the season lasted 
 until Thanksgiving Day, the team playing nine hard 
 games. In all these we have only once been actually 
 compelled to retire a man from the game. He was 
 tackled hard, and in falling struck on his shoulder and 
 dislocated it. He has entirely recovered, and is able to 
 play as well as ever now. The same experience applies 
 to our opponents, as I think none of them, including 
 the 'varsities of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colo- 
 rado, Boulder, Golden, and Baker, suffered any serious 
 hurt in any of the contests. I might add that every 
 member of the team expresses himself as pleased at 
 being able to play the game, as he feels it so beneficial 
 to health and spirits. Personally, I believe it to be one 
 of the very best forms of exercise, and that its benefits 
 to the participants are as great mentally as physically, 
 to say nothing of the moral effect of the training." 
 
 University of Tennessee : " We had some very hard 
 games this season. The only injury that amounted to 
 anything was a sprained wrist, and this did not lay our 
 man off but one week. In our Thanksgiving Day game, 
 which was the hardest fought game I ever saw, no one 
 was hurt, sustaining only the bruises generally received 
 in practice. None of our opponents ever received any 
 injuries to amount to anything." 
 
 Northwestern University (Illinois): "Last jesiv we 
 had a team and nine substitutes. Early in the season 
 one of the players whose nose was slender had it broken. 
 It was set, and he was able to play in three days, pro- 
 tected by a nose guard, and has not been troubled since. 
 There were three men who had sprained ankles, and a 
 few were bruised some on their legs and body, but none 
 so that they could not play all season. This year two 
 men were hurt early in the season. One wrenched his 
 leg ; the other was a man who dissipated and could not 
 
36 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUKES 
 
 be made to train, but had a magnificent physique. He 
 went into the game and played hai'd, receiving a bruise 
 that made him quit practicing. No one on the second 
 eleven, or college, has been badly hurt. Twelve have 
 played on the team and as substitutes for two years, and 
 have received hardly a scratch, never having had time 
 called for them. Six of these have played in every 
 game for two years. I think that the spirit to win at all 
 cost overshadows the true object of the game, namely, 
 physical and mental culture. This spirit is what some- 
 times pollutes college athletics, puts hired athletes in 
 athletic clubs, and prompts one to twist legs or break 
 fingers while underneath a scrimmage." 
 
 Dartmouth (New Hampshire): "Our football team 
 has had a very successful year. Very few accidents 
 have happened, and we have been deprived of the ser- 
 vices of only one man on this account, whose injury is 
 not serious. I am fully satisfied that the training has 
 been healthful to the men on the team, and in no in- 
 stance has it been injurious." 
 
 University of Kansas : " In regard to accidents and 
 the general condition of our team, I would say that, out- 
 side of a couple of sprained ankles and a broken nose, 
 our accidents among thirty- four men amount to nothing. 
 Our men are in better condition now than at any time 
 during the season." 
 
 Vanderbilt University (Tennessee): "We have been 
 exceedingly fortunate this season as far as accidents are 
 concerned. Only two men have had noses broken, and 
 several received slight sprains or bruises. We are now 
 in splendid physical condition, and I include in this not 
 only the 'varsity eleven, but all the 'scrubs,' amounting 
 to about forty, which is due largely to good handling." 
 
 Wake Forest College (North Carolina) : " In regard 
 to the number of players injured here, I will state that 
 three have sprained their ankles, and one an arm. In 
 
PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 37 
 
 the case of the sprained arm, it was the second day that 
 the man had ever played, and was due to his lack of 
 knowledge in falling when tackled. I do not hesitate 
 to say that the cause of the three sprained ankles was 
 because of the very rough condition of our grounds. 
 In one instance especially an end rusher fell and sprained 
 his ankle without coming in contact with either ball or 
 player. We have plaj^ed match games with neighbor- 
 ing institutions for seven years, and never, without a 
 single exception, has a member of the team broken a 
 bone or received other than very slight injury. In addi- 
 tion, it pleases me to state that the members of the team 
 have at all times received the highest honors bestowed 
 by the literary societies, and have taken a fine stand in 
 their class-rooms." 
 
 Williams College (Massachusetts) : "During this 
 season we had two men stop playing. One had his 
 collar-bone broken, and the other hurt his leg and was 
 advised to stop. Both have entirely recovered. Our 
 centre was off for a week with a knee out of joint, 
 and a few other men were hurt slightly, but when the 
 season closed every one of them was in better condition 
 and playing better ball than at any other time, and after 
 our last game, with the exception of the half-back, who 
 did most of the rushing, there was not a man laid up 
 from accidents or injuries. When I compare this season 
 with last in base-ball, I find that, with the exception of a 
 broken bone, there were no more men hurt on the eleven 
 than on the nine, and since I have been in college (four 
 years) there has been no man who received permanent 
 injuries. It seems to me that the trouble comes to men 
 who are not in regular training." 
 
 Brown University (Rliode Island): "The general 
 physical condition of the Brown team has been very 
 fair, although I certainly am sure we have experienced 
 our share of accidents. A number of the resrular eleven 
 
38 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 have been laid up regularly at one time or another, but 
 we have finished the season in good shape." 
 
 Amherst (Massachusetts) : " The team stood the season 
 well. We have been entirely free from serious acci- 
 dents, broken bones, and the like. The principal inju- 
 ries to the men have been slight muscle bruises and only 
 temporary affaii's. We have met very heavy teams this 
 year, where we were clearly outclassed in weight, but in 
 spite of this our injuries were comparatively slight. I 
 can only emphasize the fact that the team has stood the 
 season well, and every man on it is better for his train- 
 ing. I find that people who never saw the game are 
 the ones who cry loudest against it." 
 
 University of North Carolina : " Fifty men started 
 out training for our team this year. Of them all thirty 
 stuck it out through the season. We had numerous 
 accidents, none of which were of a serious nature, and 
 all have entirely recovered. Of course the regular num- 
 ber of sprains and bruises came to the men, but at the 
 close of the season they were in the best physical condi- 
 tion they had ever been in. We have lazy men (in- 
 different students) that play football, but the men who 
 ai'e looked to as the best are usually those who rank 
 well in their classes. It has been my experience that 
 those who are most violent against football are usually 
 men who are entirely ignorant of the game, and don't 
 want to learn." 
 
 Kansas City (Missouri): "Football in the Missouri 
 Valley has taken great strides toward popularity in the 
 past season. The work of all the teams shows a decided 
 improvement over that of last season, and after careful 
 investigation I find that while the teams have had the 
 usual accidents — bruises and sprains — that are expected 
 in a game where there is so much muscular effort, all 
 finished in the best physical condition that the men have 
 ever been in, and fathers are as enthusiastic over foot- 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 39 
 
 ball as the boys themselves, because of its keeping their 
 sons from the usual dissipation," 
 
 San Francisco (California): "Ten thousand people 
 saw the game between the Leland Stanford University 
 and the University of California on Thanksgiving T>a.y, 
 and there is no longer any doubt about the popularity 
 of football out here on the Pacific Coast, and among our 
 most cultured people. I have carefull}^ looked into the 
 physical condition and accidents of not only these two 
 universities, but of the teams of the Olympic and Reli- 
 ance Athletic Clubs, which are the two largest on the 
 Coast, one in San Francisco, and the other in Oakland. 
 In the two latter cases the players ai*e principally business 
 men. There have been the usual accidents, though the 
 average of bruises and sprains has been small, but I 
 found all the men in better physical condition at the 
 end of the season than they had ever been, and greatly 
 improved by the play. At the universities the football 
 players this year have been among our best students. 
 Football on the Coast has done a great work in checking 
 youthful dissipation." 
 
 Near at home the story is about as these letters 
 show it to be throughout the country. I cannot think 
 of any serious accident that has befallen any mem- 
 ber of Princeton, Yale, Harvard, University of Penn- 
 sylvania, Lehigh, or Cornell elevens. Princeton played 
 through the season without the loss of a man ; Yale 
 went through three of the hardest games any eleven 
 ever played without calling on a substitute until the last 
 part of the second half of the Princeton game, when 
 one of their half-backs, who has had a weak ankle nearly 
 all the season, was retired. Harvard began and ended 
 the season with the same men — Waters and Emmons 
 excepted. Waters had a weak knee half the season, 
 and was thrown out of much practice ; he should never 
 have gone into the game at Springfield. Emmons was 
 
40 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 overtrained, nervous, and half sick, and was hurt in the 
 Pennsylvania game. 
 
 Here is a fact for Mr. Godkin and other uninformed 
 carpers to bear in mind : Looking back over ten years 
 of football, we find the hardest games of the year — 
 those between Harvard, Yale, Princeton — to have re- 
 corded the least injury to players. And here is another: 
 After careful compilation at Harvard a year or so ago, 
 it was found that of the three thousand students the 
 standard of excellence of athletes for the four years of 
 their course was above the average in class marks. 
 
 Dr. Loveland's Investigation 
 
 Obtaining the addresses of 250 players of Yale, Har- 
 vard, Princeton, and Wesleyan, 1881-1890 (a few were 
 substitutes), I sent them circular letters of enquiry. 
 
 About seventy-five per cent, of the men promptly 
 responded. 
 
 I selected the players of the last decade because 
 I wished to reach those who had been out of the sport 
 long enough to get over any transitory effects of the 
 game, and also to get at men who had been out in the 
 world long enough to be able to give a fairly unpreju- 
 diced report of their condition. 
 
 It must of course be remembered that the game of 
 to-day is not that of five and ten years ago. But in 
 some respects the older game was the rougher, with its 
 bull-dog fight, alias " maul in goal," and its slugging 
 and throttling pleasantries. Moreover, the sharp con- 
 cussion and violent falls of individual players in tack- 
 ling one another have always formed a prominent 
 feature of the game just as they do to-day. And 
 " mass plays," although not quite so " mass "-ive and 
 under other names, have always been played, excepting 
 perhaps, the first few years of the eighties. 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 41 
 
 The first question was to me the most impovtant. My 
 chief object was to ascertain how many of tlie injuries 
 that I was seeing as phj'^sician of a football association 
 remained extant in the after-life of the player. More- 
 over, I had heard it claimed that football players would 
 remember the sport in after-years by the weaknesses 
 that would crop out. Incidentally I hoped to learn 
 something along this line. 
 
 Of the 187 men replying, 39, or a little over 20 per 
 cent., reported some permanent injury. The injuries of 
 course varied greatly in severity and seemed to have 
 greater significance if classed into (a) those seriously 
 inconvenient and {b) those slightly inconvenient or dis- 
 figuring. An example of (a) is a loose ligament in the 
 knee joint ; of (b) an enlarged finger joint or a broken 
 nose. Eighteen or nine and a fraction per cent, were in 
 the first class, and 21 or eleven and a fraction per cent, 
 in the second class. Wesley an raised the percentage of 
 the first class somewhat. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton 
 together has a percentage of eight and a fraction, while 
 Wesleyan's ran up to nearlj'- 13. Thus is raised a ques- 
 tion. Wesleyan has only 200 men to pick from and 
 therefore puts men in the field who are inferior in mus- 
 cular physique to the representatives of larger colleges. 
 Again, she has played these men not alone against their 
 equals of other small colleges, but often against those 
 superior to them in weight and strength. Is her larger 
 number of casualties due to these facts ? 
 
 I have classified the injuries according to their loca- 
 tion on the body. 
 
42 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 CLASS A. INJURIES BELOW THE KNEE 
 
 Sprained ankles, 31 
 
 foot, 1 
 
 Broken leg, ........ 3 
 
 " "small bone," 2 
 
 Rupture of tendon of leg, 1 
 
 " blood vessel of leg, .... 3 
 
 Flesh wounds of shin 4 
 
 Strain of leg, 3 
 
 Total, 47 
 
 CLASS B. INJURIES OF KNEE 
 
 Strain of knee, 18 
 
 Water on knee, ....... 5 
 
 Dislocated knee, 3 
 
 " patella, ...... 1 
 
 Fracture of cartilage of knee, ..... 1 
 
 Total, 37 
 
 CLASS C. INJURIES OF THIGH 
 
 Strain of thigh muscles, 7 
 
 Bruise of groin, 1 
 
 Total, 8 
 
 Classes a, b, and c contain eighty-two injuries. Thus 
 a majority of all injuries reported were inflicted on the 
 lower extremities. The ankle fares the worst, with the 
 knee joint a close second. I feel sure that sprained 
 ankles must be much less numerous at present, owing 
 to the admirable ankle guards that are now in vogue. 
 Shin guards also must do away with flesh wounds of 
 the shin, of which four are reported. The same guards 
 must also, by distributing along the leg the force of 
 blows, save some broken legs. The knee is still unpro- 
 tected. It is impossible to shield it by any kind of 
 sufiicient guard that will not interfere with motion. 
 Padding does much good, but cannot protect from the 
 severe wrenches which are so common. Water on the 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 
 
 43 
 
 knee must be more common than reported above. Most 
 any player has himself seen more than five cases. 
 Under strain of knee I have classed all sorts of 
 wrenches of more or less severity. The following is 
 an important item. Nine, or one-half the men who 
 replied yes to the first question and were classed as 
 seriously inconvenienced, were suffering from injured 
 knees. No football rules can protect the knee. The 
 ingenuity of the surgeon in supplying protective ap- 
 paratus must come to the rescue if the knee is to be 
 saved. 
 
 CLASS D. INJURIES OF TRUNK 
 
 Fracture of sternum, 
 
 " ribs , 
 
 Bruised breast bone, 
 
 Internal injuries 
 
 Kick in back, . 
 
 " abdomen, 
 
 Intercostal muscles torn, 
 
 Floating ribs separated, 
 
 Dislocation of clavical from sternum. 
 
 Strain of back, 
 
 Total, .... 
 
 CLASS E. INJURIES OF UPPER EXTREMITY 
 
 Broken scapula, 
 
 " clavicle, 
 Sprain of shoulder, 
 " elbow, 
 
 " wrist, . . . , 
 Rupture of wrist tendon, 
 " Broken hand," 
 Dislocated thumb, , 
 Broken thumb, .... 
 Broken finger. 
 Dislocated finger, 
 Thumb joints enlarged, . 
 Finger joints enlarged. 
 
 Total, 
 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 4 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 22 
 
44 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 CLASS F. INJUEIES OF HEAD 
 
 Concussion of brain, 
 Blow of head, 
 Kick in head, 
 Broken nose. 
 Scraped nose, . 
 Broken cheek bone, 
 Incised wounds of face. 
 Broken teeth. 
 Loosened teeth, 
 Black eye. 
 Ear torn, . 
 Ear drum ruptured, 
 
 Total, 28 
 
 The nose " gets tliere " before the player, and, as we 
 should expect, is the most punished part of the head. 
 However, broken noses are things of the past since the 
 ferocious nose beak has been worn. 
 
 If we reckon the sprained ankles, flesh wounds of 
 shin, rupture of blood vessels of leg, broken noses and 
 scraped noses as preventable by apparatus, we have 
 a total of fifty injuries, or just one-third of those re- 
 ported. This is a fair estimate, as we have left out 
 " broken legs," which must be much guarded against 
 by a proper shin guard. 
 
 Doubtless many men have been overtrained to their 
 knowledge, but without appreciable injury. Over- 
 training has been of several kinds — of the stomach, of 
 the muscular system (including the heart), and of the 
 general system. Some have claimed that the last 
 variety occurs when men are allowed to play too many 
 years. Overtraining of all kinds is being rapidly 
 eliminated in these daj^s and does not present the most 
 serious aspect of the subject of football. Of the 187 
 replying 11 said they overtrained, 3 were doubtful, and 
 3 omitted to answer the question. The 11 overtrained 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 45 
 
 \ the following ways : 1 always felt tired while 
 .»aining except during a game ; 2 specified indiges- 
 tion ; 1 found it difficult to accustom himself to a 
 sedentary life after leaving college ; 1 had muscular 
 twitchings in his legs, when walking, for four years 
 after leaving college. Of the 11, 7 specified their diffi- 
 culty as temporary. As stated above, probably different 
 answers would have been sent in if overtraining without 
 injury had been the subject of the question. To about 
 one-lialf the circulars I appended the question, " Did 
 you gain weight while training ? " It occurred to me 
 after having sent out the fii'st half that the fact that 
 a man gained weight while training would be pretty 
 clear evidence that he was not overtrained, although 
 this would prove nothing negatively, as a man could 
 lose weight in many instances without being over- 
 trained. Of 90 men, 47 gained ; 9 did not lose ; 4 lost 
 at first and gained later ; 2 lost fat ; 1 lost if worried ; 
 11 lost ; of the 11 one-half gained after the season 
 ended. So that, on the theory of weight, 62 at least 
 out of 90 did not overtrain. 
 
 Of the 187, 179 reported a good effect on the general 
 health. Many took occasion to be very emphatic ; 5 
 were uncertain ; 1 saw no effect ; 1 saw no harmful re- 
 sults ; 1 thought the effect was bad, but in connection 
 with too much other athletic and college work. Ques- 
 tion IV. Physical development. 180 returned a good 
 effect ; 3 saw no effect ; 2 were doubtful ; 2 couldn't 
 separate the effect from that of other sports. I did not 
 ask for specifications as to the parts develojped, but of 
 those that specified voluntarily, by far the larger num- 
 ber reported a general development. Quite a number 
 were impressed with their chest improvement. 
 
 A surgeon would probably decide against the game, 
 but the above statistics are too meagre in several ways 
 to warrant any positive conclusions. It was not 
 
46 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 expected that the statistics would be conclusive, but it 
 was hoped they would throw some light on the subject, 
 and be suggestive and perhaps a stepping-stone to other 
 investigations. My experience shows me that there are 
 many difficulties in the way of such an investigation. 
 And it must be acknowledged that the surgeon must 
 proscribe many other sports in the same way. Many 
 deaths result every year from hunting, sailing, and 
 horseback and carriage riding; many knees and ankles 
 are sprained every month by the bicycle, by cross- 
 country runs, and even by tennis and pedestrianism. 
 
 It must also be admitted that the subject is not fully 
 discussed when the surgeon leaves it. The surgeon is 
 a sort of materialist and is fond of material well being. 
 
 One reply claims that sports like football prevent 
 dissipation. There is doubtless much truth here. 
 Youthful energy must and will find a way to expand 
 itself. It may be expedient to allow this energy to 
 expend itself on football. The game of football is 
 to-day the natural expression of the tastes of vigorous 
 overflowing youthful energy. The same can be said of 
 all college pranks, including hazing. Natural tastes 
 often have to be curbed or even completely subjugated. 
 And student life in our universities to-day is becoming 
 more self-controlled. This sport remains as an outlet for 
 ovei*flow animal life. Something will be broken some- 
 where or somehow, if it is not allowed to escape. 
 
 Another line of suggestion claims that youth courts 
 risks, and that the hot blood of youth cannot develop 
 muscle and bone without destroying some muscle and 
 bone any more than the energy of maturity can accom- 
 plish intellectual and commercial results without destroy- 
 ing some brain tissue along with its possessor. Almost 
 any thing in life that is worth doing has its risks and 
 uses up physical and mental material. No one will 
 claim that youth should take no risks when it simply is a 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 47 
 
 preparation for mature life which is full of " risks." If 
 our nation survives, the man of the future must be able 
 to elbow his way among rough men in tlie foul air of 
 primary elections ; he may need courage enough to take 
 his part in vigilant and safety committees and the like ; 
 he may need to " tackle " an anarchist now and then and 
 perliaps oftener. Where shall he develop his courage? 
 Can he do it where there is no physical danger ? If the 
 game of football has a moral and mental side to it, if 
 it furnishes good ideals of courageous manhood and of 
 physical excellence to those who play it and to those 
 who look on, if it can rescue the dude from his naraby- 
 pambyism, then play football. Guard it from profes- 
 sionalism and extremes ; improve it. 
 
 Opinion of the Physician to Bugby School * 
 
 With respect to the much-abused and healthy game 
 of football, the chief outcry, periodically raised, is 
 against the game as played according to " Rugby rules." 
 
 That accidents do happen at football, and when played 
 under " Rugby rules," is beyond question. But to 
 whom do they usually happen ? Almost invariably to 
 grown men who have excelled in past years, but who 
 have now lost their elasticity, are out of training and 
 flabby, and have increased in weight and lost the old 
 knack of playing. To these players the game may be 
 injurious — that is to say, the good obtained may not 
 counterbalance the risk incurred ; though even of this 
 I am not sure. But I trust the time is far distant when 
 football, as a winter game, is to be removed from our 
 
 ♦Extract from writings of Clement Dukes, M. D., B. S. 
 Lond., Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London ; 
 Physician to Rugby School ; Senior Physician to the Hospital of 
 St. Cross, Rugby ; Howard Medallist of the Royal Statistical 
 Society of London. 
 
48 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 schools, unless some equally active and exciting game is 
 substituted. 
 
 The outcry against all games, whether football, row- 
 ing, riding, or tennis, for example, should not be levelled 
 against the games themselves, but against those who are 
 not in a fit condition to play at the particular moment. 
 
 The man who is unwise enough to think that, because 
 he has been the best football player at school, he can 
 always play hard, without previous and prolonged train- 
 ing, is sure to meet with accidents. He who, having 
 once been in his university eight, assumes in subsequent 
 years that he may, without frtsh training, row hard in 
 a " scratch " race with impunity, is certain to over-try 
 his heart — with a popular clamor against boating, as 
 the result. Those who incur the sprains of the rider 
 and of the lawn tennis player are almost invariably those 
 who ride hard and play hard at the beginning of the 
 seasons, when they are out of training and condition. 
 
 I maintain, from nearly twenty-three years' experience, 
 that football, as played at our schools, by young, elastic, 
 light boys, highly trained, and always at it, is — where 
 beai'-play and the spleen of the bully are kept down by 
 the conscientious reporting, without fear or favor, to 
 headquarters, of every infringement of legitimate 
 play — a great gain to schools and attended very rarely 
 by accidents, and those seldom of a serious nature. The 
 way in which accidents most frequently happen when 
 playing football at school is when boys play with men ° 
 and thus the " sides " are not of the same size and 
 weight. 
 
 My experience does not enable me to recognize either 
 the justice or prudence of parents in raising an outcry 
 against football, as played at our schools. That it has 
 its accidents, like, but not worse than, cricket, boating, 
 jumping, the gymnasium, and every other boys' game, 
 no one will gainsay ; but its benefit to boys far out- 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 49 
 
 weighs its evil effects, and all who know anything of it 
 from experience, and not from hearsay, will admit this. 
 
 Drs. White and Wood in ^^ North American Review " 
 
 Let us regard intercollegiate athletics as supplemen- 
 tary to a well-devised S3''steni of physical education 
 such as ought to exist at every university and college. 
 The noteworthy contests (exclusive of track athletics 
 which tend to develop specialists in whom one set of 
 muscles is over-developed, but wliich are of undoubted 
 value to the student b Aj) are those which take place 
 on the river, the base-ball field, the tennis court, and 
 cricket ground. Which of them best fulfils the require- 
 ments of an ideal exercise ? 
 
 Rowing, as practised to-day, develops chiefly the 
 muscles of the back and hips ; it does little for the front 
 arm, practically nothing for the pectoral muscles. Base- 
 ball makes I it little demand on the left arm or the left 
 side of the chest. Cricket and tennis are also usually 
 "right-sided" games. None of them is to be compared 
 with football in the direction of bringing all muscles in 
 play. And, moreover, in none of them except rowing 
 is the preliminary training so valuable in strengthening 
 the great involuntary muscles, those of the heart and 
 diaphragm, observed with any thing like equal strictness. 
 
 Certainly whatever physical good can be received 
 from any form of college athletics can be obtained from 
 football, while above all others it tends to develop self- 
 control, coolness, fertility of resource, and promptness 
 of execution in sudden emergencies involving perhaps 
 personal danger. In other woi"ds, no known game 
 compares with football in the development in the indi- 
 vidual of those qualities which, while they are some- 
 times spoken of as the "military virtues," are of 
 enormous value to tlieir possessor in all the struggles of 
 4 
 
50 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 life. A further advantage of football over the other 
 forms of college athletics is that it appeals to a much 
 larger proportion of the men. Thus, probably not more 
 than fifty men in any way take part in the annual train- 
 ing for crews at Pennsylvania ; but during the present 
 season, 1893, what with the 'varsity team, the scrub 
 teams, the various class teams, and the number of vol- 
 untary teams made up of the students, at least 160 men 
 have played the game, many of them daily. About the 
 same number played at Harvard. 
 
 But to those of us who believe that in the life of a 
 boy the occurrence of injuries not severe enough to 
 leave permanent traces is not necessarily an evil, but 
 often even a positive good by encouraging fortitude, 
 manliness, and high spirit, the question as to the danger 
 of football in our colleges is only to be answered by 
 statistics. 
 
 About this time last year the question of the occur- 
 rence of fatal or of permanently disabling injury to any 
 football player at these four institutions [Harvard, 
 Yale, Princeton, and Pennsylvania] for the previous 
 decade was submitted by one of the writers to the 
 special authority on the subject in each faculty. The 
 replies, still in his possession, were sent after careful 
 investigation, and established conclusively the fact that 
 no instance of any permanent injury to a player had 
 occurred in all the long series of contests waged during 
 those ten years on the football field. We ask that until 
 contradictory and well-sustained evidence be brought 
 forward this statement be accepted on the authority of 
 Dr. Sargent of Cambridge ; Dr. Seaver of New Haven ; 
 Dr. Macdonald of Princeton ; and Dr. White of Phila- 
 delphia. We may add that Dr. Hitchcock has written 
 us that no player has ever suffered permanent injury at 
 Cornell. We know that so far as intercollegiate foot- 
 ball among these universities is concerned, the fore- 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGAKDXNG FOOTBALL 51 
 
 going is true of 1893 also, and we think this fact greatly 
 lessens the force of the objection based on the physical 
 dangers of the game. 
 
 We have had, as has been said, about 160 men play- 
 ing football during the year 1893 at Pennsj'lvania, and 
 without a single broken bone or a seriously injured 
 joint, or any accident disabling a player from continuing 
 either his football or his academic duties for any length 
 of time. We do not mean to deny the existence of 
 physical danger, but we believe it possible to minimize 
 it and yet retain all the most useful features of the 
 game, and we are urgent for such a revision of rules as 
 shall bring this to pass. We do insist, however, that 
 the spectacular character of football and the frequency 
 of sprains, wrenches, fractures, and other severe or 
 minor injuries occurring in the presence of such mul- 
 titudes have together led to unintentional and not 
 unnatural exaggeration of the seriousness of football. 
 The accidents of aquatic sports, of horseback riding, of 
 shooting, are vastly beyond and above those of football. 
 In 1890, 4442 males were drowned in the United States, 
 and 2336 died from gunshot wounds ; a large minority 
 of the former died in the pursuit of aquatic sjjorts, 
 while, probably, a large majority of the latter died from 
 accidents occurring with firearms made or used for 
 sport. We have not had time to get together the 
 statistics of aquatic sports in the colleges, but it is note- 
 Avorthy that within two or three years Princeton lost, 
 by drowning, Brokaw from its baseball team, and Lamar 
 from its football team ; while Cornell, where aquatics 
 are cultivated so widely and successfully, has in the 
 same way lost at least three of its athletes in the present 
 year. 
 
 As to the effect of football upon the individual 
 student who enters the team, the most frequently 
 repeated objection is that the intellectual is being sacri- 
 
52 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 ficed to the physical, and that the man who plays foot- 
 ball must almost of necessity neglect his studies. This, 
 again, as we want clearly to point out, is not an objec- 
 tion to football per se, but an objection to all college 
 athletics. As a matter of fact mucli of the preliminary 
 training for football is done during the vacation period, 
 and certainly more hours are given by the men on the 
 crew in the scholastic period to athletic duties than are 
 required of the football candidates. 
 
 As this article is not a general defence of college 
 athletics, we must content ourselves with the statement 
 that, after careful investigation, we do not believe foot- 
 ball has had the effect of lowering the general average 
 academic standard of either players or onlookers at any 
 of the above mentioned universities. There has not 
 been time to secure all the actual figures, but such 
 good observers as Professor Richards of Yale and 
 Professor Sloane of Princeton are convinced that while 
 the scholarship of the most active players may suffer a 
 little a few weeks before the close of the season, it loses 
 nothing whatever by the end of the year. 
 
 Of the four or five members of the Pennsylvania 
 football team of 1892 who have now graduated, one, the 
 captain, won in competitive examination the greatest 
 prize the university offers to its medical class, a position 
 in its hospital ; another, who was first honor man of his 
 class, has been made professor in the university, and 
 still another was on the honor list. In this year's team 
 the same proportion seems likely to continue. At 
 Princeton two of the eleven are on the honor list and 
 five are " far above mediocrity." At Yale the average 
 standing of the sixteen members of the academic 
 department who have been connected with the football 
 team this term as players and substitutes is higher than 
 the average standing of tlie best class in scholarship 
 that has ever graduated there. At Cornell Professor 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 53 
 
 Hitchcock finds that "the men on the intercollegiate 
 athletic teams have a standing 1.2 per cent, better than 
 the average of the whole college." If we were select- 
 ing from any college the young men most likely to 
 endure tlie strains of business or professional life in this 
 country, and to score successes, we would be disposed 
 to estimate at much more than 1.2 per cent, the actual 
 working superiority of the football players over their 
 classmates. 
 
 It is not a little thing that an American community 
 shall cease for a moment its worship of the golden calf, 
 even if it find a no more worthy idol than a football 
 player, for that plaj^er is an impersonation of long-con- 
 tinued self-denial, of severe toil, of stoicism under pain, 
 of persistent struggle for an object which is but an 
 ideal. 
 
 We believe that it is better for the people of North 
 America to cultivate rather than repress this sudden 
 growth of national sport. To cultivate is to prune, and 
 we are among those who ask earnestly, not only for the 
 suppression of rough and foul play, but for such 
 modification of the rules as shall lessen the danger to 
 life and limb. It seems to us that the first of these 
 alterations should lead to the elimination of the so-called 
 " mass play." The old open game, more beautiful, less 
 dangerous, perhaps more scientific, should, if possible, be 
 brought back. 
 
 We believe it to be essentially the best and manliest 
 of all intercollegiate sports. 
 
 From H. H. Almond, of Loretto, in the ^^ Nineteenth 
 Century." ^'Football as a Moral Agent " 
 
 When the complaint was made to a well-known 
 head-master that British boys talked far too much about 
 football and cricket, he answered, " And what do French 
 
54 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 boys talk about ? " His reply was to the point ; but 
 he might well have added that it was extremely impor- 
 tant for all those who had to do with boys to have a 
 thorough acquaintance with the subjects about which 
 they did talk, even if that talk was overdone. 
 
 Football has always existed at our greater schools. 
 But these schools have greatly increased in numbers, 
 and others of a similar type have sprung up all over 
 the country. Now these schools do not pretend to sup- 
 ply a better intellectual education than may be obtained 
 in the heart of our large towns. Their main purpose is 
 to deliver boys at the critical age of growth, who are 
 receiving a complete education, from the sedentary 
 habits almost inseparable from life in great cities. 
 Football, being the best available form of winter exer- 
 cise, has consequently spread from the older schools to 
 many others. It has been played under many forms, 
 but these are reducing themselves to two. Both of 
 these are becoming more organized, scientific, and com- 
 petitive ; and it may safely be asserted that, wherever 
 either of them has taken fair root, it is winning the 
 heart of boyhood more than any other winter game or 
 occupation. Nor is this new enthusiasm confining itself 
 to schools. The overcrowded rivers of the universities 
 are being relieved by the goals ; clubs are springing 
 up all over the country; and every available piece of 
 ground near many of the great manufacturing towns is 
 already being used for football. Does not this move- 
 ment require some recognition and some guidance ? 
 
 The first national match by Rugby rules was played 
 at Edinburgh in 1870. The first really national match 
 by Association rules was played at Glasgow in 1872. 
 Since this time the progress of football has been uninter- 
 rupted, and I may say tremendous. I have, e. g., known 
 of two Scotch schools which played eight fifteens each 
 on the same day against each other. The result of the 
 
FACTS AND OPINIONS EEGAEDING FOOTBALL 55 
 
 first only would be telegraphed ; and nearly every 
 country village in many counties would be the scene of 
 unreported matches and games. In all large centres, 
 howevei", an extra staff of telegraphists is employed on 
 Saturdays for football events alone. These facts all 
 tend to show that the players are a very small proportion 
 indeed of those who are taken into the open air by foot- 
 ball and who take a lively interest in its results. As an 
 instance of this, I may mention that the final tie for the 
 English Association Cup in 1893 was played at Man- 
 chester before about 40,000 persons. 
 
 Now to assert that all this is good news is to say 
 what never could be said with truth about any great 
 movement or interest among men. But it is certainly 
 most significant news. There are, of course, a large 
 number of people who will say that the physical danger 
 of football outweighs all possible advantages. 
 
 In my own personal experience, I have had to do with 
 football for thirty-five years. At no school with which 
 I have been connected has there ever been a death ; I 
 can remember one broken leg among boys, and one 
 among men, and I think three broken arms. Nor do I 
 recollect hearing of a single directly fatal accident 
 among Scotch clubs which play Rugby rules, and only 
 of one indirectly fatal accident. The experience, I may 
 add, of the greatest living aiithority on school health. 
 Dr. Clement Dukes of Rugby School, is similar to 
 mine. My impression is, though I cannot adduce facts 
 to prove it, that the majority of the serious accidents 
 arise out of the rough and foul play which seems to be 
 a necessary result of professionalism and of the allied 
 system of cup ties. Whenever the game ceases to be 
 played in a sportsmanlike spirit, plaj^ers are to be found 
 who wantonly injure opponents with a view of putting 
 them hors cle combat when this can be done in such an 
 underhand way that malicious purpose cannot be posi- 
 
66 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 tively proved. Generally, from all the evidence I can 
 collect, the following conclusion seems justified : Ama- 
 teur football, when the public opinion of the players 
 condemns foul play and the infliction of wilful injux-ies 
 as criminal and odious, is not more dangerous than 
 almost any winter game or sport which is active 
 enough to promote a vigorous muscular development 
 and high animal spirits. It is less dangerous than 
 hunting, and infinitely less dangerous, in the long run, 
 than abstinence from open-air exercise on the part of 
 those who lead a generally indoor life. In a word, by 
 developing the chest and the limbs, by quickening the 
 circulation and purifying the blood, football saves far 
 more lives than it destroys. 
 
 It is an incalculable blessing to this country that such 
 a sport is so enthusiastically beloved by almost all that 
 part of our boyhood whom nature has endowed with 
 strong passions and overflowing energies. Its mere 
 existence and the practical lessons which it preaches 
 are worth all the books that have been written on youth- 
 ful purity. I can say for myself that, under the cir- 
 cumstances of the luxurious and self-indulgent habits 
 in which boys are increasingly brought up at home, the 
 constant panic lest they should suffer any pain, the 
 absence of apprehension lest their moral and physical 
 fibre should become feeble by disuse, and the tendency 
 of the examination system to make the development of 
 character a secondary consideration, I would not care 
 to face the responsibility of conducting a school were 
 there not rooted in it, as I hope, an imperishable tradi- 
 tion, an enthusiastic love of football. 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell on the tendency of foot- 
 ball to foster that virtue that is most closely allied to 
 purity, and without which no nation could be either 
 great or truly pi-osperous, viz., the virtue of courage. 
 Some such influence is sorely needed. What is called 
 
PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 57 
 
 the modern spirit is not favorable to courage. An 
 instance of this comes readily to hand in the prevalent 
 sentimental objection to corporal punishment, and in 
 favor of punishments like lines and detentions, which 
 keep a boy indoors when he ought to be out of doors, 
 or like penal drill, the indirect evil of which is, I think, 
 even greater. But the football scrummage is a great 
 educator. I know boyisli opinion pretty well, and can 
 bear witness to a wholesome reaction among them 
 against all punishments which are not corporal, and 
 generally against any unmanly shrinking from pain — 
 a feeling which I have known to show itself in a preju- 
 dice against the use of anaesthetics in minor operations, 
 as well as in other ways. 
 
 After this expression of opinion, which is possibly 
 shocking to the Zeitgeist, I hope that I may to some 
 extent propitiate this spirit by saying that football, 
 when taken by the hand and guided, may be made the 
 training ground of a virtue which is so far modern that 
 it has not yet acquired a distinctive name. I mean the 
 duty of keeping one's self in vigorous health, founded 
 on a knowledge that this is generally possible. 
 
 From this point of view it is well for this crowded 
 little island of ours that the athletic movement has 
 assumed sucli a universal and irresistible form as it has 
 done in the case of football. 
 
 I have never yet known a genuine Rugby forward 
 who was not distinctively a man. 
 
 Extracts from ^^The Yale Courant " and "Scribner^s 
 Monthly " 
 
 7%e Yale Courant in an editorial, October 17, 1868, 
 speaks thus of base-ball, which was just then acquiring 
 great popularity : " We are not an admirer of the 
 national game. As to the amount of amusement to be 
 obtained by this means it is just about what might be 
 
68 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 extracted from a certain number of sand-bags, basswood J 
 
 clubs, and cannon-balls by educated, enlightened men ^ 
 
 under other circumstances. On the question of bodily- 
 damage we would suggest that the immense increase of 
 accident insurance companies is probably due to no 
 other cause, and if the mania does not presently cease the 
 country will he without able-bodied tnenP 
 
 Scribner''s Magazine of June, 1872, after relegating 
 base-ball to the ranks of gambling and rowdyism 
 characteristic of regattas and horse races, makes use of 
 these words : " During these years the game of croquet 
 has been steadily gaining ground, and to-day its de- 
 votees not without justice claim for it the distinction 
 of the true and only national game of America," 
 
 { 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 STATISTICS OF UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS AS 
 COLLECTED BY THE COMMITTEE 
 
 Letters were sent out : 
 
 1. To every player on the Harvard, Princeton, and 
 Yale teams since the introduction of the Rugby game 
 in 1876 (one of these lists included all substitutes, the 
 other two did not, but the proportions turned out 
 approximately the same, however). 
 
 2. To every player on college teams of 1893. 
 
 3. To every school where a team was organized. 
 Results : Up to April 10 something over one thousand 
 
 answers had been received, showing : 
 
 PHYSICAL effect 
 
 Statistics of physical effect of the game of football 
 upon players (in comparison with Dr. John Edward 
 Morgan's statistics of benefit and injury attributable to 
 boating). 
 
 Harvard, Yale, and Princeton players, 1876-1894 in- 
 clusive. Number of answers received, 337 in all. 
 
 Number of men who considered themselves benefited, 328 
 " " " " injured, 3 
 
 t' " failed to reply, . . .2 
 
 " " considered it had no effect . . 4 
 
 Other colleges (1893 players). Number of men 359 
 in all. 
 
 Number of men who considered themselves benefited, 357 
 " " " " injured, 1 
 
 " " " it had no effect, . 1 
 
 59 
 
60 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Schools (1893 players). Number of men, 364 in all. 
 
 Number who were considered injured, . . .10 
 " " " not affected . . 6 
 
 " impossible to say, or indefinite, . . .13 
 
 MENTAL EFFECT 
 
 Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, 33V in all. 
 
 Number who considered themselves benefited, . 320 
 
 effect bad, ... 2 
 
 " nil 13 
 
 No answer, 2 
 
 Other colleges, 359 in all. 
 
 Number who considered themselves benefited, , 343 
 
 " " effect bad, ... 7 
 
 " undetermined, . ... 8 
 
 " who considered effect nil, . . . 1 
 
 Schools, 364 in all.* 
 
 Number on whom the faculty considered the effect bad, 7 
 " " '* " not affected, 6 
 " " " " indefinite, un- 
 determined, 13 
 
 PERMANENT INJURIES 
 
 So much has been said regarding the great extent of 
 these injuries and the seriousness of them that we give 
 the exact words of every man who replied otherwise 
 than "No" to the question of the permanency of any 
 injury received. 
 
 Of permanent injuries to Yale, Harvard, and Prince- 
 ton players from 1876-1893 inclusive there were twenty- 
 three cases. These were the only ones where men have 
 not answered ilatly that they have no present reminder 
 of their football injuries. 
 
 * Some of the head-masters answered only generally, not speci- 
 fying for each player. 
 
UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS 61 
 
 These replies are as follows : 
 
 Harvard 
 
 No. 595. Played 8 years, says, "Physically the very 
 best and long lasting. Mentally enabled rae, and still 
 does enable me, to do a larger quantity of mental work. 
 Injury, a strain of the wrist which might affect my 
 chances of getting on a 'varsity team, but for ordinary 
 purposes is no defect. 
 
 No. 602. Played 8 years. Tooth knocked out. Con- 
 sider both physical and mental effect good. 
 
 No. 680. Played 11 years. Broken nose, affected one 
 nostril, but since bored out. Both physically and men- 
 tally very good. I think the mental training in con- 
 fidence, cool-headedness, judgment, quickness in action, 
 determination, and self-control far outweighs any risk 
 of accident. 
 
 No. 1189. Played 1 years. Physically and mentally 
 very good. Had tooth extracted by a fellow catching 
 his glove in it. Tooth replaced ; several years after, 
 however, it was again knocked out. 
 
 No. 1194. Played 9 years. Broken ligament in thumb. 
 It is weaker than other. Physically and mentally good. 
 I am much more bothered by a wrist sprained by being 
 thrown from a horse than by all my few football 
 injuries put together. 
 
 No. 667. Played 6 years. Injury to ribs. Feel it 
 somewhat when overtired. Physically and mentally 
 decidedly good. 
 
 No. 648, Played 8 years. Injury to ear, deaf, and 
 broken wrist. Latter partially recovered. Physically 
 and mentally decidedly good, also morally. 
 
 No. 542. Played 6 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
 Mentally and physically bad." See letter.* 
 
 * This letter is published later in this book. 
 
62 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 No. 626. Played 7 years. Broken nose. Physically 
 and mentally most empliatically good. 
 
 No. 588. Played 10 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
 Physically and mentally good. 
 
 No. 636. Played 3 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
 Knee occasionally slips. Physically and mentally de- 
 cidedly good. 
 
 No. 680. Played 12 years. Broken nose. Impaired 
 breathing somewhat. Physically good, mentally bad. 
 
 Yale 
 
 No. 1137. Played 6 years. Broken ligament binding 
 down sternal end of right clavicle. Effects most excel- 
 lent, both physical and mental. 
 
 No. 1034. Played 9 years. Wrenched knee, not en- 
 tirely recovered. No special effect upon me except to 
 give me greater nervous energy. Was twenty-one years 
 old when I entered college. 
 
 No. 124. Played 5 years. Injury to knee and broken 
 clavicle. Physically bad, mentally good. 
 
 No. 164. Played 5 years. Dislocation of collar-bone. 
 Played next season. Good both physically and mentally. 
 
 No. 163. Played 3 years. Never lost a day from 
 injury. Left knee a little vs^eak. Physically and 
 mentally good. 
 
 JPrinceton 
 
 No. 891. Played 3 years. Sprained knee, think the 
 weakness permanent. Physically and mentally un- 
 doubtedly good. 
 
 No. 923. Played 6 years. Injured knee ; still affects 
 me. Effect physically good, mentally can't say. 
 
 No. 21. Played 5 years. Killed nerve of tooth. 
 Tooth subsequently extracted, but artificial crown 
 placed on. Stump satisfactory. Physically and men- 
 tally good. The advantages of the game in the way 
 
UNIVEESITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS 
 
 63 
 
 of physical and mental and moral development justify 
 the risks assumed. 
 
 No. 893. Played 7 years. No injury on a college 
 football field. Had nose broken at school by another 
 boy's "cussedness." Physically and mentally eminently 
 good, 
 
 No. 904, Played 4 years. Muscle kicked off arm. 
 Physically and mentally good. 
 
 No. 33. Played 4 years. Slight injury to nose. 
 Physically and mentally I consider it very good. 
 
 STANDING IN STUDIES 
 
 Princeton 
 since 1874 : 
 
 men Avho played in first class matches 
 
 First honor men, that is, first in class. 
 High (above 95 per cent.), . 
 Second (above 90 per cent.). 
 Good (above 75 per cent.), . 
 
 LovF (50 per cent.), 37 
 
 Failed 
 
 139 
 
 Football. 
 
 Base-ball. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 23 
 
 13 
 
 31 
 
 17 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 37 
 
 34 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 99 
 
 Harvard. — Team of 1893. Total number of grades, 
 163. 
 
 Grade A, . . , . 3 
 
 " B, 23 
 
 " C, 68 
 
 " D 42 
 
 " E, 29 
 
 168 
 
 Yale (in decades) : 
 
 Sport. 
 
 Boating, 
 
 Base-ball, 
 Football, 
 
 1.2 per cent. 
 
 13.5 
 
 " 
 
 41.9 
 
 " 
 
 25.2 
 
 " 
 
 17.3 
 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Standing on 
 scale of 4. 
 
 1869-78 
 
 2.559 
 
 1878-88 
 
 2.52 
 
 1869-78 
 
 2.595 
 
 1878-88 
 
 2.406 
 
 1869-78 
 
 3.508 
 
 1878-88 
 
 3.677 
 
64 
 
 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Yeai" of 1893. Of sixteen football players (academic 
 standing) the average standing was higher than the 
 average of the highest class ever graduated. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. — Men of college depart- 
 ments have no marks. They are registered as passed 
 with distinction, passed with honors, not passed. 
 
 Team of 1890 
 
 No. 1, 93.4 per cent. 
 
 "2 96.5 
 
 •' 3, . . . . . . . 64.8 
 
 "4, 95.7 
 
 "5, 79.1 
 
 " 6, 
 " 7, . 
 
 9, 
 10, 
 11, 
 13. 
 
 76.6 
 
 81.25 " 
 
 87.3 
 
 Not passed. 
 
 Passed. 
 
 Passed. 
 
 "13 90.34 per cent. 
 
 "14, Passed with honors. 
 
 "15, Passed. 
 
 Team of 1891 
 No. 1 84.9 per cent. 
 
 3, 
 
 3, 
 
 4, 
 
 5, 
 
 6, 
 
 7, 
 
 8, 
 
 9, 
 
 10, 
 
 11, 
 
 12, 
 
 13, 
 
 14, 
 
 15, 
 
 16, 
 
 17, 
 
 18, 
 
 81.0 
 
 78.0 
 
 93.4 
 
 95.7 
 
 73.1 
 
 93.6 
 
 86.0 
 
 90.3 
 
 80.66 " 
 
 81.25 " 
 
 61.75 " 
 . 80.3 
 Passed with honors. 
 . Not passed. 
 
 Passed. 
 . Passed. 
 Passed with distinction. 
 
UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLATERS 
 
 65 
 
 Team of 1892 
 
 No. 
 
 1, 
 2, 
 3, 
 4, 
 5, 
 6, 
 7, 
 8, 
 9, 
 10, 
 
 11, 
 
 13, 
 13, 
 14, 
 15, 
 16, 
 
 . Not passed. 
 Passed with honors. 
 Passed. 
 Passed. 
 One condition. 
 Passed. 
 80.6 per cent. 
 90.3 
 93.1 
 75.0 
 76.6 
 80.3 
 93.4 
 73.1 
 98.0 
 87.3 
 
 West Point, 1893. — Four classes, A, B, C, D. 
 
 "In the first, A class, the gain in marks (scholarship) 
 during the football season exceeded the loss. 
 
 " In the second, B class, the gain in marks during the 
 football season exceeded the loss. 
 
 "In the third, C class, the loss exceeded the gain. 
 
 "In the fourth, D class, four players in the class, but 
 as they were not graded or marked previous to the 
 season, figures are impossible except in case of one 
 cadet. He, in the opinion of his professor, will be first 
 in his class of mathematics, fourth in English studies. 
 
 " On the whole the effect is, therefore, upon those 
 taking the most active part in football, not injurious." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LETTERS PEOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY AND HEAD- 
 MASTERS 
 
 I "WAS much complimented by your letter asking me 
 about football ; but as I resigned my mastership of 
 Adams Academy on August 1, 1893, I felt I had no 
 right to pronounce as a school-master on the matter, 
 I have therefore put your letter in the hands of my 
 successor, Mr. William R. Tyler (Harvard, 1874). 
 
 I wish you would correspond specially Avith him. He 
 was one of the Harvard team that began intercollegiate 
 football by playing with McGill University, and 
 declined the captaincy of the Harvard team in his 
 senior year. He also played on the Adams Academy 
 team in 1874, '75, '76, '77. 
 
 The revival of football started at my table in 1870. 
 Football was forbidden by the faculty of Harvard Col- 
 lege from 1858 (I think) to 1870, on account of the 
 class fights. In 1870, I, being Latin tutor, organized 
 a boarding-table at my house for students who had been 
 my personal friends in all the four classes. Most of 
 them were graduates of the Boston Latin School, where 
 the old American football had been played for indefinite 
 years. Of these Tyler was my special friend. Two or 
 three of the young men came to me and asked if 
 I thouglit that the faculty would allow football to be 
 resumed, on an engagement by the students that it 
 should be a real game and not a class fight. I referred 
 the matter to the faculty, and had the petition granted. 
 The game was organized on this condition, with a team 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 6*7 
 
 for all classes. It was practised on the old traditional 
 lines, very much, I believe, like the Association game 
 in England. After about two years a challenge came 
 from McGill University, which played the Rugby game, 
 and the Harvard team agreed to adopt that form for the 
 sake of the match. 
 
 Tyler can tell you of the match ; but I wish whatever 
 credit belongs to the man under whose auspices the 
 game was revived. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 William Everett. 
 
 Adams Academy. 
 
 Dr. Everett handed to me your letter of enquiries as 
 to the effects of football in Adams Academy, and the 
 blanks for answers from the school eleven. 
 
 I cannot answer your questions as to my own opinion 
 with regard to the effect of the game on our boys, 
 without going rather into detail as to my own connec- 
 tion and acquaintance with the game. 
 
 I played half-back on the Harvard team (fifteen then) 
 in May, 1874, against the team of McGill University, 
 Montreal. This was, I think, the first game of Rugby 
 football ever played in the United States. In the 
 autumn of that year I came here to teach, and for a 
 number of years organized, ti-ained, and played on the 
 school football team. I thus have had very unusual 
 opportunities for studying the game and its effects in a 
 school. 
 
 Iir my opinion there can be no doubt that the effect 
 of the game pliysically is admirable, both on the actual 
 members of the classes and on the school generally, in 
 arousing and maintaining an interest in an active out- 
 of-doors sport which can best be played at a season 
 when it is difficult to keep boys out of doors enough. 
 Rough, and occasionally brutal, as the game must be, I 
 
68 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 can recall but very few cases of serious injury to any of 
 my boys in all the nineteen years the game has been 
 played here, and no case, I think, of permanent injury. 
 
 I am convinced, too, that the moral effect of the game 
 is on the whole good, though the football partisans are 
 inclined to exaggerate it, or rather to ignore the objec- 
 tions to it. The game certainly promotes courage, 
 self-restraint, a wholesome disregard of slight physical 
 injuries, and a clear appreciation of the value of dis- 
 cipline and subordination. On the other hand, the evil 
 moral effects seem to me obvious from the nature of the 
 game. It tends to exalt mere physical strength and 
 size unduly, and to brutalize a naturally brutal boy by 
 offering practically unlimited opportunities for unneces- 
 sarily rough play, and high rewards for successful 
 violence. 
 
 • The development of the game recently in the direc- 
 tion of " tricks " and surprises, the tendency to exam- 
 ine every rule with a view to evade the spirit of it if 
 the latter can be distorted, — in short, the " any thing 
 to win " spirit — are also serious objections to the game 
 as an honorable sport for boys. Preaching honor, 
 courtesy, and gentleness to a school five days in the 
 week is of little effect if the whole school pours out to 
 applaud successful violence and trickery on the sixth day. 
 
 This brings me to the second part of your question, 
 the effect of the game on school discipline. As far as 
 the boys' physical condition is concerned, football is 
 a distinct help to the school-master. A boy who has 
 plenty of active exercise in the open air is an easier 
 boy to teach, a more reasonable boy to govern, and a 
 pleasanter boy to live with than one of the other kind. 
 And football, as I've said above, occupies a place and 
 fills a gap in the year's round of sports which nothing 
 else can well fill. The ill effects of the game on school 
 discipline come not from football as such, but from the 
 
LETTERS PROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 69 
 
 undue prominence that public interest has given it. 
 Boys get to feel, their school-mates feel, and the fi-iends 
 of the school — if not their own parents — feel that, if 
 they play their positions on the eleven successfully, they 
 are doing enough for their own glory and the glory of 
 the school. 
 
 The pressure on school authorities to keep an unde- 
 sirable pnpil, or, what is as bad, to admit one because 
 " he can play football," is constant and at times severe. 
 The result inevitably is that the leading football players 
 of a school claim an immunity from the ordinary stand- 
 ards of scholarship and discipline which adds seriously 
 to the difficulties of school government. It would be 
 unfair to blame the game of football, however, for this 
 evil — the game of chess might easily cause it — except 
 for the fact that football is so much the most spectacular 
 of sports that it attracts the public more than any other. 
 
 I am tempted to add a "word on the wider, though not 
 more important, question of football as a game for men 
 in colleges. Fond as I am of the game, and much as 
 I enjoy watching a well-contested intercollegiate match, 
 I'm being forced to the conclusion that football is not 
 a fit game for grown men to play. However modified, 
 it in its essence involves violent physical contacv of 
 heavy masses of human flesh and bones. The injuries 
 and risks of injuries which must result from such col- 
 lisions are too high a price to pay for the physical or 
 moral training which may possibly be obtained from the 
 game. The notoriety which attends the successful col- 
 lege football player, the columns of imbecile or im- 
 pudent personal gossip about him which fill the news- 
 papers during the football season, the terrible physical 
 and nervous strain under which he trains for the big 
 matches, are all unmitigated evils which seem to me 
 avoidable only by abolishing intercollegiate football 
 altogether. 
 
70 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 If, however, football is still to be played by the col- 
 leges, there is one radical reform which, to ray mind at 
 any rate, is adequate to remove a large part of the 
 ph3^sical objections to the game. And this is to return 
 to the original rules as to off-side play, and to enforce 
 them to their whole intent. I mean by this much more 
 than the abolishment of the so-called " interference." 
 One must go farther back than that, to the original root 
 of all the trouble — to the " snap-back." The moment 
 the " snap-back " was invented, the systematic violation 
 of the off-side rules began, and the whole progeny of 
 evasions and distortions of the rules followed inevitably. 
 As played now, the game is utterly illogical. If the 
 rules mean anything, every man " lined up " after a 
 " down " is off-side the moment the ball touches the 
 quarter-back's hands, and all those attempts to define 
 "holding in the line" are simply meaningless babble. 
 Let the rule be made again what it was once — that 
 every man off-side is out of the game and cannot touch 
 the ball, or interfere with or obstruct another player ii^ 
 any way — and half the difficulties of umpiring, and 
 most of the objections to the game on account of the 
 " mass " plays and " slugging " will at once disappear. 
 
 I've written at this great length because of my deep 
 interest in the subject and my anxiety to aid you in 
 every way in your efforts to promote it. 
 
 I've often talked football over with your friend and 
 my former pupil, Walter Irving Badger, and he will be 
 able to tell you something of my interest in it. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 William R. Tyler. 
 
 Adelphi Academy. 
 It proved to be a rather difficult job to get statements 
 of injuries from the boys on our football team. I have 
 collected the enclosed. There ought to be as many 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 71 
 
 more, but two of the members of last fall's team are no 
 longer in the Academy and three are at home sick with 
 vaccination. Two others have failed to hand in the 
 blanks to-day as they said they would, I suppose through 
 forgetful ness, 
 
 I judge, however, that from the answers which I 
 enclose you can make a fair inference concerning the 
 amount and quality of injuries that our players have 
 received. The fact is that I have very little personal 
 knowledge of the matter, for I have been here only since 
 last fall. I am informed, however, that it is almost 
 unknown that an Adelphi football player should receive 
 any very serious or permanent injury. 
 
 I believe that I may say that they have been so well 
 trained that they have escaped from games with very 
 much less personal damage than they have usually 
 inflicted upon their opponents. Perhaps their compara- 
 tive immunity is somewhat due to the fact that tliey 
 are usually a light team and very nimble. The teams 
 against which they play are usually superior in weight, 
 and the last season, at any rate, showed a good many 
 defeats for the Adelphi eleven, but if victory were deter- 
 mined by the number of players who were injured in 
 the games, the Adelphi team would have a rather brill- 
 iant record. 
 
 It is right in this connection that I should put on 
 record my opinion that our boj^s, being somewhat lighter 
 than their customary rivals, have played a pretty hard 
 game in order to make points, and I fear that the result 
 upon their own mental state has not been entirely 
 beneficial. 
 
 I have no doubt but they are deriving a great deal of 
 physical advantage from their participation in the game, 
 especially from their training, and I believe that they 
 acquire habits of order and obedience which become 
 valuable in school discipline. At the same time I do 
 
72 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 see a strong tendency to excuse any course which, will 
 result in winning a game or making pointSj and that 
 tendency, as you will easily observe, might lead to an 
 objectionable mental development. 
 
 I am heartily in sympathy with the effort to develop 
 our scholastic games wisely, and I hope to give our boys 
 better advantages next year than they have ever had be- 
 fore, both in the shape of trainers and general facilities. 
 
 At the same time I am more and more convinced that 
 only by close vigilance and care shall we be able to 
 prevent the development of the unscrupulous spirit 
 among our athletes, or be able to preserve them from 
 the objectionable sporting influences that grow up about 
 our games. 
 
 I believe that we ought to cultivate a public opinion 
 among them which would visit quick condemnation 
 upon any tiickery or brutality in play. 
 
 If the newspapers have correctly reported the modifi- 
 cations in the football rules that you and your associates 
 have recommended, it seems to me that you are moving 
 in exactly the right direction and have agreed upon very 
 judicious amendments. 
 
 Perhaps I should say a word upon one word in your 
 note that I have so far rather overlooked. 
 
 The effect of football and games of the same sort upon 
 the scholarship of the young men who engage in them 
 seems to me to be somewhat as follows : 
 
 In the body of students at large I believe that the 
 effect is good. The boy is made more wide awake and 
 his better physical condition leads him to do better 
 mental work. Most of the players upon our teams do 
 very creditable work in scholarship. Concerning some 
 individual pupils, however, a very different report would 
 have to be made. There is the same evil here which we 
 find in college : namely, the presence of a few young 
 men who are interested in nothing but games, who study 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OP THE FACULTY 73 
 
 just enough to stay in schools and enable them to partici- 
 pate in games, and whose influence upon the other boys 
 is very much of the earth earthy. 
 
 My own impression is that the best physical training, 
 viewed with reference to its influence on scholarship, 
 discipline, and physical development, is the regular 
 training in gymnastic work and in track athletics. 
 That work can be kept closely under direction, can be 
 made very regular and systematic, and can be largely 
 shielded, here, from the demoralizing influences that 
 attend games. Yours veiy truly, 
 
 Charles H. Levermore. 
 
 The Albany Academy. 
 
 This is a local academy — hence the conditions are much 
 like those of the Berkeley School in New York City. 
 
 We have a capital play ground a mile and a half 
 from the school — the result is but one season of prac- 
 tice daily and this too long. The boys fit themselves 
 for bad rather than good work at their books. All 
 poor students suffer greatly ; good students plan their 
 work so that the loss is minimized. 
 
 Local academies suffer more than boarding schools, 
 because too much football has to be taken at one 
 time daily on account of difficulty of getting the teams 
 together and distance from the play ground. 
 
 The effect of football on health and capital : 
 
 It is the manliest sport for boys ever devised. Were 
 I at the head of a boarding school I would not receive 
 or keep a boy who would not play football when he was 
 told (unless he had some local weakness), for I should 
 know that he had some punky spots in him. 
 
 My Latin master was a member of the Rutgers College 
 team and will add a few words. 
 
 Yours cordially, 
 
 P. P. Warren. 
 
74 football facts and figures 
 
 Albany High School. 
 
 The accompanying statements do not in my opinion 
 afford very valuable data for reaching a conclusion. 
 First, as to injuries : The boys who have received seri- 
 ous injuries are no longer on the "team" and so their 
 testimony is excluded. I can say, however, that serious 
 or permanent injuries have been very few. 
 
 Second as to scholarship, discipline, etc. Seven out of 
 the twelve boys whose names are on these slips are 
 among the very poorest students we have in school, but 
 I do not think their scholarship is either better or worse 
 for their being on the football team. We have had 
 teams made up almost wholly of our best scholars, and 
 never before one in which the scholarly element was so 
 poorly represented. The five whose scholarship is credit- 
 able among this twelve, have, I think, been benefited, 
 rather than injured, mentally, morally, and physically 
 by their participation in athletics. 
 
 I am not a great admirer of the game of football, 
 but candor compels me to state that the effect of the 
 game in our school has been productive of more good 
 than evil. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 OscAK D. Robinson, Principal. 
 
 Phillips Academy. 
 Football was introduced into the Phillips Andover 
 Academy in the fall of 18V5, and has been practised 
 with a good deal of interest ever since. Out of several 
 hundred boys it is generally easy to secure a good team, 
 one with which the college teams are willing to play. 
 In reply to your enquiry as to the results to the players 
 and to the school, I can speak with considerable confi- 
 dence after observing nineteen vigorous campaigns. 
 There have been a good many instances of physical 
 accidents, interrupting for a longer or shorter time 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 75 
 
 school attendence, but no serious disability has followed 
 in any cases as I now remember. " Training " has 
 generally been a physical benefit, and it has set a stand- 
 ard of wholesome living as regards sleep, diet, and physi- 
 cal exercise, which has helped the entire student bod3^ 
 This advantage has been impaired sometimes by the 
 reaction of going " out of training." 
 
 The intellectual work of the players has suffered by 
 the hard demands of the games and the practice, by the 
 intense interest in the success of the team and in the 
 scores made by other teams, by endless discussion of 
 prospects and possibilities ; on the other hand it has 
 been helped by the moral earnestness of the men, a sense 
 of responsibility and school loyalty, and by the physical 
 regimen. The intellectual woi'k of the school at large 
 is improved by a wholesome interest in a sport which 
 rebukes softness, self-indulgence, and individualism, and 
 emphasizes the bolder virtues. Football interest replaces 
 a vast amount of inferior interest and talk. 
 
 It is vastly easier to teach and govern a school in 
 which men, who are to be eminent college captains and 
 players, are working for immediate and for coming 
 successes, and who win their full share of victories here, 
 and go up to college with a very considerable reputation 
 as promising candidates for class and college teams. 
 
 It is easy to fix upon individual accidents, frequent in- 
 terruption of studies, not infrequent poor preparation of 
 lessons, incidental disorders and slips after victories, 
 inordinate absorption in the critical contests, the large 
 aggregate expense, and to overlook the healthy recrea- 
 tion, the unifying influence, the moral restraint and 
 incentives, the generous rivalries, and the revised and 
 corrected estimates of values which a team made up of 
 good boys, under good discipline and handling, will 
 secure to the whole school. School morals and school 
 morale are the better for this difl^lcult and somewhat 
 
76 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 dangerous sport. The dangers ought to be made less, 
 and the advantages made more obvious and universal. 
 
 Cecil F. P. Bancroft. 
 
 Berkeley School. 
 
 My teachers agree with me and I am really surprised 
 at the unanimity of feeling among our masters in regard 
 to the game. Possibly my own enthusiasm has toppled 
 them all over, but I hardly think so. Their opinions * 
 are certainly honestly given, and I have not appended 
 comments until after consultation with those who, I had 
 reason to believe, would be very conservative. 
 
 Wishing you all success in such a revision of the 
 rules as will make this finest of all games a permanency 
 among our sports for American boys, and with the 
 expression of ray highest esteem for the splendid stand 
 you have always taken in athletics, I am 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 John S. White. 
 
 Bridgeport High School. 
 
 I am fully satisfied that football has been helpful 
 to my boys, and of decided advantage to my school. 
 Improvement along lines of school discipline was more 
 manifest last fall than ever before. With some of our 
 team scholarship has never amounted to much, and we 
 did not realize any decided change. I think, however, 
 that our boys feel more than ever that men of good 
 mental ability must represent the school in this sport, in 
 fact, that mind wins through muscle rather than muscle 
 without mind, 
 
 I expect to see the day when our school will ijot 
 accept athletic work from members of low standing in 
 regular school work. 
 
 * Comments as to the effect of the game upon each boy. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 77 
 
 Trusting that you will succeed in helping to remove 
 some features of roughness in the game, so that our 
 fathers may not be afraid to have all the boys play, 
 I remain, in the interest of all manly sports. 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 H. D. SiMONDS, Principal. 
 
 Mechanic Arts High School, Boston. 
 
 I have referred your letter, and blanks numbered 
 from 73 to 84 inclusive, to Ray Greene Huling, head- 
 master of the Cambridge English High School, and my 
 successor. I am at present in charge of the Boston 
 Mechanic Arts High School, a new institution, without 
 any athletic experience. 
 
 Personally, I am fond of athletic sports, believe in the 
 competitive spirit, have faith in the general good that 
 comes from them, find in them a safe exit for much 
 superfluous energy that might otherwise be worse 
 directed. That is, athletics have a negative moral 
 value in the way suggested, to say nothing of their 
 positive moral value in keeping high ideals of temper- 
 ance, moderation, and such things before the boys. 
 
 I think the present feeling that football is too savage 
 a game, in some of its aspects, is well-grounded, and 
 hope a way may be found to save the game from its 
 harsher features. But these are truisms. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Frank A. Hill. 
 
 English High School. 
 
 My own views about the effect of football upon the 
 boys and upon their school work are these : 
 
 Boys ought to have not only gymnastics but athletics, 
 that they may get strength of body, quickness and pre- 
 cision of movement, and certain moral traits essential 
 
78 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 to the highest manhood, as pluck, alertness, and disposi- 
 tion to co-operate with others for useful ends. 
 
 Being boys, they will carry their athletics to extremes, 
 and will admit unwise accompaniments ; they will also 
 for the sake of athletics permit neglect of home and 
 school duties. 
 
 Therefore I favor the giving to all boys of opportu- 
 nities for athletics in the proper season, and of gym- 
 nastics during winter and inclement weather. But I 
 would also favor the supervision of such sports and 
 gymnasial practice by competent adults, when this is 
 permissible by considerations of expense and residence. 
 In any case I would have the athletics done under such 
 regulations as older minds devise, to secure reasonable 
 safety and gentlemanly conduct, and I would have some 
 authority vested with power to enforce expulsion be- 
 cause of repeated violations of the regulations, and 
 temporary suspension because of strain or other injury 
 to health, and because of neglect of school duties. 
 
 I may add that I observe some positive evidence of 
 loss in scholarship because of interest in athletics among 
 the boys in school. This has been true in every school 
 in which I have taught — in Fall River (1869-75), in 
 Fitchburg (1875-86), in New Bedford (1886-93), and in 
 Cambridge (1893-94); but I appreciate the fact that 
 school is not the only preparation for life. I value the 
 qualities of manliness that come from association of 
 boys in innocent athletics so highly that I am willing to 
 take less in book-knowledge, if I cannot get the manly 
 qualities without some loss of this kind. But I as firmly 
 believe that with due regulation and competent super- 
 vision a proper balance of study and physical exercise 
 can be maintained, resulting in steady growth of mind 
 and body alike. 
 
 There is one more consideration worth mentioning. 
 Our boys by their athletics are sometimes led to asso- 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 79 
 
 ciate with men of a "sporting" type, to the injury of 
 their morals. Bad habits of language, smoking, and 
 drinking have been acquired thus within my personal 
 observation ; and betting has been alleged. This is 
 hard to reach, even with supervision of athletics, but 
 restraints can be imposed to keep the tendency in check ; 
 and the general tone of the school will have some re- 
 straining effect. 
 
 On the whole, you observe, I favor regulated and 
 supervised athletics, though I recognize their positive 
 annoyances and dangers. 
 
 Cordially, 
 Ray Greene Huling, Head-master. 
 
 English High School. 
 
 It is difficult to answer your enquiries by circular 
 about football by " good " or " bad " without qualifica- 
 tion. As the game is now conducted, I am of the 
 opinion that the result on the whole is unmistakably 
 bad. 
 
 Our team was carefully trained this fall and I think 
 the boys of the team were unquestionably benefited 
 physically. But the rest of the school received no good 
 in this way. It is systematic gymnastics or drill, not 
 athletics in any form, that can help the entire school. 
 
 The game makes very little difference in point of 
 general school discipline. It takes a little restlessness 
 out of a few boys who engage in it and gives them 
 a little practice in self-control on the field, which is all 
 the advantages I am able to see. 
 
 The bad effect upon scholarship has always been 
 noted. Our rank lists show it unmistakably. 
 
 The rivalry between schools is a bad element. It 
 may do for college men to cultivate the college spirit, 
 but it is a bad thing in elementary schools. 
 
 I am sorry that I have to make so unfavorable 
 
80 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 a report, for I enjoyed base-ball as a college boy, and 
 like to witness any game, now. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 C. F. Waenee. 
 
 Cambeidge Latin School. 
 
 As to the effect of sports, etc., on the discipline of 
 this school, except in a few cases, I think these have 
 had very little effect. Now and then a boy stays from 
 school, plays truant, because he loses interest in school 
 on account of his greater interests outside. 
 
 Physically, more are injured than helped. I have 
 many who have suffered for years from injury to their 
 knees. Many boys simply ruin their course (intellec- 
 tually) by giving their time to athletics. 
 
 I have seen nothing more to the point than the remarks 
 of President Eliot on athletics in his last annual report. 
 What he says applies to the high schools. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 W. F. Beadbuet, Head-master. 
 
 Chauncy Hall School. 
 
 At present our boys have no organized eleven for 
 football, and consequently there are no boys whose 
 answers to your questions would be valuable. 
 
 So far as football has been played here, I should not 
 have considered its effects as differing in any respect 
 from the effects of other sports — base-ball, track ath- 
 letics, tennis, etc. The tendency of match games of 
 whatever kind is to lead the participants to overdo the 
 business — to neglect their legitimate work for what 
 should be only a recreation. But, after all, I think 
 with us school work suffers more from party-going and 
 theatre-going, late hours, and consequently insufficient 
 sleep, than from all the out-door sports put together. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 81 
 
 I am sorry that I cannot give the detailed answers to 
 your questions that you would like. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 M. Grant Daniell. 
 
 Colgate Academy. 
 Replying to your letter of the 1st of March, I take 
 pleasure in stating briefly my own opinion about foot- 
 ball. We have been very fortunate this year in our foot- 
 ball, inasmuch as no accident has occurred. I believe 
 that last year, before I came, one or two quite serious 
 injuries were reported. I played football myself, and 
 in part in intercollegiate contests, and in ray personal 
 experience as a player never saw any one seriously hurt 
 on the field. I myself was never hurt at all except, of 
 course, the bruises and occasionally a black eye that 
 seem to be inseparable from the game. I am confident 
 that in a game rightly controlled it can be made to be 
 of great physical advantage, contributing to the good 
 discipline of the school. There is something in the 
 nature of boys that makes them particularly love a game 
 that is hard, into which the element of endurance and, 
 to a certain extent, suffering enters. Moreover, the 
 game has been in many instances helpful in training 
 men in self-control and subjugation of temper as no 
 other means could do, I have, however, been impressed 
 the last year or so with Avhat seemed to be an increasing 
 roughness of the game, and I have noted a strong 
 popular disapproval of many of its features. It has 
 seemed to me, therefore, that unless the rules of the 
 game could be so remedied as to remove all opportunity 
 for unnecessary brutality, that it could not continue to 
 hold its place in the favor of schools and colleges. In 
 one game that our boys played last year such a ferocious 
 spirit was exhibited by their opponents that I could 
 not consent under anv circumstances to allow them to 
 
82 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 play there again. Football can never be made a game 
 for invalids, but I am §ure that something can be done 
 to check the tendency to ferocity and brutality. Unless 
 something is done in this direction, I shall not feel that 
 I can conscientiously give it any longer the hearty sup- 
 port that I hitherto have given it. I take pleasure in 
 enclosing herewith statements from members of our 
 team. Yours truly, 
 
 C. H. Thurber, Principal. 
 
 Connecticut Literary Institution. 
 I am much interested in the matter of your letter, 
 but it will take a few days to communicate with our 
 football men, some of whom are on vacation. 
 
 I wish also to write out my own views and secure those 
 members of the faculty most in touch with athletics. 
 This effort I most cheerfully undertake because I shall 
 be glad to see sports protected from unreasonable advo- 
 cates and opponents, and their rightful place generally 
 conceded. With best wislies. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 The Cutler School. 
 The popularity of the game here is shown by the fact 
 that in a school of 180 boys we had five football' teams 
 last autumn. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Arthur H. Cutler. 
 
 English and Classical School. 
 
 My boys are away now on their vacation and perhaps 
 any reply may be too late. 
 
 I can say for them that they have received many 
 bruises, sprains, and abrasions of the skin. One boy 
 had a cut over the eye which required a few stitches, 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 83 
 
 and one was thrown hard to the ground and was dazed 
 for a while, but each attended to his school duties the 
 next day. No one has received any severe or permanent 
 injury. 
 
 I am not aware that the sport has had any injurious 
 effect on the scholarship or discipline of the school, and 
 it certainly has improved the health and physical 
 development of the players and awakened new interest 
 in athletics among all the boj'^s of the school. 
 
 The contests between school elevens seem to increase 
 the loyal sentiment and thus react favorably in many 
 ways upon the scholarship and discipline of the 
 school. 
 
 Still I hope the dangers will be eliminated and brute 
 force will give place to strategy and skill. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Chas. B. GoFF, Principal. 
 
 The Phillips Exeter Academy. 
 Your letter has been carefully considered b}'- our 
 faculty. I enclose the blanks. 
 
 I may add that we believe in athletics when properly 
 managed, and should not like to abolish sports; but we 
 disapprove the sharp practices that sometimes grow out 
 of inter-scholastic contests. 
 
 We shall be glad to know the general result of your 
 enquiries. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 J. A. Tufts, Secretary of Faculty. 
 
 Germantovtn Academy. 
 
 The Easter holidays have prevented me from reply- 
 ing to your favor of March 20. 
 
 Germantown Academy has had a football team for 
 seventeen years and has generally been very active in 
 
84 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 all school sports. We hold the championship in the 
 Inter- Academic League of Philadelphia and vicinity, and 
 I think there has scarcely been a season that we have 
 not defeated the Freshmen teams of the university. I 
 mention this to show you that we have had a very large 
 experience in football, and during all that time have not 
 had a single accident that has resulted in serious or 
 permanent injury. 
 
 The best student makes the best football playei-, and I 
 consider the general effect of the sport upon the boys 
 good, both physically and mentally. 
 
 I return you nine of the blanks signed by members of 
 my present team, two are still absent. 
 
 My general answer above covers questions 5 and 6 
 of every blank. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 William Kershaw. 
 
 Girls' High and Latin Schools. 
 You will probably smile when I tell you that the two 
 schools of which I have charge contain together about 
 one thousand girls. I have read your questions with 
 considerable amusement, and can only regret that my 
 experience does not qualify me to assist you in your 
 efforts to ascertain how football affects the secondary 
 schools. In fact, I haven't a boy even in my family, all 
 my children being girls. You could hardly have found 
 in the United States a school-master more incompetent to 
 enlighten you. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 John Tetlow, Head-master. 
 
 Groton School. 
 I will not write to you at length my views upon foot- 
 ball in its relation to school life, because I have already 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 85 
 
 told you my ideas in part, and I shall have an oppor- 
 tunity to express them more fully in person. It is ray 
 opinion that while football is not free from objectiona- 
 ble features even in schools where interest is taken in 
 it by the masters, it has advantages which far outweigh 
 these defects. 
 
 There is, no doubt, a tendency on the part of boys to 
 lay too much stress upon the importance of the chief 
 matches, to dream of them as they draw near, instead of 
 devoting themselves to their books, and to unduly ex- 
 aggerate the importance of victory. In some schools, as 
 in some of the colleges, it seems to be thought necessary 
 to make allowance for shortcomings of the members of 
 the football team in the height of the season. But this 
 is by no means the fault of the game. 
 
 When the game is fairly played (and without an 
 honorable spirit all games are harmful) it cultivates 
 some of the most important qualities for our times. It 
 develops in players a spirit of courage, and a willingness 
 to endure fatigue and pain, which are qualities most 
 needed in these days of luxury and extravagance. It 
 supplies boys with a healthy subject for conversation. 
 People may think that it prevents the discussions of 
 intellectual topics, but these are not likely to occupy the 
 spare time of the average school-boy. Under favorable 
 circumstances football, and athletics generally, run out 
 a lot of poor stuff which enters into the thoughts and 
 lives of young men who are more fond of society and 
 the gentle games than of these more stirring sports. 
 There are many other qualities which are brought out 
 by football, but these three — endurance for the sake of 
 the institution which one is representing, simplicity of 
 life, and healthy conversation — are things which are not, 
 as it seems to me, generally recognized by the world at 
 large. To my mind, luxurj'-, extravagance, and immo- 
 rality are the greatest foes to the young men of this, or 
 
86 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 of any other country, and I gladly hail a game like foot- 
 ball which tends to drive these evils out. 
 I am, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Endicott Peabodt. 
 
 Hakey Hillman Academy. 
 
 I have the pleasure to forward the blanks sent me 
 with answers where it was possible to obtain them. 
 You will notice a note of my own at the bottom of one 
 of the blanks. 
 
 We have no training table at this school, nor do we 
 carry the playing of the gaine to excess. 
 
 I do not approve of school teams travelling about the 
 country, but in our case it has been necessary to go 
 away sometimes in order to secure worthy opponents. 
 We have generally had a teacher play upon the team 
 whose knowledge of the game was of advantage to the 
 team and whose presence at games prevented any thing 
 unbecoming from taking place. 
 
 I see quite clearly that games in secondary schools 
 should receive careful supervision. A number of other 
 matters concerning this manly game receive our atten- 
 tion, but I presume would be of no special service to 
 you in this connection. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 H. C. Davis. 
 
 Haktford Public High School. 
 I enclose replies from our football eleven, and am 
 sorry that the delay has occurred. 
 
 There can be no question as to the general good 
 effect of the game upon our boys and upon the school. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Charles Henry Douglas. 
 
letters from members of the faculty 87 
 
 The Highland Military Academy. 
 Youi' kind enquiry is by no means an intrusion, 
 but very welcome. While athletics have not flour- 
 ished with us as in some civil schools, because of the 
 prominence of the military element in our curriculum, 
 we have found athletic sports among our cadets to 
 be every way helpful and inspiring. Under a system 
 less strict than ours I can understand how athleticism 
 might be carried so far as to interfere with good scholar- 
 ship, but such a state of things does not exist here. 
 I will gladly hand your blanks to the captain of our 
 football eleven. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Joseph Alden Shaw. 
 
 The Hotchkiss School. 
 
 I enclose to-day the forms sent me to be filled out. 
 Your question as to the effect of football on the indi- 
 vidual is very difficult to answer, especially as we have 
 no school teams and no outside competitions. For the 
 outside competitions are, I think, usually the source of 
 most of the unfortunate excesses in school athletics. 
 
 As to the connection of athletics, i. e., competitive 
 contests, with physical development, I consider them 
 occasions for exhibiting the valuable results of physical 
 health and culture, by the tests which they afford. 
 But I do not consider them as having any direct connec- 
 tion with physical culture itself. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Edward G. Coy. 
 
 Dr. Holbrook's Military School. 
 Our experience with football and, indeed, all athletics, 
 has been that, under restrictions, they have been of 
 great benefit to our boys physically ; and we have 
 
88 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 found that what benefits them physically renders them 
 capable of more and better mental work. 
 
 The casualties among our pupils have been much less 
 since they played football systematically, i. e., with 
 proper clothing and training, than when we made no 
 such restrictions. 
 
 Of course we cannot speak for college students, but it 
 seems to us that the game, for school-boys, would be 
 much improved if the danger from what I understand 
 to be " mass" plays could be lessened in some way. 
 
 Aside from that we feel that it is a benefit in every 
 way to our boys. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Henbt C. Holbeook. 
 
 Hopkins Grammar School. 
 
 My general opinion of the effect upon the school is 
 favorable, though last year we had three serious acci- 
 dents in one game. I wish that the danger of physical 
 injury could be lessened either by more open play or in 
 some other fashion. 
 
 Of the beneficial moral effect I have had two striking 
 illustrations in the school. There were two boys who 
 on entering the school seemed likely to turn out milk- 
 sops. They were timid, shy, and difiident to the last 
 degree. They both began to play football and con- 
 tinued to do so as long as they were in the school. 
 
 The grandmother of one of them, who was his guardian, 
 was very solicitous about the game and its roughness, but 
 she had to acknowledge to me that her grandson was 
 growing more manly and courageous under it. 
 
 Those boys became in time thoroughly self-reliant 
 and plucky, and I am disposed to ascribe the change in 
 large measure to the discipline of football. 
 Yours in haste, 
 
 George L. Fox. 
 
letters pbom members op the faculty 89 
 
 King's School, 
 I have never known a boy to study less faithfully 
 because of football, and I have sometimes known boys 
 to study much better because of it ; finding they could 
 succeed in football has seemed to start a desire to suc- 
 ceed in other kinds of work, for football, properly man- 
 aged in school, has a decided element of work in it. 
 
 I want to say in this connection that I consider the 
 recently introduced massed plays not only a great dis- 
 advantage but a positive danger to school-boy teams. 
 Teams from different schools are much more apt to 
 differ in weight than college teams, and in those massed 
 plays a twenty-five pounds difference in average weight 
 is damaging and may be disastrous. These plays have 
 certainly introduced an additional element of danger, 
 and parents know it W'ell enough to show an increased 
 unwillingness to allow their boys to play. Last season 
 I was unwilling for the first time to try to overcome 
 parents' unwillingness by reasoning with them. In this 
 indirect way it seems to me that those plays will soon 
 affect unfavorably the college teams. 
 
 Youi's very truly, 
 
 Hiram N. King. 
 
 Jaevis Hall Military Academy. 
 I know that the game did more for me mentally, mor- 
 ally, and physically, than anything else in my college life. 
 I went to college timid and weak, and I graduated with 
 a confidence in my own poAvers and physical strength 
 which have been worth every thing to me. Physi- 
 cally one might have said that I would have been killed 
 by the game, for I was 6 ft. 1 in. tall, and only weighed 
 137 pounds. The position I played every day for nearly 
 two seasons, of full-back on the scrub team, required me 
 to kick against the 'varsity with such a weak line in front 
 of me that I usually was thrown as soon as I had kicked. 
 
90 FOOTBALL FACTS AND PIGtTRES 
 
 The only injury I received was in playing against the 
 University of Pennsylvania. I was thrown out of 
 bounds and struck on my shoulder on a ridge of earth 
 which should not have been there. 
 
 The argument for roughness is an argument for 
 ignorance. The real argument against football as played 
 in our colleges I believe to be that the selection of a 
 team and their careful training gives too few men a 
 chance to play. A broken bone is a small thing com- 
 pared with the coolness, the self-control, and the manly 
 spirit which football more than any other sport gives to 
 the player. If colleges exist only to teach Latin and 
 Greek they might as well close, for nine-tenths of the 
 graduates knew more of the dead languages when they 
 entered than when they graduated ; but if the colleges 
 exist to make men, football is the most important part 
 of the course. The only trouble is that under our pres- 
 ent system so few can " elect " it. 
 
 Thanking you for giving me the privilege of writing 
 upon the subject, I am. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 F. T. Spalding. 
 
 Laweencevillb School. 
 
 Notwithstanding the somewhat favorable report given 
 by our school physician, whose letter I enclose, and 
 notwithstanding my own endorsement of the game of 
 football, I am constrained to say that it works dis- 
 astrously in a fitting-school of high grade. This year 
 only one member of our team is to be graduated. Every 
 other member of the team has either been dropped from 
 his class, dropped from the school, or as is the case with 
 the captain, seriously injured and compelled to leave the 
 institution. 
 
 You know our Mr, George, Pi'inceton's famous centre 
 rush. He and I frequently talk over the game of foot- 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 91 
 
 ball played by boys in a fitting-school. Our conclusion 
 is that if these boys play occasionally with college teams, 
 as do Andover, Exeter, and Lawrenceville, they are un- 
 equal to the strain of the necessary training. Some- 
 thing should be done to diminish the demand upon grow- 
 ing boys. We have played football here for ten years, 
 and play it well enough to score against the 'varsity 
 team at Princeton. Tlie physical injuries are a bagatelle, 
 and I make no account of them, but the positive and 
 indisputable injury to scholarship creates grave question- 
 ing in my mind. Very truly yours, 
 
 James C. Mackinzie. 
 
 Lawrenceville. 
 
 I gladly make a report upon the football team of our 
 school. Whether this sport per se has a bad effect 
 upon scholarship I cannot say. Unfortunately the foot- 
 ball players (team men) are rather poor scholars. 
 
 We have had 175 boys from twelve years old to nine- 
 teen who played more or less all the fall. Only eighteen 
 of this number lost any time from their work by injuries 
 received. 
 
 The injuries were as follows : 
 
 Fracture tibia and fibula, 1 
 
 Sprains, 8 
 
 Synovitis (knee) 3 
 
 Fractured nose, 1 
 
 Contusions, 5 
 
 In all these accidents there was a perfect recovery. 
 
 One case not mentioned on the blanks was an injury 
 to the head, and causing a severe contusion from which 
 the boy has not fully recovered, and is out of school. 
 
 The injury was not very troublesome at the time but 
 caused disturbance after his return to his home. 
 
 In general I believe in the game, and it is a good form 
 of exercise. Yours truly, 
 
 Hubert S. Johnson. 
 
92 football facts and figures 
 
 Milton Academy. 
 
 I find it hard to answer the questions regarding the 
 effect of the game on boys so specifically as you wish, 
 and must beg you to allow me to answer them generally 
 on this sheet. 
 
 The injuries received here have been few and not 
 serious, although this is a young school, and practice until 
 this year has not been very vigorous (owing to the fact 
 that we have not had enough good material to enable us 
 to play other private schools with much chance of beat- 
 ing, and games have been rather few. 
 
 I am an ardent supporter of the game as played in 
 such schools as this, where the games and practice are 
 overseen by teachers and where often teachers play and 
 act as referee or umpire. I am equally opposed to the 
 game as played by many college teams, and object to the 
 code of morality which prevails at present among the 
 college players. 
 
 I do not believe this necessary, because when I insist 
 upon visiting teams conforming to our code they have 
 almost always been glad to do so, and some players have 
 said to me afterward that they approved gentlemanly 
 mode of play and were glad I insisted on it. 
 
 This moral side of the question I consider the most 
 important with regard to the existence of the game. As 
 to the physical effect I think it thoroughly good, and 
 should look forward with dread to an autumn without 
 our football practice and games. 
 
 The risk of injury, it seems to me, amounts to noth- 
 ing, and it is a game that brings out the qualities of grit 
 and endurance. 
 
 There have been at times four elevens practising at 
 once on our grounds with a total number in the school of 
 about sixty boys, between twelve and eighteen years. 
 What would these forty-four boys be doing, if they were 
 not at football ? 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 93 
 
 I used to say that the autumn term was the football 
 terra and the spring term the base-ball term, and that 
 the winter term was the time to study. I find, however, 
 that quite as good work is done during the football 
 season, and that the members of the eleven do as well 
 then as at any time. 
 
 From the i^w standpoint of physical development I 
 can hardly approve of the game. 
 
 For a person aiming at that I should think chest 
 weights, boxing, fencing, running, horseback, etc., would 
 be better than one violent game like this. 
 
 I think the game has rather a good effect on disci- 
 pline, but we have very little discipline here, not having 
 or keeping any boys not fairly willing to conform to 
 rules. 
 
 I hope you will pardon the form of my reply. The sub- 
 ject is one that interests me as a teacher of boys, though 
 I am not a football player, and have merely played with 
 the boys partly to help out and partly to learn the game 
 and not be a mere theorist. 
 
 If I can answer any further questions I shall be 
 glad to. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Harbison O. Apthorp. 
 
 • New Britain High School. 
 
 I do not know, indeed, I do not think, that their 
 interest in football has affected the course of the players 
 materially. Some have been good scholars, others poor 
 ones, and I presume would have been much the same 
 anyhow. 
 
 I think the discipline of the game on the whole con- 
 duces to general self-control, and so the effect upon the 
 school is good. 
 
 "While the game contributes unquestionably to good 
 physical development, I cannot but deprecate the 
 
94 rOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 dangers that have, it seems to me, grown into it year 
 by year. There ought to be more decided restrictions 
 in regard to methods of playing, and they should be 
 enforced. Some would then play who will not, or are 
 not permitted to, play now. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 John H. Peck. 
 
 The Princeton Preparatory School. 
 I thoroughly believe that most of the objections made 
 by the public to our noble sport are wrongly founded 
 and conceived. My own experience tells me that foot- 
 ball has been invaluable for its physical development and 
 its teaching of restraint of temper, and of self-posses- 
 sion. The injury which I mention* was received while 
 playing with our school team last year and was the 
 result of a kick in the mouth in a tackle. At the time 
 I was laughing because one of the boys had succeeded in 
 passing me and I made a dive for him. While in col- 
 lege I never had any trouble except with black ej'^es, 
 sprained ankles, which inevitable things were very rare 
 with me. The only two cases of sprained ankle befell 
 me when not properly protected by ankle-braces. It is 
 a noble game for strong, well-built men' It is of course 
 too noble for physical weaklings. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 C. T. Wood. 
 
 Public Latin School. 
 
 I am an earnest advocate of school athletics, but 
 I would make the practice of them a part of the school 
 curriculum wherever it is practicable. It would not be 
 practical in this school. 
 
 I do not see why this is not practicable in colleges, 
 
 * Noted on one of the blanks as Mr. Wood played with the 
 school team. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 95 
 
 academies, and boarding schools ; I mean in institutions 
 where pupils are in aggregations, under the control of 
 the masters all the time. I do not think that out-door 
 athletics have much effect on school discipline any way. 
 I think military drill promotes and strengthens dis- 
 cipline. There is no doubt in my mind about the effect 
 of athletics upon scholarship, especially while pupils are 
 actually engaged in them. They distract the attention, 
 lessen the time for study, and absorb to a large degree 
 the thoughts and conversation of pupils. The winter 
 season saves the utter prostration of scholarship in many 
 instances. There can be no question, as it seems to me, 
 that the effect is good in point of physical development 
 when carried on under proper rules and limitations. 
 There should be no uncontrolled freedom, or license, of 
 athletics in any institution of learning, 
 
 I agree generally with President Eliot in his views as 
 stated in the last report of Harvard University. I think, 
 so far as our pupils have been able to engage in athletics 
 in our school, the effect has not been bad — perhaps on the 
 whole good. Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Moses Merrill, Head-master. 
 
 Salem High School. 
 I have never noticed any ill effects of any consequence 
 resulting from properly controlled football in mj' school. 
 It does not interfere with discipline; it need not inter- 
 fere with study; and it adds to the spirit of the school. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. L, Goodrich, Principal. 
 
 St. Albans School. 
 Replying to your favor of March 1 in regard to the 
 effect that the game of football has had upon the boys 
 of this school both physically and in the matter of school 
 discipline, I beg to say : 
 
96 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 1st. I think that there are boys in the school who 
 owe much to this game for the health, strength, and 
 activity derived from it. When some of them get to 
 be sixty and seventy years of age, they will be all the 
 more hearty and vigorous old men for the football they 
 have played in their youth. 
 
 2d. During the past two years, although we have 
 had many match games and constant practice, we have 
 had no player injured so as to prevent his attending 
 regularly his school duties. This has been largely due 
 to the intelligent coaching the boys have received, hav- 
 ing had either a Yale or a Princeton player in chai'ge of 
 them both years. 
 
 3d. In the matter of school discipline, I find that 
 football has a great deal to do with checking and 
 destroying the inclination of boys to dime novels, 
 cigarettes, intoxicants and the like, which, disguise it as 
 we may, are always lurking about the growing boy to 
 sap his health and mental and moral tone. Stagnant 
 pools breed things, and I take it that football and its 
 kindred healthy sports, such as rowing, base-ball, tennis, 
 and the like, are like a healthy, fresh current turned in 
 upon the boy's life. It flushes the ducts and avenues 
 of his being, prevents deceit, morbidness ; makes him 
 manlier, freer, franker, and healthier. 
 
 4th. I find that boys respect and obey authority all 
 the better when they find it has intelligent sympathy with 
 their out-door sports and games. 
 
 5th. From my experience and observation I am in favor 
 of football on general principles. The pinch-chested 
 ecclesiastic of the Middle Ages has been our student- 
 ideal long enough. It is about time we were returning 
 to the symmetrical Greek who could write a choral ode 
 one day and race in the Olympic games the next. 
 
 With cordial regards, very truly yours, 
 
 Geo. W. Miles, Jr., Head-master. 
 
letters from members of the faculty 97 
 
 St. Albans School. 
 
 It is with great pleasure I give my testimony to aid 
 football. I am very fond of the game and think most 
 people do not understand its principles, and are too apt 
 to oppose it. 
 
 I am heartily in accord with what you are trj'^ing to 
 do and am willing to give a helping hand whenever I can. 
 
 I have been liere at St. Albans this past year and 
 trained the boys last fall. 
 
 We are all very enthusiastic over the game and feel 
 that nothing but good has resulted to us from our play- 
 ing. None of the boys was hurt, although in every 
 game we averaged about twenty pounds less than the 
 opposing team and won every game. 
 
 If I had my college course to go over again I would 
 feel that I was hurting myself physically and not get- 
 ting all the good I could if I did not play football. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Joseph G. Symmes, Jr. 
 
 St. Paul's School. 
 I am very sorry to have missed you, as I hoped to get 
 many points which would further our sport at school 
 and perhaps give you a few suggestions as to the diffi- 
 culties of the game from an educational standpoint. If 
 the return to the rough and ready Rugby is impossible, 
 perhaps the chief difficulties or objections to this game 
 would be met by prohibiting all off-side play, and fur- 
 thering kicking and running at tlie same time by some 
 such arrangement as this, which would also give the 
 umpire a chance to see any intentional roughness : 
 Allow only four men of each side on the line at a down, 
 including the quarter-back, any of whom may run with 
 the ball if he receives it from tlie quarter-back while 
 on side, all others to be behind the nearest ten-yard line 
 till the ball is in play. The point seems to me to be 
 7 
 
98 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 to make a game where a good man, light or heavy, 
 will succeed, and where the chances for intentional 
 roughness and rule-breaking would be minimized, and 
 the game equalized between those who have and those 
 who have not the ball. Yours, 
 
 j. p. conovek. 
 
 St. Paul's School. 
 I consider the sport valuable in every way for my 
 school. Please do away with the " mass play," and 
 there will be no difficulty. 
 
 Fredk. L, Gam age. 
 
 St. Mark's School, 
 
 In reply to your enquiry in regard to the effect of the 
 game of football upon the boys of St. Mark's school, I 
 beg to say that I consider that in point of discipline and 
 physical development it has been of great advantage to 
 my boys, 
 
 I am not, however, satisfied with the lines along 
 which the game has been developed during the past 
 two or three years, and I think its efficiency is likely to 
 be seriously impaired unless some radical changes are 
 made in the rules, and vigorous measures are taken to 
 confine the game to its proper place, which is to furnish 
 healthful exercise and out-of-door recreation. 
 
 At present the game has attained a position of too 
 great importance in school-boy life. 
 
 With my wishes for your success in regulating football, 
 I am. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Wm. E. Peck, Head-master. 
 
 Thayer Academy. 
 The Thayer Academy has no football team and there 
 were but four of the boys who played on a team last 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 99 
 
 autumn. Of these four, the chief and most active has 
 just been dismissed from school for inattention to study 
 and misdemeanor after a protracted probation, while of 
 the other three it is only to be said that they are fair 
 scholars and have never been subject to criticism for 
 conduct. No accident Las happened that I remember 
 beyond the dislocation of a finger. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 J. B. Sewall. 
 
 Westminster School. 
 As to the effects of football upon my boys, I have 
 only a favorable report to give. I regard the discipline 
 of training and playing games, whether the boys win or 
 lose, as an indispensable adjunct to the school curric- 
 ulum. It is not necessary for me to repeat the cata- 
 logue of advantages which make football in a school 
 superior to all other games. I may add from my own 
 experience that I have found it even helpful to scholar- 
 ship. The majority of our honor boys from week to 
 week has consisted of the best football players, and 
 when the season ends a falling off in scholarship is 
 noticeable. All our boys play except those who are 
 forbidden by their doctors to do so. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 W. L. Gushing. 
 
 William Penn Charter School. 
 We have been playing football in this school from 
 the season of 1887 to the present time. During this 
 period we have held the championship about one-half 
 the time. We have had no serious accident whatever, 
 either in games or in practice. You will see by one of 
 the enclosed papers that Marshall reports his collar- 
 bone and one rib broken. .That, however, did not occur 
 in either a school game or school practice. It was done 
 
100 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 by playing with older and untrained men. We attrib- 
 ute our immunity from accident to the employment of 
 the first teaching talent, in this department, procurable 
 in the country. Kobert H. Corwin, George W. Wood- 
 ruff, and Henry Lane Williams have been in charge of 
 this sport. We regard the influence of football in our 
 school as good, and only good. 
 
 You will find after careful investigation that the evils 
 all arise from belonging to leagues and associations, and 
 holding the contest in grounds outside of the colleges 
 and in big towns. In order to win in these affairs, 
 which attract such a vast amount of attention, too 
 great effort must be made and too great sacrifice. The 
 moment you push a hoy or young man so far in this 
 sport or any other that he becomes in any measure or in 
 any sense a professional, you have gone too far ; and 
 you must train your teams to this point if you win in 
 national contests. 
 
 I am, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Richard M. Jones, M. A., Head-master. 
 
 WiLLiSTON Seminary. 
 Under such regulations as we are able to enforce 
 in a preparatory school, we consider football conducive 
 to a healthy, vigorous school-life. 
 
 We are so well satisfied that its advantages decidedly 
 outweigh its disadvantages that we do not hesitate to 
 give it our hearty encouragement and support. 
 
 The colleges must take the initiative in reducing the 
 disadvantages to a minimum. In the nature of the case 
 the secondary schools can merely imitate, and the ten- 
 dency of the human nature we deal with is to exag- 
 gerate the objectionable features. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 William Gallagher, Principal. 
 
letters from members of the faculty 101 
 
 Worcester Academy. 
 
 I have personally with great enthusiasm encouraged 
 and built up, in all proper ways, an interest in football 
 during a twelve years' administration of this school. I 
 firmly believe in tlie great virtues of the sport, and yet 
 at the same time I welcome the prospect of a reform of 
 the game and a pruning of the features which have 
 grown into it, which to my thinking are foreign both to 
 the spirit and to the right tactics of football. 
 
 I wish to acknowledge my warm personal apprecia- 
 tion, as principal of a lai'ge school of boys, of the 
 influence which is proceeding from you to bring the 
 game to a sane condition. As a graduate of Harvard I 
 gladly bear testimony to the great obligation to you 
 under which all lovers of this manly sport rest. I am 
 in full sympathy with the general criticisms upon 
 it in President Eliot's last report to the Overseers 
 of Harvard University. I doubt much, however, the 
 expediency and wisdom of some of his specific recom- 
 mendations. I am very frequently in receipt of letters 
 from the parents of my boys, who very severely criticise 
 the game. Only this morning a father of two of my 
 boys prophesied success to the school that first dared to 
 withstand football. While I believe that this is a very 
 extreme position, I still feel that there is mucli occasion 
 for the disrepute in which it rests in the minds of many 
 thoughtful men, and shall cordially co-operate, as far as 
 lies in my power, with all steps toward a proper reform 
 of the game. 
 
 Regretting the delay in returning these blanks, I am, 
 Very sincerel3^ yours, 
 
 D. W. Abercrombie. 
 
 Amherst College. 
 While football has been played at Amherst for some 
 time the game has commanded the general interest of 
 
102 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 the college only within the last three years. For this 
 period the official records of the college show that nearly 
 one-half of the men playing on the three elevens were 
 in the first half of the class in scholarship. Nor would 
 the instructors of the other half assign football, I think, 
 as the principal or even as a noticeable cause of the 
 lower rank of these students. 
 
 No just inference, however, can be drawn in regard to 
 the effect of football at Amherst without an undei-- 
 standing of the attitude of the college toward athletics 
 in general. Exercises in physical training are not only 
 a part of the college curriculum, but are required of 
 every student. By this requirement a certain capital in 
 the way of physical training is provided, upon which 
 the student can draw for special uses without extra 
 demands upon his time. Another result is that the 
 student comes unconsciously to put phj^sical training in 
 its proper place. It is simply a valued and honored 
 means to a higher end. And so, our students who have 
 the ability to win other honors are rarely satisfied with 
 honors in athletics alone, however prominent may be 
 their position. Neither does the athlete find that the 
 faculty has given up other expectations of him, provided 
 that he is capable of distinguishing himself in other 
 directions. 
 
 In my own department, which is that of rhetoric and 
 public speaking, I look in each class lai'gely to the men 
 excelling in athletics as the men who are to excel in 
 writing and speaking. When I am sometimes asked 
 with surprise why this is so, my answer is, Why not ? 
 what is more natural ? The physical development and 
 training not only give what is in part an essential basis 
 of the orator, but the discipline of the base-ball, football, 
 and general athletic field also begets an alertness of 
 mind, an intensity of will, a force of character, and 
 especially an ability to command all of one's resources, 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 103 
 
 physical, mental, and moral, for an instant purpose, which 
 are alwaj^s necessary to give to public speech the per- 
 sonal qualities that only can make it largely and highly 
 effective. This is not simply theory. At our Junior 
 Exhibition, in which the best ten writers and speakers 
 of their class compete for prizes in the delivery of origi- 
 nal orations, three captains of the base-ball team and 
 three gymnasium captains have, within six years, been 
 prominent competitors. Because of the expected appear- 
 ance of this class of men at these competitions the time 
 of the exhibition has recently been changed. Hereto- 
 fore the exhibition has come on the evening of the da}^ of 
 a gymnasium contest and a league game of base-ball. 
 But as this arrangement, while adding interest to the 
 day, has placed the athletic men at such disadvantage 
 in literary competitions, the exhibition has been put at 
 another time than that of the gymnastic and base-ball 
 contests. 
 
 W. H. Lewis, captain of the '92 football eleven, won, 
 commencement week, the first prize at the Hardy Debate, 
 and the equivalent of the Hyde prize in oratory. C. J. 
 Sullivan of the same class, and captain of the base-ball 
 team for three years, was a Kellog prize speaker, fresh- 
 man year, and a Lester prize orator, junior year. A. E. 
 Stearns, the present base-ball captain, has had the same 
 honors, and has been appointed class orator commence- 
 ment week. K. G. Colby, the pitcher, has already won 
 honors as a writer and a speaker. Other members of the 
 team, last year, had special distinction in the same lines, 
 as will probably be the case this year. 
 
 Nor do our students who excel in football, base-ball, 
 and general athletics fail to be represented in the honors 
 which go with high scholarship. Of the members of 
 the three elevens standing in the first half of the class 
 six Avere leading scholars. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that there is no necessary antagon- 
 
104 FOOTBALL TACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 ism between physical and mental excellence as the 
 results of athletic sports and contests. Neither is it 
 inevitable that physical superiority, as shown in such 
 sports and contests, is to create false standards, and to 
 have a value in the minds of students other than its true 
 worth. 
 
 Henry A. Frink, Professor Logic. 
 
 Beloit College. 
 
 Mr. Atkinson has referred to me your communi- 
 cation relative to the effect of football upon the 
 students of the college. I have no hesitancy in saying 
 that the effect has been valuable in every way. It is 
 noticeable that in a majority of cases scholarship is 
 improved by reason of the training received in football. 
 Severe as the bodily exercise is at times, it seems to react 
 favorably upon the mental powers. 
 
 While it is frequently true that our best athletes and 
 football players are not our best scholars, yet in a 
 majority of cases their scholarship improves while they 
 are undergoing training. There ai*e some notable 
 instances in the college in which men have been aroused 
 to better work in their studies, have lost their old-time 
 indifference, simply because of their work upon the 
 team. 
 
 Their experience there has given them new life and 
 new interest. The faculty has recognized this fact and 
 has removed the old requirement that students must 
 stand seventy-five before they can take part in base-ball 
 or football. They are now on the same plane as other 
 students in the matter of standing, that is, any student 
 can go on to the football squad provided his standing is 
 above seventy. The results of football on discipline are 
 noteworthy. 
 
 The rowdiness and lawlessness which so often in the 
 past have characterized portions of the student body 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 105 
 
 have disappeared. Men find a more legitimate outlet 
 for their animal spirits in the training of the football 
 field. I like the bearing of the men ; they seem to me to 
 be above the average in manliness. The qualities of self- 
 reliance, coolness, resourcefulness are the especial prop- 
 erty of football men, and it is well to note that these quali- 
 ties are not gained in the class-room. Football has been 
 of inestimable value here in arousing college spirit and 
 enthusiasm. Many colleges like Beloit, with 250 or 300 
 students, lack that esprit cle corps which is so remark- 
 able a feature in many Eastern institutions. 
 
 Football in Beloit the past year has aroused this spirit ; 
 it has welded the students into one compact whole, and 
 given them a unity of feeling and purpose such as is 
 rarely seen here. College loyalty has especially been 
 developed, and that alone has justified the existence of 
 football here. In doing this sort of work football has 
 rendered a great but unappreciated service. Cut out 
 from the student's life the enthusiasms and experiences 
 connected with the athletic field and you blot out the 
 most exhilarating and stimulating portion of his college 
 life, that portion which will longest live in his memory'-, 
 and longest live to cheer him. Athletics, as represented 
 in football and in other lines, give the students experi- 
 ences which they cannot afford to be without and which 
 will be of lasting benefit. I feel perfecth' justified in 
 saying that football has been a blessing to Beloit College 
 and to the students in every way ; only those who wil- 
 fully sliut their eyes to the fact can deny it. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Geo. L. Collie. 
 
 BowDoiN" College. 
 The genuine interest manifested by the members of 
 the college faculty goes far to prove the hearty 
 approval with Avhich football is regarded in Bowdoin 
 
106 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 College. Excesses and many objectionable features 
 which have developed in many institutions are by no 
 means so apparent with us. 
 
 Football, when played in an honest, manly way (as I 
 believe it is here), is regarded as a healthful and bene- 
 ficial sport. Yet its faults are by no means overlooked, 
 and among the latter I should surely mention the ten- 
 dency toward " mass " and "momentum" plays, which 
 has of late been so widely and justly criticised. 
 
 I may add that it is a noteworthy fact (I think ours 
 not an exceptional case) that, with us, the majority of 
 football players are men of high standing in their 
 classes. So far, at least, participation in this game seems 
 in no wise to have interfered badly with the routine 
 work of the college. 
 
 Geoege T. Files. 
 
 Brown University. 
 From twenty years' experience I am satisfied that the 
 influence of intercollegiate athletic contests is beneficial 
 to the great body of students. Severe restrictions on 
 the part of the faculty are not so much needed as sym- 
 pathetic guidance. I do not think football at present 
 so desirable as general athletics or base-ball, but prefer 
 it to boating for intercollegiate contests. 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Nathl. F. Davis. 
 
 The College op the City of New York. 
 Casual observation for many years, during which the 
 manner of playing football has had many changes, does 
 not indicate to me that the game has had anj'^ effect, 
 either good or bad, upon the scholarship or discipline of 
 our students. Probably this is due to the circumstance 
 that few of our students play the game, owing to the 
 fact that practice grounds are not easily accessible, and 
 
LETTERS PROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 107 
 
 most of our students are not physically eligible for a 
 team. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 FitzGerald Tisdall. 
 
 Colorado College. 
 I may say that in the short time I have been con- 
 nected with Colorado College and Cutler Academy, 
 athletics have been wholesome in their effect on the 
 Avhole life of our students. The fact that we are too 
 far away from competing teams, and that money is too 
 scarce to make great expenditure possible, may account 
 for the wholly good influence which I am satisfied our 
 sports have produced. 
 
 I am much interested in the investigation you are 
 making and wish I might give you something of 
 greater value. 
 
 Veiy truly yours, 
 
 M. C. GiLE. 
 
 P. S. — I have handed the statistical part of your 
 enquiry to our captain. 
 
 Sibley College, Cornell University. 
 The influence of athletic sports upon the student body 
 in a great university is, in my opinion, intrinsically 
 excellent. Like all other good things it is subject to 
 abuses, and evil may at times result in so large a degree 
 as to compel the question. Does it pay to have even so 
 good a thing at such a cost in morals and manners ? 
 The answer seems obvious enough : It always paj^s to 
 have a good thing ; and the attendant evils, not the 
 good thing itself, are what it does not pay to have. 
 Two wrongs do not make a right, and the error of abol- 
 ishing athletic sports, even the roughest and most war- 
 like among them, being added to those in which originate 
 the wrongs which attend their mismanagement, only 
 
108 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 leaves us doubly unfortunate. The right course seems 
 to me to amend the wrong, not to add a second and 
 possibly greater one to the first. 
 
 The athletic sports of the students of Cornell Univer- 
 sity, as an example, are managed by an athletic council 
 composed of delegates from students and faculty inter- 
 ested in and familiar with all technical and practical details 
 and experienced in their management. The students tak- 
 ing part in all organized exercises and contests are under 
 the strictest discipline, are regular in habits, steady in 
 their practice, and on the whole the best regulated men 
 in the University. The one possible objection to their 
 taking part in organized and serious contests, and the 
 extended and arduous preliminary training necessarily 
 prescribed, is the tendency to infringe upon time which 
 should be devoted to their regular university and other 
 duties. But experience shows that a man may, if he 
 choose, keep up his training without in the slightest 
 degree neglecting his studies ; and it even often hap- 
 pens that the best men in athletics are among the best 
 in the classes. The fact is that the time given to prac- 
 tice is time which should be given to exercise by all, 
 and no loss results if that practice is not made unreason- 
 ably prolonged and excessively exhausting, compelling 
 the student to take time for practice or for rest which 
 should be given to other work. This is never really 
 necessary, and the autliorities can usually regulate that 
 matter. The best students going into athletics, here at 
 least, seldom fall behind in consequence ; the less schol- 
 arly men who go into these sports are those who would 
 probably never excel in scholarship under any circum- 
 stances. There is unquestionably a stronger inclination 
 among the latter to take up athletics than among the 
 former ; but the result is the removal of their operations 
 from the billiard room to the athletic field, and the 
 placing of their otherwise unregulated ways under 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 109 
 
 strict supervision by trainers and athletic council. 
 Their " superfluous energies " are given the best possible 
 direction under the best possible guidance and with best 
 results to themselves and their neighbors. 
 
 The athletic exercises are indisputably admirable and 
 desirable from every point of view ; and this fundamen- 
 tal fact has, I think, never been challenged. All the 
 Greeks rejoiced in the Olj^mpian games, and every man 
 of them was glad of an opportunity to Avitness them 
 and proud of the distinction when permitted to take 
 part. Athletic sports are vastly more desirable, and 
 their universal cultivation is more important, to the 
 modern "civilized" youth than to the Greek. Depre- 
 ciated in constitution and weakened in every physical 
 power by modern life and the tendency to use the men- 
 tal rather than the bodily capacities, only general 
 improvement in habits of life and of exercise can prevent 
 the now apparently inevitable degradation of the phy- 
 sique of the race. This reform can be best effected by 
 the colleges setting the example of regular, correct, and 
 sensible methods of athletic exercise and illustrating the 
 best kinds of gymnastic contests and practice. It is for 
 them to improve and correct, not to abuse and abolish, 
 the most essential element of better life for the nation, 
 the basis of moral and intellectual as Avell as physical 
 strength. 
 
 I would encourage all desirable forms of athletic 
 exercise ; all generous rivalry between individuals and 
 between colleges in every game which brings out the 
 qualities of courage, strength, agility, skill, and endur- 
 ance. I would have " meets " at the colleges, contests 
 between well-matched rival teams from different colleges, 
 an annual international series of games — Olympian 
 games, with all the improvement that the experience 
 and wisdom of the intervening centuries can offer. I 
 would have all these exercises and games under careful 
 
110 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 and experienced and conscientious management, throw- 
 ing out of formal contests all whose presence on the 
 teams and crews may be considered undesirable on any 
 score, relegating them to the gymnasium for systematic 
 training with the rest of the undistinguished mass. I 
 would have it understood that he who would represent 
 the college abroad must be known to be in every way 
 respectable, in habits of life, of study, and of morals and 
 manners. I would have the men kept under constant 
 supervision by the medical oflB.cer, and every man given 
 his method and his limit under the advice of that officer. 
 Men failing to creditably represent the college at home 
 or abroad should be dropped out of the teams or crews, 
 if not out of the college. 
 
 The advantages of the prosecution of athletic training 
 in colleges, and of athletic " sports " as well, seem to me, 
 properly directed, incalculable ; the evils at present un- 
 questionably often attendant upon them may be and 
 should be remedied. I would not abolish the right with 
 the wrong, but would cultivate to the utmost the splen- 
 did work of the gymnast and of the " athlete," pruning 
 away as completely and as rapidly as possible every 
 attendant evil. Once our people have acquired a fond- 
 ness for "athletics," and have begun to regain that 
 athletic body which only can hold safely " the soul of 
 the sage," the American continent will have a future 
 before it such as only a modernized Greece can aspire to 
 attain. Something of this kind can be already seen, I 
 am told, in the antipodean continent ; but there is no 
 reason why, with wise management in our colleges, the 
 young men — and the young women as well — in the 
 the United States of North America should not take the 
 lead and finally excel the ancient Greeks themselves in 
 physical and in mental power. 
 
 R. H. Thukston. 
 
letters from members of the faculty 111 
 
 Cornell University. 
 There are undoubtedly individual cases in which 
 football training and football enthusiasm have inter- 
 fered temporarily with men's studies. Like any out- 
 side interest it may be allowed by students to intrude 
 itself too far upon their time and thought, but it is not 
 the rule that it does. Football practice does not make 
 any unreasonable demands upon a man's time. He 
 gives no more to it generally than any one should give 
 to daily bodily exercise. If a college football team 
 were allowed to make, during the fall term, long and 
 frequent trips to play games, the result would be an 
 almost certain interference with the proper demands of 
 study. Absence from the college for five or six dajs in 
 all during the term is not likel}^ to involve a serious 
 interference with work. It has been in general our 
 experience that our football players maintain a good 
 standard of scholarship. The training for the game, 
 and indeed, so far as I can see, the general influence of 
 the game as a whole, tends to the production of manly, 
 earnest character, to the throttling of pettishness and 
 peevishness, and to the establishment of habits of 
 punctuality, of a sense for discipline and authority'', of 
 a readiness for co-operation, and, last and chiefest, of 
 the capacity for timely and unhesitating action. 
 
 The influence of the game upon college discipline, 
 that is, upon good order in academic life, has been 
 unmistakably salutary. 
 
 Benj, Ide Wheeler. 
 
 Cornell University. 
 In response to your request, via the hands of our 
 football captain, I write to tell you that I am very 
 familar with the physical condition of those of our 
 students who pla}^ football, and that I know of no 
 instance among Cornell students where a man's use- 
 
112 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 fulness has been permanently impaired or his life 
 shortened through the game. Nor do I believe the 
 game lowers scholarship of the players. 
 Very truly, 
 
 E, Hitchcock, Je., M. D. 
 
 • Feom Peofessor at Daetmouth.* 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to state the facts con- 
 cerning football with numerical accuracy. For the 
 injuries in the game range through all shades and 
 degrees of mental and bodily damage, from torn 
 trousers or a loss of confidence up to (we are told) 
 insanity or a broken neck. Apparent disability is not 
 always a sign of real damage. 
 
 Then, in attempting a serious reckoning there is 
 a difficulty in separating fresh injuries and temporary 
 aggravation of old ones. 
 
 It is, however, to be admitted that there are some 
 risks and some injuries in the game. 
 
 In the last season the eleven had perhaps forty 
 practice games with a second eleven, involving at least 
 22 men each time. This represents 880 men playing 
 once. 
 
 The same team had vigorous contests with elevens 
 representing Harvai'd, Yale, Trinity, Amherst, Williams, 
 and others. This represents 220 men playing once. 
 
 The freshmen and sophomores played, and each of 
 the classes played, at least one outside game. This 
 represents 66 men playing once. 
 
 On Thanksgiving Day four student elevens played, 
 
 *This letter seemed to put the case so strongly that, after 
 making a copy of it, I took the original with me to the St. 
 Botolph Club in Boston at the time of a smoke-talk upon foot- 
 ball. There I must have mislaid it, so that I have lost the sig- 
 nature of the writer, for which I am extremely sorry. — Walter 
 Camp. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 113 
 
 the pla3^ers, with a few exceptions, being entirely 
 untrained. This represents 44 men playing once. 
 
 This gives a minimum estimate of 1210 men plaj^ing 
 once, in all degrees of fitness and unfitness for the 
 game. 
 
 I did not witness all these game and cannot speak 
 with certainty, but with reasonable confidence, subject 
 to correction. The injuries were bruises about tlie 
 head and knees, sprained ankles, strained muscles and 
 ligaments. I estimate the number of fresh disabling 
 injuries at 20. Most of them were slight and tem- 
 porary, and complete recovery was made before the 
 close of the season in nearly every case. I know of 
 but one injury that might be called permanent in the 
 whole number given above. Its effects have continued 
 to the present time, but are j^assing away. 
 
 In estimating the dangers of football it seems fair 
 to compare it with other out-door sports involving 
 strength, skill, and some excitement, like base-ball, 
 swimming, hunting, coasting, riding, from none of 
 which is the element of risk and danger eliminated, 
 and not with sitting in a rocking-chair or playing 
 checkers. 
 
 The question of risk, unless it should be shown to be 
 excessive, ought not to weigh against the game ; be- 
 cause risk is the element in which a boy lives through 
 all his development from infancy to manhood. Through 
 physical and moral risk, and in no other way, comes 
 manl)'^ strength. 
 
 Nor will it help to call this needless risk, because in 
 a certain sense all risks are needless. By not doing 
 sometliing, or by doing sometliing else, any given risk 
 might be avoided. If the boy doesn't take the risk of 
 an athletic game, he takes a risk in doing something 
 else with his time. 
 
 The fact is that, in this particular phase of the foot- 
 8 
 
114 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 / 
 
 ball question, the outcry is ever done from lack of ap- 
 preciation of the whole nature and history of a boy. 
 Boys are bound to cause solicitude and anxiety from 
 the time they put things in their mouth, tumble over 
 the foot-board of their cribs, play with the fire, use 
 a jack-knife, climb trees, and go swimming, till they 
 reach man's estate, and it is a happy parent who has 
 only bodily dangers to worry over. The other risks 
 are infinitely worse. 
 
 DePauvt Univeksity. 
 
 There is in the faculty at DePauw, precisely as in 
 most other institutions where football is played, a wide 
 divergence of opinion as to the effects of football upon 
 the scholarship and discipline of the students. In 
 writing I express my own opinions and conclusions, but 
 do not attempt to speak for any other instructor. I am 
 persuaded that football improves both the scholarship 
 and discipline of our students. We have restrictive 
 rules governing intercollegiate sports by which students 
 must gain and maintain a certain standard in scholar- 
 ship before they can participate in intercollegiate 
 athletics. Aside from the stimulating effect of these 
 rules, there are always students on the team who find 
 the exercise incident to play exactly what they need to 
 put them in the most effective mental condition. 
 
 So far as discipline is concerned the effects of football 
 have been even more marked. The worst, most brutal 
 feature of college life has always been hazing. Foot- 
 ball coming at a season when in former years hazing was 
 most prevalent, and furnishing a natural and healthy 
 exhaust pipe for surplus energy, has revolutionized the 
 moral tone of our college during the fall term and made 
 hazing practically a thing of the past. 
 
 I have no sympathy with the exaggerations with 
 reference to football which filled the press last fall, and 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 115 
 
 know that the reported fatalities in football games on 
 being sifted left just one instance. I have talked several 
 times with one young man who was reported killed, and 
 who it is commonly believed is dead — a victim to foot- 
 ball. Yet I wish something might be done to remove 
 features in the sport really objectionable and to preserve 
 the sport for a place in college life that nothing else 
 can fill. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. A. Waldo. 
 
 Haverford College. 
 
 1. There is some loss to the scholarship of a part of 
 the team during the football season. I apprehend this 
 is largely recovered by the end of the year on account 
 partly of the good physical condition of the players at 
 the end of the season. 
 
 2. There is probably some loss to the spirit of abso- 
 lutely fair play involved in meeting college teams where 
 such a spirit does not exist. The supposed necessity of 
 straining, or in an undiscovered wa}^ breaking the rules 
 in order to check similar unfairness on the other side, 
 I think acts injuriously on the moral standard of some 
 students. 
 
 These two objections are in my opinion much over- 
 weighted by the abounding good health cultivated by 
 the players, who in our college constitute a large pro- 
 portion of the students ; by the correct moral and 
 hygienic habits induced by training ; by the vigor 
 which the game infuses in Avhat might be otherwise an 
 easy-going college ; and by tlie harmonious relations 
 developed by a common interest between faculty and 
 students. This last factor especially has had an impor- 
 tant effect in raising the standard both of scholarshij) 
 and discipline. 
 
 Could the game be raised to the high standard of 
 
116 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 play which characterizes our other college - game — 
 cricket — I could endorse it almost unreservedly. It 
 unfortunately shields offenders against the rules, and all 
 colleges do not yet have their public sentiment raised to 
 the point which demands above all things fairness, even 
 at the price of defeat. I think this standard is rising, 
 and hope for the best. 
 
 Isaac Shakpless. 
 
 Iowa College. 
 
 For another purpose I about three months ago tab- 
 ulated the grades of all athletes, and all men in the 
 college during three years, 1890-1893. The number of 
 athletes includes football men, track athletes, and base- 
 ball players — regular members of teams and such sub- 
 stitutes as spent about the same amount of time in 
 training. Since here the three branches require approx- 
 imately the same amount of time, the figures may be 
 taken to represent in a general way the relation of the 
 standing of the football men and non-athletic men. 
 Standing of athletes in per cent., 79.3. Standing of all 
 male non-athletic students, 80.5 per cent. 
 
 My impression is that these figures may be taken as 
 fairly reliable, i. e., in general the standing of athletes 
 is slightly lower. 
 
 It is customary for our football and base-ball teams to 
 make trips outside the State once a year, at the expense 
 of four or five school-days. 
 
 I should be pleased to receive any printed reports of 
 the committee having in charge the revision of the foot- 
 ball rules or other changes for the better regulation of 
 athletic sports. I am. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 W. S. Hendrixson, 
 Chairman Committee on Athletics, 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 117 
 
 Report of the Director of the Men's Gymnasium and 
 Professor of Physiology 
 
 Oberlin College. 
 Interest in atliletics has been increasing, with as yet 
 few signs of those excesses and irregularities which have 
 caused uneasiness among educators in the East. The 
 class and 'varsity football games in the fall furnished 
 to sixty college men from one to two hours of vigorous 
 open-air exercise each day and stimulated many others 
 to seek improved phj^sical condition. The accidents, 
 and noticeably on the 'varsity team, were trivial in 
 nature, and were the cause of only one case of absence 
 from classes. Of the sixteen men who played on the 
 'varsity football team during a part or all of the season 
 six reached a standing of over 90 per cent, in their studies 
 for the same term, and ten exceeded 80 per cent., while 
 of sixteen men on the senior class team only two fell 
 below a grade of 80 ; and eight stood above 90 ; so that 
 the standard of scholarship has not apparently suffered. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Fred E. Leonard, M. D. 
 
 Ohio Wesletan University. 
 As a member of the faculty, I can state that I con- 
 sider football a manly, elevating, and scientific game ; 
 although I would prefer to see the rules changed in 
 order to make it less rough and dangerous. A modifi- 
 cation of the rules that would tend to substitute more 
 skill and agility for the now preponderating element of 
 brute strength would meet with my approval. I am 
 bound to say that I am afraid that I do not represent 
 the faculty, in toto, at this institution, in this regard, 
 as I think they are rather opposed to athletics in gen- 
 eral, or rather are not yet believers in the practical 
 benefits of systematic athletics. 
 
118 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 If I can assist you further in your work, please cor- 
 respond with me. 
 
 I remain, yours very truly, 
 
 C. D. Rhodes, U. S. Army, 
 Professor Military Science and Tactics. 
 
 Pennsylvania College, 
 I have not carefully compiled data on this subject, 
 but from my general observation here during the past 
 five years I can confidently assert that the sport has not 
 interfered with the scholarship of the participants. I 
 wish I could say that it has noticeably aided scholar- 
 ship, and that those students distinguished for football 
 proficiency are also noted for their close application to 
 their studies. Although I cannot say that, yet I am 
 pleased to note that our football men are truly represent- 
 ative of the "rank and file" of our students in scholar- 
 ship and deportment. The game is not here regarded 
 as deteriorating either to mind or morals, but rather as 
 disciplinary to both. 
 
 In regard to the second part of your question, I am 
 pleased to almost boast of the fact that general athletics, 
 and football in particular, has a very beneficial effect on 
 the discipline of the institution. The occurrence of 
 college pranks and rowdyisms have very materially 
 lessened since the spirit of athletics has become more 
 prevalent among us. The occasional exceptions to this 
 gratifying growth in grace are no doubt due to the stub- 
 born existence of "original sin," which neither football 
 nor any other pre-millennial influence will ever eradicate. 
 I am very much interested in this sport, and I sin- 
 cerely hope that your committee will not only aim to 
 make it still more scientific and interesting from a 
 strategic standpoint, but that you will also make it 
 somewhat less dangerous to life and limb. I trust this 
 can be done without robbing the game of its intrinsic 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 119 
 
 features. As a physician I am positive that more bodily 
 and mental benefits could be derived if the game were 
 less severe ; and as a theorist in physical sports, I am 
 timidly hoping that it may be possible to make the 
 game safer and yet not emasculate it. 
 
 Allow me to thank you for the healthy influence 
 which ""\Valter Camp of Yale" is exerting on football 
 discussions and regulations. The American colleges 
 must depend on him and other level-headed university 
 men to frame the rules and set the bounds for this great 
 sport. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 G. D. Stahlet. 
 
 Princeton, N. J. 
 
 In my opinion the value of football, as conducted 
 during the last fifteen or twenty years, has been very 
 great, indeed. It is a manly, healthful sport, and has 
 fewer accidents incidental to its pursuit than most other 
 vigorous autumn and winter games. It interests large 
 numbers of young men who would otherwise waste the 
 time given to its pursuit. It sets among the students 
 in general a fashion of living vastly more wholesomely 
 than that which prevailed in college life before its intro- 
 duction. It unifies the divergent interest of a large 
 institution so as to create a strong university feeling. 
 
 The evils which have arisen out of a too intense 
 public interest in college sport are manifest. In my 
 opinion tlie turn has been made ; the interest of the 
 general public appears to be assuming normal propor- 
 tions, the rules of the game have been wisely revised, 
 and we may hope to secure college audiences for college 
 games. If we succeed in this, the evils which actually 
 spring from too great enthusiasm among students will 
 be reduced to a minimum, while those inherent in 
 modern life will not be attributed to football. 
 
120 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGTJEES 
 
 The compilation from official records of the sub- 
 joined table has taken more time than would appear 
 from its size. The records are authentic. 
 
 First Honor Men (First in Class), 
 High " " above 95 per cent., 
 Second " " " 90 " 
 Good, " 75 " 
 
 Low, " 50 " 
 
 Failed, . . . 
 
 Football 
 
 Base-ball 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 23 
 
 13 
 
 . 31 
 
 17 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 . 37 
 
 34 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 . 129 
 
 99 
 
 Totals, . 
 
 These include only the men who have played in first- 
 class games since 1874. 
 
 I wish we had a record of the so-called " scrubs," i. e., 
 the players organized to give the university teams 
 practice — the numbers would be about four hundred and 
 the proportion of scholarship very high. It is simply 
 untrue that any man is allowed to go on with his class 
 merely because he is a fine athlete. The pressure 
 brought on good athletes to study is twofold, that of 
 his companions who do not wish to lose his services and 
 that of our overjealous faculty which " turn down " 
 many a man who is a promising athlete when otherwise 
 he would be permitted to make iip his deficiencies in 
 obscurity. 
 
 Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 Wm. M. Sloane. 
 
 Rtttgees College. 
 The football exercise of our college has hardly been 
 pursued during the past two years in a regular enough 
 way to make any judgment as to its effect of very much 
 account. The students who have engaged in it have 
 been of average scholarship, and no ill results, as far as I 
 can judge, have come from the game. Nor do I think 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 121 
 
 the game has had any appreciable effect upon college 
 discipline. It has simply afforded those who were 
 inclined to it a means of recreation, and given them tlie 
 opportunity of measuring a very moderate degree of 
 skill, derived from irregular practice, with that of the 
 teams of a few of the smaller colleges. Perhaps the 
 stimulus of a new gymnasium may change this in the 
 future. 
 
 With regards I am, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Wm, R. Duryee. 
 
 Leland Stanford Junior University. 
 
 The actual football playing does not injure or lower 
 the scholarship, but improves it by keeping the men 
 in better organic condition for any kind of work or 
 study. As a matter of fact some of our football 
 men are among the best, others among the poorest 
 students we have. If football lowers scholarship it is 
 due to time lost in thinking and talking about the game 
 and general loafing, and some little from injuries. The 
 effect, as of other athletics, is good upon college dis- 
 cipline. About thirty-five men each year have played 
 more or less during the season. I regret that so many 
 students stand idly by, da}'" after day, looking on at 
 practice as well as games. They are better so than 
 cooped up in the house, but they, as idle spectators, are 
 not making the best use of their time. College athletics 
 engage too few men. This is not the fault of any one 
 game, but we must have more games. College students 
 must not take their out-door exercise by proxy. 
 
 Financially our football seasons have been unsuc- 
 cessful, as we are in debt again this year. Nearly all 
 receipts have come from games, and the expenses have 
 been greater than receipts. 
 
 Personally, I believe in the game, although some 
 
122 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 features must be eliminated. Any condition which in- 
 trinsically makes the play dangerous for a well-trained 
 player, such as momentum plays, must be cut out. 
 Accidents will always be possible in the game. It is 
 the best game for a strong, maticre, well-trained young 
 man. 
 
 I await the revision of the rules for next fall with 
 great interest. Please call my attention to develop- 
 ments. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 T. D. Wood. 
 
 SWARTHMORE CoLLEGE. 
 
 College life has two aspects — its work and its recre- 
 ation. The primary purpose of the first is the culti- 
 vating of the mind, that of the second the development 
 of the body. Hard study gives zest to play, and play 
 tones up the nerves for their work. All approve of 
 enthusiasm in study, but some disapprove of it in recre- 
 ation. The colt must not be coltish, but must conduct him- 
 self like the staid and tired work-horse. But the enthu- 
 siasms of recreation, when kept within reasonable limits, 
 are as useful in their way as those of work. By and 
 by all the energy, pluck, and determination developed 
 on the athletic field will be focussed upon the affairs of 
 life. He is a fool from the beginning Avho would turn 
 his recreations into his business. It is right and proper, 
 and hence advisable, that every child or youth should 
 have the free opportunity to exercise the zest of life in 
 every way in which this gift of Heaven may properly 
 manifest itself, whether in the study room or the work- 
 shop, or on the play ground or the athletic field. A 
 bright mind and a stupid body are not co-oi'dinates. 
 During his student days the youth must look to his 
 physical enthusiasms to develop his body ; in his busi- 
 ness career he must depend upon the enthusiasms of 
 
 I 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 123 
 
 his recreation to cultivate his mind, to keep himself in 
 active touch with the S3anpathies and tendencies of his 
 time. 
 
 Since the facts hold, it is not surprising that at 
 Swarthmore football, the prince of athletic sports, 
 should be one of the most useful means of developing 
 and sustaining the enthusiasms properly belonging to 
 all forms of physical recreation. That the rules of the 
 game need to be changed, so that the danger of sprains 
 and broken bones may be largely eliminated, is an un- 
 questionable fact. Except in rare cases, where men 
 desire to make football their occupation, I do not think 
 that the game unfavorably affects scholarship at Swarth- 
 more. I know that its effects upon the college discipline 
 are only good, and that it is the most potent factor in 
 developing all legitimate forms of what I have called 
 the enthusiasms of recreation. 
 
 Charles De Garmo. 
 
 Trinity College. 
 1. Effect of the sport upon scholarship : 
 I have kept watch of our class records for years, and 
 can find no evidence of connection between class-stand- 
 ing and athletic distinction on which any conclusions 
 can be based, beyond generalities. The football man is 
 apt to be in the middle third of his class. More of 
 them are in the first third than in the last third. We 
 find their names among our prize-winners and honor 
 men. Once, recentlv, the valedictorian was a noted 
 player, who could probably have played upon any team 
 in the country. Yet it is unusual for the first three or 
 four scholars in any class to play in our first eleven — 
 just as it is unusual for the last three or four. I am 
 quite sure that the captain and a few of his veteran 
 advisers are preoccupied, during the football season, to 
 an extent which interferes with their studies ; but it is 
 
124 FOOTBALL FACTS AISTD FIGURES 
 
 a revelation to see how they pick up and make good 
 their deficiencies after the final game. I fear that this 
 mental preoccupation increases as football improves 
 and its scientific possibilities are developed. To repeat — 
 the average standing of the football players is about 
 the average standing of the college, the exceptionally 
 good and the exceptionally poor scholars being, as a rule, 
 those who do not play. 
 
 2. Its effect upon college discipline : 
 
 I think this to be thoroughly good. Reasons have been 
 pointed out by many writers, notably by yourself. The 
 football man is full of " steam " and the game is his 
 safety-valve. I was much impressed, a while ago, by 
 an incident which came under my observation. I was 
 sitting, in the evening, in the room of the captain of 
 our eleven talking with him — probably about football. 
 It seems that some sort of disturbance was in progress 
 in a distant part of the college grounds. 
 
 Suddenly the door was flung violently open and a 
 student appeared breathless. He blurted out (not seeing 
 
 me) : "There's a row down in , and , and , 
 
 and (football men) are in it." In a second I was alone 
 
 in the room and in five minutes — as I took pains to 
 ascertain later — the three guilty parties were conducted 
 to their rooms. The "row" subsided almost immedi- 
 ately. To be sure tlie captain at this time was a youth 
 of extraordinary force of character : but the incident 
 teaches something worth knowing. 
 
 3. Total number of men engaged, etc. : 
 
 I have just been carefully through our catalogue list, 
 assisted by the captain of last season's team, and find 
 that what with the various class elevens and " scrub " 
 teams fully one-third of our students played two or three 
 times a week last autumn. A much larger number were 
 in the habit of kicking the ball about occasionally and of 
 " fooling " with it in a decorous and salutary manner. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 125 
 
 Perhaps I should explain that hitherto I have desig- 
 nated as " football men " only those who can fairly be 
 regarded as members of the college team or as substi- 
 tutes on it. My remarks as to scholarship, etc., of course 
 apply only to these regular players. 
 
 4. Finances : 
 
 We have the gate receipts, of course, but subscrip- 
 tions by students and friends are always required. 
 
 Our association is usually " hard-up " and a rainy day 
 when a match is scheduled is a financial calamity. 
 
 Sometimes there is a small surplus at the end of the 
 season, but such incidents are rare, and there is never 
 the slightest difficulty in reducing the surplus promptly 
 and thoroughly. 
 
 I think, personally (you did not ask this), that our 
 team, with the teams of other small colleges, travels too 
 much, plays too many games, spends too much money. 
 
 And, finally'', may I take this opportunity to protest 
 against any radical change in the playing rules? Give 
 us ffood referees and umjnres — men who will fearlessly 
 and impartially enforce the rules, provide against piling 
 upon a player after the ball is "down," and let us 
 alone. Every serious accident which I have ever wit- 
 nessed, and I have seen many, has occurred in an " open " 
 phase of the game ; that is, when the man with the ball 
 has been able to get under full headway at speed. 
 
 The faults with the game, its alleged brutalities, can 
 be corrected by good umpires and referees. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 F. S. Luther. 
 
 Union College. 
 I believe that the playing of football is, in general, 
 detrimental to the scholarship of the men on the team. 
 The physical exertion is so severe that sustained mental 
 effort is made impossible. 
 
126 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUEES 
 
 The effect upon college discipline is, I think, good. 
 Much animal activity, that would otherwise manifest 
 itself in disorderly conduct, finds a place for its energies 
 on the football field. The team and substitutes are 
 kept under rigid discipline, and their abstinence from all 
 manner of dissipation is a good example to the college. 
 
 This is, of course, beneficial to the general scholarship 
 of the college. B. H. Ripton". 
 
 University of California. 
 
 I have not noticed in my own classes any particular 
 effect upon the scholarship of the men actually engaged 
 in football. In a few cases, before a great game, men 
 have asked and received indulgence in regard to their 
 lessons for a few days, but have afterward made up what 
 was lost. 
 
 I think the effect of the game on college discipline 
 is excellent. There has been much less of lawless 
 behavior among the students since football became a 
 real college interest. 
 
 I cannot form an estimate of the number in college 
 who actually play football. Last fall there were four class 
 elevens, but of course many more played. Neither can I 
 guess how many are taken out doors by interest in the 
 game, although large crowds watch the practice. 
 
 The rather large yearly expenses ($4000-$6000) are 
 mainly met by gate money, though last fall there was 
 a deficit of about seven hundred dollars, owing to rain 
 on the day of the great game with Stanford. This 
 amount is met by subscription. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Thos. R. Bacon. 
 
 The University of Chicago. 
 The University of Chicago has been in existence 
 dui'ing only two football seasons, so our statistics can- 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 127 
 
 not be of great value to you. We have not had a very 
 large number trying for our teams. In fact, scarcely 
 two elevens have been upon the field in practice on the 
 same day. Our training likewise has not been nearly 
 so rigid as teams in the East are accustomed to, and 
 hardly more than an hour a day has been devoted to 
 practice. I cannot speak of any special effect which 
 the training has liad on college discipline, since we have 
 had no trouble in controlling the students as yet. 
 There is not much else to be said in regard to the 
 financial side of our football team. Our expenses last 
 year, which were almost entirely in guarantees and 
 travelling expenses, amounted to nearly $1400. Re- 
 ceipts about $2000. Football has done a great deal 
 toward arousing college spirit where little or none 
 existed, so we feel it has been of special value in our 
 university life. In fact our athletics have done more 
 to create a college spirit than all the rest of the student 
 organizations. I am glad that you have undei'taken this 
 work, and I hope that you will get some valuable 
 statistics which will serve for the good of the game. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 A. A, Stagg. 
 
 State University of Iowa. 
 We have a rule which excludes any collegiate student 
 from membership in a university team if his standing 
 falls below 75 per cent. (65 per cent, is the passing 
 mark). Football has been played regularly here only 
 some four or five years. During this time the leading 
 players have been leading students, both in the class- 
 room and in the college forum. The average scholar- 
 ship of our teams has been above, rather than below, the 
 average scholarship of the university. This statement 
 is based upon a general acquaintance with the teams ; it 
 is not the result of an exact investigation. The game 
 
128 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 has the cordial support of our faculty, but within the 
 last year a strong desire for a change in the rules, to 
 lessen the risk to the plaj'^er, has developed. While 
 none of our players have been permanently injured, they 
 have been laid up for short intervals with what seems 
 to us unnecessary frequency ; and there is some fear 
 that some of the so-called temporary injuries may leave 
 their mark. In the professional schools no rule fixing 
 a minimum average of scholarship as a condition of 
 membei'ship is applied, and general statements are more 
 difficult to make. The law school has furnished so far 
 the largest, proportion of players from the professional 
 schools. I am, sir, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Isaac Loos. 
 
 University op Nashville. 
 We allowed our football team a large measure of 
 liberty last year, and see no reason for abridging it this. 
 No students were seriously hurt. No bad effects on 
 scholarship. College spirit greatly quickened. We ai-e 
 not allowing football because thereby the institution 
 will be advertised, but because we see in it good to the 
 students, from a physical standpoint. Football is a com- 
 paratively new thing with us, and our team is not so 
 strong as it will be made by training. We have good 
 material and hope for better things next fall. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John L. Lampson, 
 President Athletic Association. 
 
 University of Nashville. 
 My position enabled me to notice the effects of the 
 game on the students who took part in it liere last sea- 
 son ; these effects were undoubtedly good, both mentally 
 and physically. 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 129 
 
 The good standing of the football men in their classes 
 is due to the regularity of habits, and health gained by 
 them in training. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Jno. D, MacRae, 
 
 Captain of Field Sports. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Your list of questions and letter received to-day. In 
 giving my opinion of the game, I will omit all the often 
 repeated and perfectly true arguments about its culti- 
 vation of energ}^, continuity, forcefulness, self-control, 
 strength, fortitude, and health. In those directions the 
 game stands unexcelled, in my judgment. 
 
 On the other hand, football is a game in which there 
 is actual danger of injury — physical injury. 
 
 The minor injuries can never be entirely eliminated 
 from this or any game in which there is personal contact. 
 
 Clianging the rules of the game will not, I am con- 
 vinced, materially lessen the injuries. 
 
 Increase of skill \sj\\ do so, however, and this seems 
 the more likely, because most players are hurt when not 
 playing their best. 
 
 Changes in the rules, then, should be made with jeal- 
 ous care and rather for the purpose of making the game 
 more interesting to spectators than with a view to pre- 
 venting injury to the players. 
 
 The most important change, in ray opinion, would be 
 to discourage, as far as possible, this recently born but 
 abnormally developed habit of playing baby on the field. 
 There should be less delay of the game, less sponging 
 during a game, less fuss about injuries already received 
 and, consequently, inevitable. If the hurt is great the 
 player should leave the field ; if small he should smile 
 and play harder. 
 
 There should be cultivated that determination and 
 9 
 
130 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Spartan-like fortitude, which prevailed in the days 
 before water-buckets and sponges and regiments of 
 doctors. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 G. W. Woodruff. 
 
 University of Tennessee. 
 We never had any team of any consequence until this 
 year, and hence conclusions formed now may be rather 
 hasty. As far as I have been able to observe I have not 
 thought that the playing of football caused any 
 deterioriation in the men except when they went on 
 a trip of more than a few days. • In that case they 
 returned unfit for work and hardly ever made up what 
 they lost. There were no bad results as far as discipline 
 is concerned, and I think the allowing them to play 
 rendered them more tractable. Most of the players 
 have been men of excellent standing in their classes and 
 they have suffered little. The others would not have 
 amounted to much under the best circumstances, and 
 hence we cannot say that playing was detrimental to 
 them. As a faculty we rather encourage the game, but, 
 as I said above, we object mainly to trips away from the 
 university. 
 
 Very truly yours. 
 
 Cooper D. Schmitt. 
 
 University of Wisconsin. 
 As " athletic director " of this university it has been 
 my privilege to look into Western football critically, and 
 I have taken advantage of that privilege. Up to this 
 year the team here never had an Eastern coach, but 
 played after their own fashion. Last year there were 
 several accidents, none however serious. The first thing 
 I attempted to teach the men was how to protect them- 
 selves and how to fall with some method even in reck- 
 
LETTERS FKOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 131 
 
 lessness. Suffice it to say that the team which played 
 the first game of the season played every game, substi- 
 tutes only being used as a matter of practice. This 
 record, I believe, is the same in the other colleges of this 
 league, namely, Minnesota, Michigan, and Northwestern, 
 all the teams of which, as you probably know, were 
 coached by Yale men. 
 
 One serious accident occurred out liere last fall which 
 resulted in the death of a player on Delavan's eleven, 
 composed of deaf mutes. 
 
 As for myself, I have played football for years, during 
 which time I gained fifty pounds in weight, increased 
 three inches in heiglit, and five inches in girth of chest, 
 with other developments proportionately. I entered 
 college undersized, undeveloped, and in very poor 
 health from all study and no play, from a section of the 
 country where at that time football was unknown. My 
 development was gradual, and the unusual vigor and 
 physical condition which 1 enjoy to-day I attribute 
 solely to football, as I never took a systematic training 
 in an}' other sport, though having worked considerably 
 in a gymnasium and on the track. As a matter of 
 accidents, my only misfortune occurred in a practice 
 game at Princeton in which the cartilages of m}-^ nose 
 were displaced, but which disabled me no longer than 
 twenty minutes. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Pakke Davis. 
 
 Vaxderbilt University. 
 I may say at the beginning that I am a strong advo- 
 cate of athletics for the college student, from both 
 physical and moral standpoints ; and have been for the 
 last fifteen years. I have had many a struggle here to 
 maintain my position in these matters, and often I have 
 found myself standing almost alone. Now, however, 
 
132 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 our faculty are almost wholly converted, and athletics 
 have such a foothold that dislodgment is an impossi- 
 bility. In the last eight years our development in all 
 lines of athletics has been marvellous, and during that 
 time the moral tone of the student body has been 
 greatly elevated. This is remarked and admitted by 
 every-body; scholarship has not suffered in the least. In 
 fact the average class standing of the men on our teams 
 is above that of the university. I believe the tendency 
 in the East for an excessive amount of training to 
 be required is where the greatest danger lies. This 
 undoubtedly necessitates a neglect of college duties 
 which will bring athletics into disrepute. We encour- 
 age our men to take from two to three hours of training 
 each day, and this I believe to be enough for all pur- 
 poses, and does not interfere with college work. 
 
 As to football I will say briefly that I consider it the 
 greatest of all games to develop the excellent qualities 
 of manhood. I believe that the dangers to life and 
 limb are very much exaggerated. I believe it can be 
 improved by judicious modification of the rules ; just 
 how, I cannot say. I hope the committee who have the 
 revision of the rules in hand will hit upon some happy 
 improvements, which, however, will not encumber the 
 game with too many umpires, referees, and other 
 officials. I think, however, two umpires very desirable. 
 I am glad to see that you are getting up some statis- 
 tics, which I am sure will be very valuable. 
 
 Wishing you success in your undertaking, I am, 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 Wm. L. Dudley. 
 
 State University of Washington. 
 The athletic association, under whose auspices our 
 games are played, is composed, for the most part, of 
 our very best students, while nearly all our team main- 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 133 
 
 tain high standing in their classes. Those taking part 
 are sober and industrious. During the last three 
 seasons no dissipation, as far as I know, has attended 
 the game. 1 must say, then, that with us the influence 
 of football has been highly beneficial. Interest in out- 
 door sports has been awakened, and as a result our 
 young men are in a healthy condition, physically and 
 mentally. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 T. M. Gatch. 
 
 Wesleyan University. 
 
 Of course my colleagues might not agree Avith all 
 that I have to say on the points you mention, but as 
 I am perhaps as much interested in the game as any of 
 them, I probabl}' am not more severe in my judgments 
 than most of them would be. 
 
 1. The question concerning the influence of football 
 on scholarsliip is of course a difficult one to answer ; at 
 least, to answer as briefly as a letter requires. I do not 
 remember that we liave recently had on our team, or 
 among prominent candidates for it, any men of a de- 
 cidedly scholarly tendency. We used to have such 
 men some 3^ears ago, but the pace was not so fast then, 
 either in football or in scholarship. On the other hand, 
 our undergraduate officers of management are usually 
 meJi of high rank, and their testimonj'^ is very decided 
 to the effect that during the football season they can 
 do no study worth speaking of. And as the pace in 
 scholarship, with our tendencies to the multiplication of 
 elective studies and the encouragement of specialization, 
 is very fast, even for such men, through the entire year, 
 they of course are really unable to make up a couple of 
 months' lost time. It may not affect their rank de- 
 cidedly, but it decidedly affects their actual achievement. 
 Then among the players there is the great class of medi- 
 
134 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 cere men. Possibly some of them do as well even while 
 playing football as they would do anyhow. But if so, 
 it is only because they might waste their time in some 
 other way, if they weren't putting it into football. 
 Perhaps we might say that some, at least, of these men 
 are not especially injured by their playing. But others, 
 I think I can see, are. Then there is the class of fellows 
 "on the lower edge." I believe almost all of these 
 would pass up, or pass up more easily, if they didn't 
 have to put so much of their time for two or three 
 months, and surely almost all of their interest and 
 nervous energy, into football. In general, then, I think 
 football, as the pace is now set, is detrimental to scholar- 
 ship here, though, fortunately for scholarship, the best 
 material for football and the best material for scholar- 
 ship have not often been the same here. And I do not 
 see how it is possible that when we demand so entirely 
 the interest of a man for football till Thanksgiving, it 
 should not interfere seriously with his scholarship. The 
 observed facts only confirm the conclusion naturally 
 made from probability. 
 
 2. The effect of increased interest in football has been 
 decidedly good so far as general college discipline is 
 concerned. The animal spirits of the fellows find a 
 vent here, in playing or interesting themselves in the 
 playing, and do not expend themselves so much in 
 practical jokes and petty hazing and class rows. 
 
 3. We find it extremely diflicult here to get out 
 a first and a second eleven, and generally the entire 
 second eleven isn't worth speaking of. Furthermore, 
 we have difiiculty in getting out any good number of 
 fellows at the hours of practice to help on the interest 
 as spectators, unless we have been winning some de- 
 cided victories (alas ! not lately), or seem to be on the 
 eve of a probable victory over some strong opponent. 
 Our great difiiculty here is lack of sustained enthusiasm 
 
LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 135 
 
 among the undergraduates. This, I think, is not due 
 solely to the fact that, as the pace in football has been 
 quicker, we have sunk in position relatively to many- 
 other colleges. It is also due clearly — though I cannot 
 and need not, for the purpose of your enquiry, stop to 
 specify how — to the great advance here in ideals of 
 scholarship during the last few years. I think it is as 
 easy as before for a man to select a general course and 
 pass on respectably to his degree ; but the prevailing 
 tone has been so raised recently that the men with any 
 scholarly instincts feel forced to expend far more nervous 
 energy upon their special lines of work than they did a 
 decade ago. As a result, they havenH it to devote to foot- 
 ball, unless under a special and temporary stimulus [e. g., 
 a marked victory). Our scholarship goes up, and our 
 athletics (this being a small college) go down, of necessity. 
 
 4. We can't " make football pay " here. There is 
 a burdensome subscription from undergraduates and 
 graduates necessary every year, in addition to what we 
 can raise from games, and to some help from the Glee 
 Club, etc. (For two reasons, we are in a small town 
 and we have no entirely enclosed field, and hence find it 
 difficult to enforce payment of admission fees.) I think 
 that if you desire it for the purposes of your enquiry, 
 Mr. E. L. Thorndike, '95, formerly treasurer and now 
 president of our association, will be quite willing to 
 send you, at your application, a summary of our receipts 
 and expenditures for the past two or tliree years. We 
 are very economical, and hence don't run into any pro- 
 digious debts, but we are quite used to running our 
 heads a few hundred dollars a year into the ground. 
 
 I hope what I have said may be of some use to you, 
 and I shall be very glad to answer at any time any 
 specific or supplementary enquiries. 
 Yours ver}' truly, 
 
 Elmer Truesdell Merrill. 
 
136 football facts and figures 
 
 Williams College. 
 
 Respecting football in Williams College, I believe 
 that, with all the evils that may be charged against 
 this form of college athletics, the game is productive of 
 more good than harm. Exclusive of bodily injuries, 
 which constitute in my judgment the most serious 
 objection to the game, the evils which result from foot- 
 ball are in a large measure incidental, but of a kind 
 that might be avoided with a gain to this sport in every 
 way. 
 
 Individual students undoubtedly suffer in scholarship 
 from excessive devotion of time and thought to this 
 game ; but it is most likely that such students would 
 fail in scholarship for other reasons if this kind of 
 athletics did not exist here. 
 
 I am not disposed to think that the excitement from 
 intercollegiate games is with us excessive or unwhole- 
 some ; it may fairly be questioned whether the detrac- 
 tion from college work which these games occasion is 
 more serious than the inattention we should suffer from 
 other causes in the absence of this more vigorous form 
 of physical training. 
 
 Regarding the moral aspects of football, about which 
 so much has been said, my own observation has not led 
 me to regard this game as necessarily brutalizing or 
 unfavorable to the manliest type of character ; to be 
 sure, a player who has not learned to keep the brute in 
 him in subjection may be brutal under the provocations 
 this game supplies ; but even sucli players learn sooner 
 or later that intelligence and manly self-control are 
 cardinal virtues in the good football player not less 
 than elsewhere ; and for the greater number of students 
 I believe football has proved a most excellent schooling 
 in moral self-control and manly conduct. The only really 
 serious objections to this form of college athletics I can 
 see are the bodily injuries that constitute a liability as 
 
LETTERS FEOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 137 
 
 yet unpreventable. It may be possible, however, to 
 eleminate very largely this element of peril by some 
 modifications in methods of playing and more care in 
 training ; if so, I should feel justified in saying let foot- 
 ball remain with us, and do not enfeeble it by top severe 
 restrictions about it, or by too radical changes in the 
 game itself. 
 
 John E. Russell. 
 
 Yale University. 
 In addition to the list of standings sent you you can 
 put this down to the credit of football men, namely, 
 that the average standing of the sixteen men who were 
 members of the team last fall, and of those who were 
 the substitutes (only academics, all regulars and subs), 
 was above the average standing of the highest class 
 graduated here. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 E. L. Richards. 
 
 From Rev. C. C. Camp, Seabury Divinity School, Vale- 
 dictorian Yale, 1877 
 
 From articles that from time to time find their way 
 into the public prints, it seems to me that there is in 
 many minds an entire misconception of the causes of 
 the injuries occasionally received by players in the game 
 of football. It is sometimes said, and apparently often 
 thought, that players are guilty of intentionally injuring 
 their opponents. This I believe, from my own experi- 
 ence and observation, is scarcely ever the case. It is true 
 that in the excitement of the game contestants have 
 been known to lose their tempers and strike out with 
 their fists, but every captain of a team knows how the 
 loss of self-control in such cases of temper injures the 
 efficiency of his men, and therefore does his utmost, 
 independently of the rules, to prevent such outbursts. 
 
138 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 The general influence of the game is doubtless to teach 
 men courage, endurance, and self-control. 
 
 There are very few forms of exercise that call into 
 play so completely all the muscles of the body and 
 mind. That which seems extreme roughness to those 
 unaccustomed to vigorous exercise is often scarcely 
 regarded by those whose muscles are hardened and 
 toughened by constant use. Those who come together 
 in the hardest collisions in the course of the game are 
 often close friends when away from the football field. 
 
 While deprecating the betting wliich is often con- 
 nected with college athletics, it ought to be always re- 
 membered that the tendency of the age and country, 
 and not the legitimate sports of the young men in our 
 universities, is responsible for this, and if base-ball, 
 boating, and football were entirely suppressed, the 
 betting in some form, probably worse, would still go on. 
 We must not confound the mere occasion with the 
 underlying cause. 
 
 My observation, both before and since my graduation, 
 has led me to think that college athletics have done 
 much to promote the moral welfare of our great univer- 
 sities. Forms of hazing and dissipation, formerly far 
 too prevalent, have been greatly diminished or entirely 
 abolished since the revival of athletic interest, which 
 dates from about the time our colleges adopted the 
 Rugby game in football. 
 
 The increase of athletic clubs among our business 
 men is also a healthy sign of the times ; and while no 
 one would wish to commend all that is done under their 
 auspices, we may well trust the day is far distant when 
 college sports and amateur athletics shall be abolished. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Charles Clark Camp. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 
 
 E. V. Baker, Captain Yale Team, 1876 
 
 I played football for ten years, the last two years 
 according to the modern Rugby rules, wliich I bad the 
 pleasure of introducing at Yale. I was a member of 
 the Yale University team during my entire college 
 course and took part in more than twenty match games 
 with Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, an English team 
 from Eton, England, Canadian, and many other college 
 teams, always playing forward except the last two 
 years, when, as captain of the Yale team, I had to play 
 back to better direct the game. 
 
 I never suffered an injury of any kind except once. 
 I sprained a toe, which prevented my playing in one 
 game. With this one exception I never had to leave a 
 game or give way to a substitute upon any occasion. I 
 was always in perfect health and good physical condi- 
 tion as the direct result of my football work, and to this 
 development and training I attribute the good health 
 that has been mine ever since leaving college, during 
 years of close application to business in which I have 
 found no time for phj-sical culture. During the first 
 two years of Rugby football at Yale injuries of any 
 kind were almost unknown. The same men played in 
 every game throughout the season, a substitute never 
 once being called in. I believe football offers the best 
 opportunities of developing all the powers of the body, 
 and of cultivating energy, courage, self-restraint, and 
 
 139 
 
140 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 discipline of the mind, and with properly regulated 
 rules should be entirely free from danger to health or 
 person. 
 
 W. A. Brooks, Jr. , Captain Harvard Team 
 
 In regard to question 1. I do not remember that any 
 man was compelled to leave the field in the game with 
 Yale (fall of '86) on account of injury. I will look up 
 this point more carefully later. 
 
 Question 2. In regard to the physical results of the 
 game in ray tirae — I think, jqs, am sure, that every man 
 who played was greatly benefited. In my opinion there 
 is no branch of sport which does a man more good, pro- 
 vided that he is not worked to death, tlian football. 
 
 Alexander Moffat, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 In answer to your two queries I will say in regard to 
 the first that in our game with Yale of that year, Wana- 
 maker played the first half with rather a lame knee, and 
 we didn't let him play the second half for fear that he 
 might give out. He was the only man on our team who 
 had to leave the field. In our Harvard game no one 
 was hurt. 
 
 The second query is more diflScult to answer as it 
 depends upon what interpretation one puts upon the 
 term "bad results." Physically, I know of no injuries 
 which have caused serious inconvenience in after-life. 
 Sometimes during the pursuance of the game boys have 
 neglected their studies at college, but it is a query as to 
 whether these same boys would not have neglected their 
 studies under any circumstances, and, therefore, not 
 fairly chargeable to football. 
 
 The good results are both physical and mental. 
 
 The physical good is patent to anyone. A boy can 
 get good, violent, out-door exercise at a time of life when 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 141 
 
 a good, strong, healthy boy seeks and needs violent exer- 
 cise to develop his muscles and strengthen his frame. 
 His training is such that it is necessarj' for him to eat 
 food at precisely regular hours, which builds up and 
 strengthens the digestion. This was markedly proved 
 by the case of ITolly on our team this year. There was 
 a man who had been under a doctor's advisement for two 
 years with a chronic stomach trouble, so severe that he 
 was unable to play last j'ear. This year, b}^ careful 
 watching and dieting and training, his condition so 
 improved that he played through every one of the 
 important games with no inconvenience, and at the end 
 of the season confessed to me that he had not felt so 
 well in over two years. 
 
 I could remember man}^ cases in which a boy's physi- 
 cal condition has been greatly improved by playing the 
 game, as it is played at the larger universities. It is the 
 fact that every boy who plays regularly and for any 
 length of time is benefited. 
 
 Mentally, the game benefits a j^oung man by teaching 
 him self-control in various way. He must learn to keep 
 his temper, to control an}'^ propensity he may have for 
 indulging in luxuries or dissipation of an}'^ kind. He 
 must be able to submit himself to the severe discipline 
 which the captain puts him under, and do so without a 
 murmur. He must learn how to so train his mind as to 
 make himself a part of a unified team working for the 
 attainment of the one object. 
 
 J. H. Sears, Captain Harvard Team 
 
 The year of my captaincy was 1888. That year we 
 had no game with Yale. The Princeton game, played 
 on Princeton's grounds, resulted in no injury sufficient 
 to require any member of my team to leave the field. 
 One man, Frank Woodman, was exhausted at the end 
 
y 
 
 142 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUEES 
 
 of the first half, but played through the rest of the game 
 at the orders of the umpire. Victor Harding was 
 slightly injured just before the close of the game, but 
 recovered within a day or two afterward. 
 
 It seems to me impossible to overstate the good results 
 of the game during my year. "The college was tlien just 
 beginning to be extremely enthusiastic over football. 
 Football men held the highest position in'the respect of 
 their classmates. They were setting a standard which 
 has increased in efficacy since then for the other under- 
 graduates of the university; a standard of temperance, 
 self-control, attention to work, and manliness. So far as 
 I have been able to follow the men who were on that 
 team, they are now — all of them that are living — stand- 
 ing well in the communities in which they live, and 
 promise to be successful men. While in college, if I 
 remember rightly, every man but one stood considerably 
 above the middle of his class. 
 
 I can honestly say that I do not know of any bad 
 results from those two months of football. I wish I 
 could say the same for the other months of the college 
 year while I was at the university. 
 
 H. W. Cowan, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 In regard to that first question : In the year 1887 with 
 Harvard none left the field from injury, and with Yale 
 the same year one of the Princeton boys was exhausted 
 so that his brother took his place, No particular injury : 
 he had not fully recovered from the game with Harvard 
 the week before. In 1888 no one was injured in either 
 game. 
 
 The second question it is harder to answer. In regard 
 to the playing of the game, I did not think that it could 
 be called a dangerous game. My own experience of five 
 years of playing in nearly every game from the very 
 
LETTEES FKOM CAPTAINS 143 
 
 first to the end of the season, I nevei- left the field on 
 account of injury. In fact, I was injured more by play- 
 ing tennis, as 1 sprained my ankle playing tennis after 
 having played the whole season at football. I am of the 
 opinion, however, that it would be well, as the game has 
 developed and the turn it has taken, to do a little legis- 
 lating in regard to the flying wedge. I was not an eye- 
 witness to the game when it was played, so perhaps am 
 not competent to judge. I simply can see how such 
 a kind of game would make the play much more 
 dangerous. 
 
 Ray Tompkins, Captain Yale Team 
 
 As to your two questions, I would answer the first by 
 saying that in the two years that I was captain no 
 member of our team was compelled to leave the game 
 during the match with Princeton or Harvard. The 
 second question could be answered at greater length 
 than I have time to spare. I should, in a general wa^^, 
 sa}'^ that there are very, very few permanent injuries 
 received from plajdng the game. I presume no more 
 than happens in any other vigorous out-door sport. The 
 good results that are brought about are altogether too 
 numerous to be mentioned by me during the remainder 
 of my life. Outside of the physical improvement to be 
 derived, I should like to pay more attention to the great 
 improvement one's mind derives from the game. AVe 
 know very well that we have seen men physically 
 quickened to such a degree as to be visibly perceptible. 
 If you have a machine down there for measuring the 
 quickness of mental perception, I will guarantee to take 
 any set of men picked out by any professor, and I will, 
 with the game of football, show greater improvement 
 in the above direction than he can by any mental 
 process that he is able to contrive. Discipline and 
 
144 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 courage are certainly the most desirable things to be 
 taught any young man in this country. We know 
 that we can take any of our well-trained football men, 
 and order them to do anything on earth, and they will 
 do it, without thinking twice, to the best of their 
 ability. A great many games are played by people 
 who become expert simply because it is their desire 
 to do so. I would venture to say that a large propor- 
 tion of football players are trained and do their best out 
 of a sense of duty, and as the result of a high course of 
 discipline. The number of men in the college who 
 derive exercise mentally and physically from this game 
 are a great many more than from any other of our 
 sports. 
 
 Albert F. Holden, Captain Harvard Team 
 
 Question No. 1. In the Harvard -Princeton game in 
 1887 there were two players hurt badly enough to cause 
 their removal from the field. Price, half-back of the 
 Princeton team, was badly cut about the mouth, and 
 liad his nose bruised. He claimed he was weaJcfrom the 
 loss of blood, and was taken from the field. On our side 
 I was the only one hurt. I had my sternum bone 
 fractured while tackling Price. I was laid up for a 
 year or so. 
 
 In the Harvard- Yale game in 1887, no one was hurt 
 on either side except Wallace of Yale, who sprained his 
 ankle. Sears of Harvard left the field, but not from 
 injuries received in the game. 
 
 Answering Question No. 2. I am a thorough believer 
 in football as it was played in my time and down to 
 1891. Since then I have more or less lost track of the 
 game. I believe it teaches cool action in a crisis and 
 concentration of purpose, both of which, even in my 
 short business career, I have found to be valuable traits 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 145 
 
 in practical life. All this is perhaps dictum in answer- 
 ing your question. Practically, and by practically I 
 mean from a player's and spectator's point of view, I 
 consider our old game fully satisfactory. I consider 
 the introduction of the mass plays a backward step and 
 one that was never contemplated by the framers of the 
 rules. 
 
 P. Taylor Bryan, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 No. 1. During the time in which I was captain of the 
 Princeton football team, I do not recollect that the 
 injuries received by the men in the match games with 
 Harvard and Yale were serious enough to cause them to 
 leave the field for more than a short time. In other 
 words, my recollection is that the team which began to 
 play in each of those games continued to play througli- 
 out that game, and that no substitutes were used except 
 for a sliort time during the game. 
 
 I do not recollect tlie nature of the injuries received 
 by any of the players. 
 
 No. 2. In my opinion, the game of football as it 
 was pla^'ed in my time led generally, and almost with- 
 out exception, as far as I can recollect, to good results. 
 Men were injured in pi-actice games it is true, and also 
 in some of the match games, but the injuries were, with 
 few exceptions, not of a nature at all serious. 
 
 I think the game, as it was played in my time, had a 
 tendency to make a man physically strong and active. 
 It had also a tendenc}' to develop him mentally, by teach- 
 ing him to be cool and collected xinder circumstances 
 which would ordinarily have tended to excite him. 
 And if I may express an opinion, I would say that such 
 is the natural tendency of the game. If it has had 
 other tendencies in particular instances or in particular 
 seasons, it would seem to me that it must have been the 
 10 
 
146 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 result either of accident or of innovations in the rules or 
 method of playing the game. 
 
 I may also add, that while I have no doubt that the 
 game could be improved upon, I regret to see the 
 tendency in some quarters to abolish the playing of the 
 game altogether ; • I think that such action would be 
 unwarranted by any results likely to be obtained. 
 
 Marcus M. Kimball, Captain Harvard Team 
 
 During the two years that I played at Harvard, I do 
 not remember any accidents of a serious nature which 
 occurred in match games with the exception of the 
 Princeton-Harvard game in fall of '83. In this game a 
 large number of Harvard men were laid up ; but it was 
 almost entirely due to the slippery condition of the 
 ground. During the several years that I played the 
 game, the only injury of any account which I received 
 was the knocking out of two teeth. As a game I do not 
 think there is anything to compare with football for 
 development of physique, courage, quickness of judg- 
 ment, and endurance. And I should be more than sorry 
 to see it stopped. At the same time, as a spectator 
 only, I should be glad to see the game opened out by 
 any means possible, and a ^oppage, or at least a lessen- 
 ing, of the present style of mass play ; and I do not see 
 why there cannot be just as much team work in an open 
 game with less danger of serious accident and a large 
 increase of interest to the spectator. It has always 
 been my opinion that the root of the evil was not to be 
 found in the rules of football ; but in the knowledge (or 
 rather lack of knowledge) of the spectators, and the 
 spirit of applauding any play that is successful. Any- 
 thing, therefore, that will really interest the public and 
 teach them to really understand the game is to me the 
 thing to be desired. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 147 
 
 Ralph H. Warren, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 In reply to question 1, would say that in our game 
 with Yale in '91 we had the same team tlirougliout the 
 match. That year we did not play Harvard. 
 
 Concerning bad and good results of the game of that 
 fall — from the effects of the football season on the men 
 that I had to handle — should say that pliysically they 
 were much benefited by the plaj'- and the training. 
 The training of that year and previous ones at Prince- 
 toi), however, was radically different from the system in 
 operation now. It was more on the " beef and one glass 
 of water a meal " plan, and playing the best men through- 
 out season, every game, without rest. This was partly 
 due, however, to the lack of sufficient number of good 
 candidates to divide work. With the exception of the 
 captain, who suffered from over-training and the mental 
 strain after the fall's Avodty'I think no member of the 
 team suffered anything but trifling injuries during entire 
 season. During my last year at football, a man of ordi- 
 nary intelligence had an abundance of time, if he were 
 taking an undergraduate course, to play on the team 
 and yet stand high in his class. I hope, when the 
 college representatives meet to consider changes in 
 this year's rules, that besides doing away with flying in- 
 terference they will consider the advantages of the 
 English game of open running and passing as com- 
 pared to those of our American interference. 
 
 T. L. McClung, Captain Yale Team 
 
 Regarding question number 1, I would say that 
 during my captainc}^ of the Yale team, fall 1891 — there 
 was not a single player who left tlie field from injuiy or 
 any other reason, in either the Harvard or Princeton 
 games. The same is true of the Harvard team and 
 
148 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 also of the Princeton eleven. In other words, twenty, 
 two men, and twenty-two alone, participated in the 
 Yale-Harvard game, and also in the Yale-Princeton 
 contest. 
 
 To question number 2, 1 reply that in ray time the 
 good results so far outnumbered the bad that the latter 
 were hardly worth considering. I think I can say that 
 the one drawback to our fall college game is the amount 
 of time which every player must devote to it to the 
 exclusion of nearly everything else while the season is 
 on ; but that applies in a measure, too, to the other 
 sports. 
 
 I take for granted that the men who go into the 
 game are physically able to stand a cei'tain amount of 
 rough, healthy playing. There is little danger of injury 
 if the men, by constant training, gradually bring them- 
 selves to the point of " perfect condition," 
 
 The accidents which do happen almost invariably 
 occur to careless young fellows who have had little 
 experience with the game and its requirements. I 
 refer, of course, to serious accidents. 
 
 Wm. Herbert Corbin, Captain Yale Team 
 
 No. 1. During my captaincy no member of the 
 eleven was compelled to leave the field during the 
 match with Princeton on account of injuries received. 
 The game with Harvard was forfeited to Yale. 
 
 No. 2. In my opinion the football season of 1888 
 was marked by the greatest development of the game 
 under the rules then existing. The present methods of 
 interference had not come into general use. The play 
 was more open tlian at present, and the dangers accom- 
 panying the present style of interference and "mass 
 plays " were absent. The good results were far in 
 excess of the bad. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 149 
 
 H. W. Beecher, Captain Yale Team 
 
 No. 1, Fall of '87 — Princeton vs. Yale. No one hurt. 
 
 Harvard vs. Yale, Woodruff injured his knee (sprain). 
 Wallace strained muscles of his calf. 
 
 No. 2. The majority of injuries my year were sprains 
 or strains, and I remember no more serious accident. 
 The most of these were received in the early part of 
 the season before the men had become hardened in 
 muscles and supple in joints. It is such a hard game to 
 moderate that the excitement of the moment drives men 
 to play beyond the limit warranted by their condition 
 in the early season, and injuries received then generally 
 last and are a bother in the final games. 
 
 Eugene L. Richards, Jr., Captain Yale Team 
 
 In reference to the other enquiries made by you, as 
 captain in 1884 I would say that the only player 
 injured in a big game was myself. I had my ankle 
 dislocated in the Yale-Princeton game on Thanksgiving 
 Day, 1884, and was laid up for about six weeks. I have 
 never had any trouble from it since. 
 
 As to the advantage of the game, I do not think I 
 can express myself as well as you can, but my own 
 opinion of the game is that it is the best test and culti- 
 vator of courage, judgment, perseverance, and physical 
 and intellectual quickness that exists. 
 
 T. G. Trenchard, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 In the Yale game, Balliet had his head cut a^ little, 
 and Lea had a knock on his backbone which laid them 
 both up for a short time, and tliat is the extent of our 
 injuries. The only thing I have against football is 
 that the men who have recitations after practice are apt 
 
150 FOOTBALL FACTS AKD FIGURES 
 
 to cut them because they would rather lie down, being 
 a little tired. 
 
 Everything else favors the game. A man's health is 
 improved, he becomes more manly, it teaches him to 
 think and act quickly, to take advantage of every 
 opportunity. 
 
 Robert N. Corwin, Captain Yale Team, and also for 
 Captain Peters* 
 
 We did not play Harvard in the fall of '85, under 
 the captaincy of Frank Peters. In the Princeton game 
 of that year none of our men were injui'ed as far as I 
 remember, or as far as the newspapers, which are careful 
 to record such matters, show. 
 
 Tracy H. Harris, for DeCamp, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 I do not remember any one being injured or com- 
 pelled to retire from the field in the Yale game played 
 in fall of '85. Princeton and Harvard did not play that 
 year. 
 
 As to the second question I would say the results 
 physically were good. As far as I know no one of the 
 players of that time has attributed any illness or weak- 
 ness to injuries or strains received in playing. 
 
 On the contrary, I believe after ten years of accumu- 
 lation of fat every one wishes he might again experi- 
 ence the sensation of a perfect physical condition. 
 Increased avoirdupois is the only bad result I know. 
 
 There is no question but that the training, both 
 mental and physical, was of much value. 
 
 I regret the question has arisen that the game needs 
 vindication. It can only arise with those who do not 
 know it pi'actically. I am confident that every old 
 
 * Frank G. Peters, Captain Yale team, died of typhoid fever 
 seven years after graduation. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 151 
 
 player, almost without exception, is ready to maintain 
 that it is, of all the athletic sports, the most vigorous, 
 manly, and beneficial. 
 
 Philip King, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 In the Yale-Princeton game of '92, which year I 
 was captain, not a Princeton man, either through injury 
 or any other cause, was compelled to leave the field. 
 Of the Yale team L, Bliss, wlio entered the game with 
 an injured knee, was compelled to retire ten minutes 
 before the close of the game. 
 
 In the last ten years at Princeton two men have had 
 their legs broken, which have been the most serious 
 accidents during tliat time. 
 
 Personally, the game has done me untold good. I 
 have developed myself, have learned self-restraint, it 
 has helped me when and bow to act in a crisis, has 
 given me entire self-possession, and I think better fitted 
 me to take up the battle of life. 
 
 Robert N. Corwin, Captain Yale Team 
 
 If my memory serves me rightly, we had no occasion 
 to make use of a substitute during eitlierof the games of 
 my captaincy. Certainly no injury was received by any 
 of the men of a serious enough character to have lodged 
 in my memory ; and if I were asked to select men who 
 represented Yale physically, I am sure I should not be 
 able to do better than select the men who played with 
 me, senior year. 
 
 Of course, we all knoAV that the game is not entirely 
 devoid of danger, but I believe that this can be almost 
 entirely eliminated ; and I believe that the first step in 
 this direction is, if possible, to put a stop to this bat- 
 tering-ram work, whicli is not only dangerous but mo- 
 notonous, and to return to something of the game as 
 
152 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 played a half dozen years ago. In ray time most of the 
 serious accidents which came to ray notice happened to 
 men who never should have gone on football fields. 
 Of the latest phases of the game I can only judge from 
 the newspaper reports, and it would seem as if the 
 various wedges and rams were developing the rougher 
 possibilities in football, and adding little or nothing to 
 the better sides of the game. 
 
 C O. Gill, Captain Yale Team 
 
 In answer to your first question I would say that 
 in neither the Harvard nor Princeton games in 1889 did 
 any Yale player receive an injury so serious as to cause 
 him to leave the field. 
 
 Two players attempted to play in the Princeton game, 
 one at the beginning and the other later, in the place of 
 a disqualified player, and on account of previous injuries 
 found it impossible to play well enough to remain in 
 the field. They were not, however, injured during the 
 game. 
 
 As to bad results of the game, I can think of no 
 serious injury received by any of the players while I 
 was in college. Interference with studies was only 
 necessary in the case of the captain. In his case I think 
 the experience gained in managing the team more than 
 compensated for the temporary interference with the 
 college curriculum. 
 
 As to the good results, I believe the discipline of the 
 careful training and hard work was of the greatest 
 benefit to the players. 
 
 Intercollegiate athletics, contrary to the claims of 
 recent newspaper articles, tend to stimulate general 
 exercise throughout the college, not merely in scrub 
 games, but in walking and running out-doors, and work 
 in the gymnasium, kicking football, and passing foot- 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 153 
 
 ball, base-ball, and tennis-ball, and in any other form of 
 out-door exercise. The general habit of exercise is 
 mainly due to the intercollegiate contests and the 
 example of the teams training for them. In this way 
 the games are indirectly of the greatest benefit to the 
 general health of the men in college. 
 
 It is my impression that now more time is spent in 
 preparation for the final games than formerly, and that 
 the mass play makes the game somewhat more violent, 
 but at the time I was in college the objections against 
 football commonly urged had little ground. 
 
 I know of no player whose health was injured by the 
 game. I liave enjoyed the best of health ever since 
 graduation, and am of the opinion that the exercise in 
 the autumn air strengthens one's constitution and has 
 no injurious effect. 
 
 W. C. Rhodes, Captain Yale Team 
 
 In answer to question No. 1, would say that H. W. 
 Williams was the only man on my team to leave the 
 field during the Harvard game ; his injury -was only a 
 sliglit strain in his shoulder. In the Princeton game 
 P. W. Harvey was the only one to leave the game ; his 
 injury consisted of a sprained ankle, but did not amount 
 to much, as he was able to walk without assistance of 
 any kind. Question No. 2. The results of the game in 
 my time. There is but one answer to this question, and 
 that is, they were, in every case of the thirty men play- 
 ing, good. 
 
 Vance McCormick, Captain Yale Team 
 
 The first question is easily answered, as Laurie Bliss 
 was the only man laid off in the Harvard and Princeton 
 games, and he in the last five minutes of the game, 
 
154 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 caused by his knee — which he injured while fooling on 
 the lawn at Newport — playing out. 
 
 Looking at the game from a Yale man's point of view, 
 or rather looking at the whole season, I was terribly 
 impressed with a tired feeling when, after having beaten 
 Pennsylvania and Harvard, we still had a hard fight 
 between us and the championship. The game as played 
 in our year, when wedges were resorted to principally, 
 was rather uninteresting to the ordinary spectator. And 
 to the player having a good team working gradually 
 down on him yard by yard, with no prospects of keeping 
 them from gaining their distance, is rather disheartening, 
 and uses a man up more completely than anything else. 
 
 Bertram, Gordon Waters, Captain Harvard Team 
 
 During the Yale game of 1893 only one man, myself, 
 was obliged to leave the field. The cause was the giv- 
 ing out of a previously weak knee that had so troubled 
 me that I had grave doubts of getting through the game 
 before going into it. The knee is now entirely well. 
 As you know, of course, we did not play Princeton. 
 
 I think that the good results of the game far outweigh 
 the few and minor bad results that we see quoted among 
 the great mass of stuflF printed in the newspapers against 
 the game. 
 
 In giving to a man determination, self-reliance, and 
 the training of good discipline, I think the game cannot 
 be equalled, and giving, as it does, out-door exercise to 
 so many in the fall I think all who have played the 
 game will agree with me that its advantages are far 
 greater than its dangers. 
 
 Speaking personally, if my own experience is of any 
 use to you, I may say that I feel that my work on foot- 
 ball has benefited me greatly, and some of the time 
 thus spent to have been as valuably spent as any other 
 during my college course. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 155 
 
 Edivard C. Peace, Captain Princeton Team 
 
 During the period Avhicli I was captain of the Prince- 
 ton football team in the year 1882, 1 have no recollection 
 of any accident which caused any member of the 
 Princeton team to leave the field in any game between 
 Princeton and Yale or Princeton and Harvard. I would 
 like to add, I played football for four years, between 
 1875 and 1879, at St. Paul's school ; during that time I 
 never saw an accident that resulted in a broken bone. 
 I entered Princeton in the fall of 1879, Was a 
 member of the team as the onlj'' member of the fresh- 
 man class of '83, and played for four years on the team 
 representing Princeton University. In those four years 
 the worst injury I ever saw was a broken collar-bone. 
 In the game played at the Polo Grounds in the fall 
 of 1880, Princeton vs. Harvard, when Winton P., '84, 
 kicked a goal in about the last ten minutes, I was 
 tripped (entirely unintentionally by Perrin of Harvard, 
 Cincinnati). I think you refereed the game, I was off 
 the field for five minutes in the last seven minutes of the 
 first half. 
 
 Any remarks I can make or anything I can say to 
 advance the interest of the colleges in American foot- 
 ball I will gladly, as I always have tried to. Knowing, 
 as I alwaj's have, your deep interest in the game, and 
 your true spirit to keep the game purely amateur, if I 
 can do the game anything to help it along, you can 
 always call on me, for no one ever loved it more, 
 
 H. A. MacJcey, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team 
 
 In our game with Princeton last season, Mr. Gelbert, 
 a half-back, was the only man who was compelled to 
 leave the field, he sustaining a slightly sprained ankle, 
 which was entirely well in three weeks' time, and he is 
 now playing base-ball. 
 
156 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 In our game with Yale Mr, Newton, playing end-rush, 
 left the field after the game was about two-thirds over, 
 on account of a weak ankle, naturally weak, and becom- 
 ing painful through weariness. 
 
 As to my opinion on the good and bad results of the 
 game, I would say that I have always looked upon a 
 game of football as a great training-school for the mind, 
 and have always thought that upon the gridiron could 
 be learned lessons better calculated to help a man in 
 after life than in any class-room of any college. A man 
 by his football training learns to look ahead of him to 
 some great object he wishes to accomplish, and then, 
 sacrificing every personal pleasure if it be necessary, he 
 summons every power of his body and his mind to 
 accomplish that object. When a football man goes 
 upon the field of play in one of the important matches 
 of the present day, he carries with him the accumulated 
 energy of months of training and study. He knows 
 that he carries with him the honor of his college. He 
 knows that he is about to wage a battle that will be 
 talked and written about for years to come. He meets 
 a thousand different complications upon that field, and 
 it is the team that has the greatest amount of mental 
 activity, other things being equal, that is going to carry 
 off the honors of the day. The venerable Dr. McCosh, 
 in addressing a body of Princeton students at one time, 
 said, " Gentlemen, yon learn more by your defeats than 
 by your victories," and in this thought I find one of the 
 greatest arguments in favor of college football in that 
 when a college football player goes out into the world 
 to battle with the stern realities of life, if he be true to 
 the instincts of his college training he will not be de- 
 jected or discouraged by any misfortune that he may 
 meet with, but, true to his early instructions upon the 
 gridiron, he will look hopefully to the future, expecting 
 better results from better work. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 157 
 
 C. H. Schoff, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team. 
 
 In our game with Princeton while I was captain, two 
 men were compelled to leave the field, I being one of 
 the number, and my injury was re-hurting a knee which 
 had been in the first place injured by playing base-ball 
 and thereby made weak and easily hurt. The other 
 player, Mr. Knipe, also having a bad knee, the result of 
 an accident entirely foreign to the game. 
 
 In the game with Yale, three players retired at the 
 end of the first half, through slight disabilities in 
 nowise permanent, the same players being to-day per- 
 fectly sound. As to the good or bad results from the 
 game, I am perhaps not an impartial judge, but I cannot 
 see any harm coming from a game where such traits of 
 character as prudence, self-sacrifice and total abstinence, 
 pluck and intellect are employed so largely, and where 
 medical authorities tell us that the injuries occasionally 
 received are very small as compared with the g.'^it 
 advantages thereby derived. 
 
 Edgar M. Church, Captain University of Pennsylvania ' 
 Team 
 
 As to injuries received by players while I was captain, 
 I only remember one, that of Mr. Poe of Princeton, who 
 was forced to leave the field on account of a broken 
 nose received from butting into the hips of one of his 
 own players. This injury was received through care- 
 lessness on his part and not on account of the roughness 
 of any set system of playing. 
 
 Mr. Thayer was once forced to leave the field on 
 account of the intentional hitting by one of his oppo- 
 nents. This injury was received in an open field and 
 while he was endeavoring to punt the ball. 
 
 I can see no bad results from the game of football as 
 played at present, and never remember having heard or 
 
158 ' FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 seen of a man who was properly trained receiving any 
 injuries necessitating bis laying off for more than a 
 week or so. 
 
 It seems to me this cry (injury) is worked about to 
 a standstill. It is done for sympathy's sake, and the 
 papers use it as a means of tales which toady to the 
 minds of a good many of their readers. 
 
 E. Miel, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team 
 
 I cannot recall any serious injury to any member of 
 the University of Pennsylvania team in the games with 
 Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. When any player was 
 laid off the cause generally was the renewal of an old 
 hurt or sprain received perhaps years before. 
 
 In reply to question 2 : 
 
 a. Bad results. At that time interference was being 
 largely developed. A tendency to hold on the line, and 
 in consequence blows and bad blood. Just here was 
 the spot where the ugliest playing was done. 
 
 h. Good results : Interference brought about a better 
 protection for half-backs and runners. Less liability to 
 injury by not being thrown so heavily. 
 
 My experience has led me to favor the game as 
 a splendid exercise for muscle, intelligence, and grit. 
 
 Thomas W. Hulme, Captain University of Pennsylvania 
 Team 
 
 1. I do not recall any cases during the period that I 
 captained the university team where any of our men 
 were seriously injured in games with Harvard, Yale, or 
 Princeton. We often found it necessary to call in 
 substitutes, but our facilities at that time for properly 
 training the candidates for the football team did not 
 compare favorably with those of other prominent teams, 
 and to this extent our men labored at a disadvantage. 
 
LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 159 
 
 resulting at times, in their games with teams who liad 
 the advantage of superior training, in some of our men 
 being compelled to leave the field from physical ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 2. An opinion must be largely based upon personal 
 experiences, so in answering your second question I can 
 say that I believe my football training has been of great 
 assistance and value to me in business and private life. 
 It is in my opinion the game best suited to teach a man 
 the advantage of full control of himself under exciting 
 and trying conditions, conditions which at times might 
 readily offer an excuse for the indulgence of passion, 
 the exercise of which would lessen his usefulness to his 
 companions and saddle him with contempt. It compels 
 prompt action upon new situations constantly arising in 
 the course of a game, which can only be of inestimable 
 benefit to the man. 
 
 Tlie physical benefits resulting to a man who plays the 
 game, and who has trained faithfully, must not be under- 
 estimated. I believe that the little time thus lost from his 
 studies is more than compensated for during the balance 
 of the college year, and in after life by the good health 
 which a strong constitution thus built up insures. 
 
CHAPTEK V 
 
 LETTERS FKOM PLATBES * 
 
 One cannot help being impressed with the unanimity 
 of opinion among the players that the game has been 
 of benefit to them. The following letters come from 
 men, some of whom have wandered far indeed from 
 their alma mater, but almost every one has a good 
 word to say of his old sport. 
 
 Chittooe, India, April 26, 1894. 
 
 In the interest of this fine game I am moved to add 
 my experience : 
 
 I played football throughout my college course at 
 Rutgers (1878-1882) and part of my theological semi- 
 nary course (1882-1886). For four of those years I was 
 regularly on the 'varsity team and captain in 1882, in 
 the year, I think, in which Rutgers scored the touch- 
 down against Yale — the first, I think — and when you 
 arrived later in the game at New Brunswick and we first 
 discovered your presence by a drop kick for a goal from 
 the field ! But this is reminscence. 
 
 I have been in India for six years and my bicycle has 
 carried me far and near, by day and b}'^ night, and I 
 have no doubt that much of my endurance is attributable 
 
 * I wish to thank the many old players who took the pains to 
 write and who made such capital suggestions for the game. All 
 their suggestions were with pleasure submitted by me to the 
 Rules Committee, and I should print them here did not the hard- 
 hearted publishers insist that I keep this book within a prescribed 
 limit. — Walter Camp. 
 
 160 
 
LETTERS FKOM PLAYERS 161 
 
 to my football experience. In our mission there are 
 three old football players, and I fancy no one will ques- 
 tion our claim to the greatest endurance and general good 
 health and strength. Very sincerely, 
 
 (Rev.) W. I. Chamberlain, 
 
 Rutgers, 1882. 
 
 New York, March 17, 1894. 
 
 The game as played to-day is much too rough, and its 
 excessive roughness first crept into the game when the 
 original rule for " off side " play was changed. When 
 the game was first introduced in this country (in the 
 fall of '74) a player Avas "off side," and therefore out of 
 the game, when the ball had been caught or touched, or 
 was being run witli, by any of his own side behind him. 
 
 A player was put " on side " when the ball had been 
 caught or touched by any player on the opposite side or 
 when the player on his own side, Avho caught the ball, 
 had run past him. 
 
 When " off side " a player was considered out of the 
 game. He could not touch the ball in any case what- 
 ever, except only when " in touch," or in any way inter- 
 rupt a play or obstruct a player. 
 
 The most important rule of the whole list, in my 
 opinion, is this one defining " off side " play. The whole 
 idea of the Rugby game centers on this point, that to be 
 " on side " a player must be behind the ball. 
 
 Return to the original rule, as defined above, and you 
 must necessarily cut out much of the roughness of the 
 present game, for the so-called " modern interference " 
 would not be allowed, and it is this " off side " interfer- 
 ence (" off side " being used in its original sense) that has 
 made the game seem brutal. 
 
 I believe in the more open game, where passing, dodg- 
 ing, and drop-kicking for goal were the beautiful 
 features of the game. 
 11 
 
162 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 There is one other change I would advise : I believe 
 the ball should be put in play by a " kick off." 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 H. S. Seaman. 
 
 Boston, Mass., March 20, 1894, 
 I so heartily endorse your efforts iov facts about foot- 
 ball that I write a line to you personally. 
 
 You will remember that E. T. Cabot, '83, was the cap- 
 tain of our team of the fall of 1882. He, poor fellow, 
 died a few months ago, of a chronic ti'ouble in no way 
 connected with athletics. I only wish he could answer 
 in person your enquiries. I believe ray friend Arthur 
 Lymon has given you a short account of his experience. 
 I played with him for years and it was he and Tom 
 Thacher and myself who seemed to thrive most under 
 rough handling, and Cabot, I believe, never was absent 
 from a game in college, and he played for many years 
 in school with no injury. 
 
 With regard to the games under his captaincy : In 
 the Princeton-Harvard game there was no one hurt, the 
 eleven men playing through. In the Yale-Harvard 
 game Wesselhof t, '84, had his ankle badly sprained, and 
 Adams took his place. His was the only injury in the 
 two games. This was in the fall of 1882. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. B. Mokison. 
 
 Chicago, March 10, 1894. 
 
 You will find enclosed the printed questions duly 
 answered. 
 
 If you read the enclosed sketch of my injury you will 
 know why I have answered questions Nos. 5 and 6 as 
 I have. 
 
 I have cheerfully taken the time and trouble necessary 
 to write it, in order that you might have the evidence 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 163 
 
 necessary to clear of all blame the game we both enjoy 
 playing so much. 
 
 I care for football as I care for no other game. Some 
 of my happiest hours have been spent in the exhilar- 
 ation of a well-contested field. And although I have 
 been thi'own often and have contributed to the over- 
 throw of some, no one ever hurt me nor did I ever 
 injure anyone (except myself, by twisting my knee). 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Wm. W. K. Nixon. 
 
 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, June 7, 1894. 
 
 The printed questions I have answered and enclosed. 
 You ask besides for an expression of opinion from me 
 as to the game of football. I think it one of the grand- 
 est games ever played for those who can play it without 
 too much effort and without too much fatigue. A man 
 should be "adapted " to it, that is, take to it naturally 
 for the love of the game and not for the kudos he 
 may win. 
 
 I have watched with interest your close connection 
 with the game since I left New Haven, as also j'^our 
 efforts to effect such improvement as the condition of 
 the game suggested. For ten years I have been out of 
 touch with the Rugby game or any modification of it. 
 The game played here, and watched by upward of fifty 
 thousand people every Saturday for five months in the 
 year, is as near as can be the game played at Yale when 
 big Fulton was captain and the following year — of 
 course you remember it. Certain imimportant modifi- 
 cations have been made with a view of making it a fast 
 game. At present I consider it a finer game, from a spec- 
 tator's point of view, than the Rugby game played at 
 Yale in 1879 and 1880. But all this ia outside the matter 
 on which you asked for information. 
 
 I sympathize with you in your efforts to free the 
 
164 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 game from any objectional features as well as from 
 false prejudice in the eyes of the public. 
 
 If you would like any further information as to the 
 game played in this part of the world do not hesitate to 
 write, for it will afford me great pleasure to reply. 
 Yours, most sincerely, 
 
 Rudolf Wuets. 
 
 Tokyo, Japan, April 19, 1894. 
 
 I of course do not agree with the opinion that foot- 
 ball should be prohibited in the schools and colleges. 
 There is quite too much good in it to justify the current 
 wholesale denunciation on the score of dangers involved. 
 At the same time I should be glad to see changes made 
 in the rules that would prevent, or at least limit, mass 
 plays and other rougher features of the game. 
 
 I certainly hope that the enemies of the game will not 
 win ; but that changes may be agreed upon such as shall 
 satisfy the public that American Rugby is really what 
 it claims to be — a manly exercise and discipline, and 
 rather a safeguard against than a cultivator of ruflSan- 
 ism in American student life. 
 
 I am, yours very truly, 
 
 Theodore M. Mac Nair. 
 
 Boston, March 12, 1894. 
 
 Your circular letter with enclosed questions was re- 
 ceived to-day, and I will of course do all in my power 
 to help you in collecting data. 
 
 My injury was received in the middle of November, 
 and kept me away from college until the following 
 April, and out of all athletics during the college year. 
 
 Football, in my mind, is without doubt the best game 
 we have for physical and mental training ; but at the 
 same time I must confess that the above accident cooled 
 my ardor for the game personally, and all the more, as 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 165 
 
 you will appreciate, as it prevented ray playing on the 
 only base-ball nine that was able to win its series against 
 Yale during my college course. If I can help you in any 
 Avay I will gladly do so. Yours very truly, 
 
 Walter D. Phillips. 
 
 New York, May 14, 1894. 
 It is with a great deal of pleasure that I add ray 
 testinion}^ to the good of football. I believe in it 
 most thoroughly as a man and as a physician, provided 
 of course the player is well and strong, " in condition," 
 and has no organic trouble. Alraost all the injuries, 
 certainly all the serious ones, that have corae under my 
 notice, have been primarily due to lack of condition. In 
 my own case I cannot speak too strongly in favor of the 
 game. It gave me the strength to combat successfully 
 a severe sickness with threatened loss of ray eyesight. 
 I have always talked in favor of the game to fathers and 
 mothers who had boys to send to college. Its general 
 influence is good. It is, above all others, the gentleman's 
 game. I remain, very sincerely, 
 
 Wm. Homes Tatler, M. D. 
 
 Philadelphia, March 31, 1894. 
 I consider, from a physical standpoint, that I have 
 very much to be thankful for for the benefits received 
 through training for and playing football. 
 
 I knew little or nothing about the garae until my 
 freshman year in college, and, by accident, one day 
 found myself in the midst of a "scrub," from which 
 time I continued to take an active interest in the game 
 and it proved to be of great and lasting benefit to me. 
 I always feel thoroughly enthused over the garae and 
 believe it will always be esteemed a most manly sport. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Rodman Wanamaker, 
 
166 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Boston, April 7, 1894. 
 
 I have never received serious injury in playing foot- 
 ball. I have had innumerable little hurts that were 
 disagreeable at the time, but I regard such injuries as 
 really a precious part of the training in teaching forti- 
 tude to bear any other hardships. An injury to my 
 nose left it slightly out of shape, but just as good for 
 all practical purposes. 
 
 After I was taken from the field at Springfield in the 
 Yale game a year ago last fall, I was unconscious for ten 
 or fifteen minutes, but I never knew why I was so, and 
 I was all right as soon as I came to my senses. I think 
 I may fairly say that my injuries sustained in football 
 have not been severe enough to deserve any notice. 
 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 J. D. Upton. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 19, 1894. 
 
 With regard to question No. 2, perhaps I should 
 have said that while playing at school I injured my 
 wrist, and not having afterward taken any care of it, 
 nature took care of it, but in such a way that the bone 
 or ligament, or whatever it was that was injured, 
 knitted wrong, and I have since been unable to bend my 
 hand back at all and when boxing it has often troubled 
 me, hurting me considerably. 
 
 This injury, I may say, was permanent I suppose. 
 
 You may remember another injury which I received, 
 and which may or rnay not enter into the subject. 
 I refer to the season of 1891, and the University 
 of Pennsylvania-Princeton game. I was struck from 
 behind, after playing about fifteen minutes, by one 
 of the Princeton men, the blow being right on my 
 temple. I had had a very severe and heavy cold, 
 from which I was suffering at the time, and played 
 against the advice of mv doctor. The blow and this 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 167 
 
 condition I was in " put me out of the game," as I did 
 not know where I was for fully five minutes. 
 
 The blow was one with the fist and not accidental in 
 any way, therefore cannot be traced to the roughness 
 of football. Yours very truly, 
 
 Harry C. Thayer. 
 
 Germantown, April 22, 1894. 
 
 I think the general effect of the sport is very bene- 
 ficial. I think no one will dispute its physically beneficial 
 results. The general belief is that football brings out 
 all that is brutal in a man. I dispute this, however, and 
 think on the contrary that it represses these instincts. 
 During the season a man must be physically moral, even 
 if he is not morally moral. After the first weeks of drudg- 
 ery in getting the summer's fat off, if one have anj-^ (I 
 never had), the clear eye and the satin skin are sure tokens 
 of a man who is at peace with the world and with him- 
 self, lie is very liable to want to remain in that con- 
 dition. I keep in half training all the time. By half 
 training I mean getting as much exercise as possible, but 
 not necessarily keeping early hours or denying myself 
 pastr3^ I never had a taste for liquor or tobacco. 
 
 I can study much better, concentrate my mind and 
 attain much better results when I have plenty of exercise. 
 
 Football is a splendid training for a man. It teaches 
 him obedience to orders, prompt decision in plays and 
 under circumstances that arise unexpectedly against 
 which it is impossible to provide. The powers of obser- 
 vation are sharpened. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Louis de P. Vail. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 20, 1894. 
 I consider football one of the grandest games that is 
 played. My experience on the football field has stood 
 
168 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 me in good stead and has taught me self-possession and 
 the faculty of deciding quickly and accurately. I 
 believe that in many ways it fits a man for the business 
 of life when he comes in contact with his fellow-men. 
 
 I have been out of college for nine years, but I 
 endeavor, at every opportunity to see a good game of 
 football. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 W. S. Habvey. 
 
 Boston, Mass., May 1, 1894. 
 
 George Morison turned over to me your enquiries to 
 Billy Manning, and I will answer for him, for Ted 
 Cabot and I were, I suppose, his most intimate friends 
 in college. 
 
 1. Manning was captain during falls of 1880 and 1881, 
 and while I have no recollection of any Harvard man 
 being hurt seriously in the Yale and Princeton games 
 (and I played in all), I went yesterday in order to make^ 
 as thorough and reliable a search as possible to the 
 Harvard library. I looked through the files of the 
 Crimson and Advocate. 
 
 I find that the only case mentioned of any injury 
 received in these games for falls of 1880 and 1881 was 
 in the case of Boyd and Foster slightly injured a few 
 minutes before the close of game with Yale on Boston 
 base-ball grounds, November 20, 1880. 
 
 This injury must have been a very slight one, or 
 I should have remembered it. 
 
 At New Haven, November 12, 1881, game with Yale, 
 E. S. Perin, '82, who had been troubled for some time 
 with a lame or weak ankle (received while " skylark- 
 ing " on the green in front of Matthews' Hall in college 
 yard), received no injury, but did not find his ankle 
 strong enough to play out the whole hour and a half and 
 so retired. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 169 
 
 No mention is made of tliis in the papers referred to, 
 but I wish to give all my recollections. You j'ourself 
 played in both of the games referred to, and may be 
 able to bear me out from your memory. I am safe in 
 saying that no Harvard man received any serious injury 
 in their Princeton games. 
 
 2. Manning was a thorough believer in athletics and 
 did much for the game of football at Harvard. I 
 believe that if he were alive to-day he would, like 
 myself, be opposed to mass plays and many other 
 modern movements which, disguised under various 
 forms or names, all put too great a premium on mere 
 brute strength, and which are particularly dangerous to 
 school teams and small boys who play this game, grow- 
 ing in popularity all over the country. 
 
 Personally I should be glad to go back more to the 
 open game of 1879-1884, and I think that many would 
 agree with me. 
 
 I don't think the present changes go far enough, or 
 that they will cure the present evils. But we can wait 
 and see. Believe me. 
 
 Your old opponent and faithful friend, 
 
 T. C. Thacher. 
 
 Yarmouthpoet, Mass., March 19, 1894, 
 I have gladly filled out and now enclose the blank 
 form you have circulated. While my football playing 
 extended at school and college over a period of ten 
 years, during which time I probably took part in four 
 or five hundred games, — match and practice together, — 
 still I do not feel that anything I could write for pub- 
 lication would command the respect and attention you 
 desire. So I will simply say tliat I have never seen 
 a player permanently injured during that time. 
 Very truly yours, 
 Harvard, '85. Johx Simpkins. 
 
170 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGUEES 
 
 New York, March 13, 1894. 
 
 My " serious injury " was received in tlie early part 
 of the first practice game of my senior year, when I was 
 not in the best possible condition. I twisted my knee 
 soon after play began and very foolishly finished the 
 game. If I had stopped playing at once I have no 
 doubt a rest of a day or two would have been sufficient. 
 As it was, I had water on the knee and was prevented 
 from playing any more that fall. 
 
 In the eleven years that I followed football closely — 
 at Exeter and Harvard — I recall only four really serious 
 accidents. Two men at Exeter, one a member of a 
 visiting team, had their legs broken, but in neither case 
 was the fracture a bad one. Phillips, '86, of the Har- 
 vard team, was accidently kicked in the head in a 
 Princeton game and badly hurt. He was obliged to 
 resign the captaincy of the nine the following spring, 
 but the year afterward captained and played on the 
 nine. Holden, '88, received an injury that might have 
 proved fatal, but has left, I believe, no permanent injury. 
 
 I have always considered football the best of the 
 athletic sports for developing a man and bringing him 
 into good physical condition. Unquestionably it is the 
 most scientific of all sports. 
 
 Comparing the two sports in which I have taken an 
 active part — base-ball and football — it is my experience 
 that a game of base-ball is far more tiring than one of 
 football, and I attribute this to the fact that in football 
 all the muscles of the body are constantly in play, while 
 in base-ball certain muscles are strained to the utmost, 
 although the player, especially if he is an outfielder, 
 may have practically nothing to do. 
 
 I trust your enquiries may show the public at large 
 that football is a sport to be encouraged. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Waldo W. Willard. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 171 
 
 Philadelphia, April 13, 1894. 
 
 My story is easily told, as you see. I am a very great 
 enthusiast on football and think from my own experience 
 that there is no game like it. 
 
 I plaj'^ed in but five university games, however, sub- 
 mitting to the mortification of having a freshman put in 
 my place, but as I was in my uniform on the field from 
 September 24 to November 25, I had a fairly good 
 schooling in the game, I am much obliged to you for 
 doing me the honor of selecting me as a sufficiently rep- 
 resentative man in football to furnish the little informa- 
 tion I possess on the subject, and fear I don't deserve it, 
 but in conclusion I can say that my experience was 
 almost entirely without accident, that I found it much 
 less rough than it appeared to be in the actual play, and 
 that I was never better or stronger in my life. Believe 
 me, with kind regards, Very truly yours, 
 
 Louis A. Biddle. 
 
 Philadelphia, 1893. 
 I have played football for two years, and never was 
 hurt to amount to anything, and think the training and 
 the work has done me a lot of good. Football, as it is 
 played to-day, is good enough for me. 
 
 Yours, 
 Charles M. Wharton. 
 
 Chicago, May 3, 1894. 
 Regarding my injury, I will say tliat I have always 
 considered it to be due to the fact that I Avas wearing 
 a pair of new shoes with very sharp cleats. I was 
 twisted about in a scrimmage, and the shoe holding firmly 
 to the ground the two bones of the leg were twisted, 
 one upon the other, causing both to snap. My chief 
 regret over this occurrence arose from the fact that it 
 debarred me from playing football for the remainder of 
 
172 FOOTBALL FACTS AlfD FIGURES 
 
 that season. I never felt the slightest ill effects from 
 the injury after my recovery, and the best evidence 
 that it left no unpleasant results behind may be found 
 in the fact that, for three or four years after graduating, 
 I annually played football here on the team of the 
 Chicago University Club, taking part with very little 
 training in a number of rough games against college 
 teams. Perhaps I need not tell you that I consider 
 football to be the greatest game ever played. I feel 
 that it gives one a sense of self-reliance and cultivates 
 the ability to think and act quickly when exposed to dan- 
 ger. Should there be a younger generation of Hamlins 
 of Yale, I shall hope to see them play football. With 
 kind regards, I remain, Very truly yours, 
 
 Haekt L. Hamlin. 
 
 New York, May 5, 1894. 
 
 In all my experience as a university team player I 
 have never actually and personally known of a single 
 case of anything like permanent injury as the result of 
 football playing. The worst accident of which I have 
 any personal knowledge was the breaking of a collar- 
 bone, which was entirely well in three weeks. I have 
 known of worse injuries as the result of both cricket 
 and base-ball. 
 
 So far as I am personally concerned, I regard my 
 football experience as having had a decidedly and per- 
 manently beneficial effect upon my physical health. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to testify to my belief in, and 
 admiration for, what I consider the very best all-around 
 game ever played. Yours very truly, 
 
 C. A. Griscom, Jr. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 24, 1894. 
 I shall never regret the day I first stepped upon the 
 football field. I consider football a manly game, and 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 173 
 
 in ray profession energy and vitality are required, both 
 of which in my estimation I acquired in the game. All 
 of my classmates, as well as my college-mates, who played 
 on the 'varsity team are robust and healthy. What, 
 then, is better proof of the value of the game and its 
 worth to the young student. Above all I claim a player 
 will acquire " sand," which is so often wanting in the 
 average college man. 
 
 I wish I had the power to influence the college 
 authorities to vote for the continuance of the most 
 popular game now played in this countr}^ 
 
 My hope is that it may never die. 
 
 Very respectfull}^ 3'ours, 
 
 Irving E. Ziegler. 
 
 Upper Lake, Cal., April 15, 1894. 
 I was deeply interested in athletics of all kinds while 
 I was at college, though I devoted myself especially 
 to rowing, and I have since followed other sports as care- 
 fully as I could from this distance. Therefore, I am very 
 glad to have an opportunity to write my opinion about 
 jfootball a little more fully than your questions require. 
 While at school, I played football for several years, but 
 it was then such a crude game that I do not consider 
 that I played it, as the meaning now is, so I have given 
 only one year as my experience. As regards the most 
 serious injury I received on the field, I have stated that 
 it was a swollen knee, but I think it right to say that 
 that knee I injured a good deal when a mere boy, in 
 learning to skate, as I had a very severe attack of water 
 on the knee at that time, and never considered it per- 
 fectly strong, so whatever was the cause which made it 
 swell, it does not follow that the same cause would have 
 hurt a sound knee. And I remember that at the time I 
 was not conscious of any fall, strain, or blow which 
 might have brought it on. The injury was not severe 
 
174 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 enough to prevent my keeping on with that game 
 nor from playing another game a week later, though I 
 had to give up all intermediate practice. Nor did it 
 interfere with my rowing the following spring. In 
 fact, I have always been able to ride, run, walk, row, 
 work, or do any thing I want, without pain or incon- 
 venience, and the only time I notice the trouble is after 
 sitting in one position for an hour or so, and then my 
 knee begins to pain me, but the pain leaves as soon 
 as I walk a few steps. I was in very good condi- 
 tion at the time, and think that it can all be attrib- 
 uted to the earlier injury. I think that the effect 
 of the game upon me as an individual, both physi- 
 cally and mentally, was extremely good, and I do not 
 see it can fail to be the same with others. I do not 
 believe in both teams piling themselves on top of a run- 
 ner. To me this appears to be most prolific of acci- 
 dents. If any part of the player's person, who has the 
 ball, other than his feet, touches the ground, the ball 
 should be " down " there. Thus there would be no object 
 in trying for any more gain, and so no one would 
 have to try to stop him. Lastly, I don't think a man 
 trying for a catch should be interfered with at all. Too 
 often he is banged on the ground in the hope of dis- 
 abling him, and now some of his own side have to uphold 
 him. Either he should not be allowed to, run at all, or 
 else his opponents should not come near him. It would 
 be as fair for one side as for the other. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Charles Mifflin Hammond. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 2, 1894. 
 
 The total number of match games in which I 
 
 have played will reach over 125, in which number 
 
 I was compelled to leave the game but once on 
 
 account of my injuries, although a sprained ankle and 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 175 
 
 a contusion of the sternum made it advisable for me 
 to leave the field on two other occasions. All the rest 
 of the games I played from start to finish. The seven 
 3^ears I was in college I think would average fifty prac- 
 tice days a }^ear, or a total of tliree hundred and fifty 
 days, without any thing to show for them but a general 
 muscular soreness, and this was usually absent after 
 three or four weeks of practice. 
 
 Will say that in all the games I have ever played in 
 have never seen a serious accident, nor do I know of 
 any of the contestants being any the worse to-day for 
 the few bruises they received at the time. 
 
 Have also refereed and umpired a great many games, 
 and have never seen a serious accident in any of them. 
 I remain, yours respectfully, 
 
 J. HiLAND Dewey. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 25, 1894. 
 The happiest recollections of my college daj^s are 
 connected with the football field. And to football 
 I feel I owe my present good health and sound con- 
 stitution. Without a doubt, in my estimation, football 
 is the grandest game ever played, and the good it has 
 done the rising generation, both mentally and physically, 
 cannot be measured. And you may rest assured that 
 any thing I could do to advance the popularity of the 
 sport would be done most gladly. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Howard H. Sypher. 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 The papers in regard to football to my sons, T. B. 
 and S. N. Morison, I have received, and will forward 
 to them. But as they are now in Mexico, probably in 
 the wilds, at a distance from a post-oflice, a reply will 
 be uncertain — may at best be delayed many weeks. 
 
176 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 » 
 
 As the papers show, you want positive answers to the 
 questions from themselves directly, and over their own 
 signatures. I know their judgment in the matter, and 
 have been so much interested in the whole subject since 
 they left home for school, more than ten years ago, that 
 I cannot resist the opportunity to say for them both 
 that they and I believe that to their school and college 
 athletic training, which was largely taken under the 
 spur and interest of football, both owe their present 
 physical strength and vigor. Both Ben and Stan 
 played football at Exeter and Yale seven years. Stan- 
 ford had never any serious injury. Ben (T. B.) had, 
 during the sophomore year, the muscles of one thigh 
 seriously injured by (I think) a kick, was out of 
 college for several months, but returned the next year 
 well — and played football to the end of his college 
 course. 
 
 As a member of his family, I have heard Ben so often 
 make the replies to the questions enclosed that I have 
 written, and send them for whatever you may consider 
 them worth, thinking from receiving duplicates of the 
 papers that you earnestly desire the answer. 
 Very sincerely, etc., 
 
 R. N. MoEisoN. 
 
 SWAKTHMGEE COLLBGE, April 21, 1894. 
 
 It affords me much pleasure to reply to yours of April 
 19: First. 1873-77, Philadelphia High School, Associa- 
 tion Game ; 1877-78, Philadelphia High School, Rugby 
 Game ; 1879-86, Philadelphia Cresent Football Club, 
 Rugby Game ; 1878, 1881, 1886, 1887, University of 
 Pennsylvania ; 1888, 1889, 1890, at Swarthmore College ; 
 1891, at Swarthmore as playing coach. Really playing 
 every day continuously, during the football season, for 
 twenty-one years. 
 
 Second. During that time I have received four serious 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 177 
 
 injuries. In ISYS — University of Pennsylvania and 
 Princeton — weighing but 140 pounds, tackled and 
 threw Ilarlan, his Aveight coming on me wrenclied my 
 hip-joint, preventing my playing again that year. I was 
 unconditioned. In 1886 — University of Pennsylvania 
 and Princeton — in running with the ball, I went into 
 bounds, and was tackled and unintentionally thrown by 
 Cowan, dislocating the knee, which still continues weak, 
 the fibula being liable to slip out. I was in good con- 
 dition. In 1888 — Swarthmore and Lafayette — being 
 tackled and downed under a pile, my arm was wilfully 
 run up and back, fracturing the acromion end of the 
 shoulder, which I feel yet. In 1891 — Lawrenceville and 
 A. C. S. N. — in rushing through the centre was butted 
 in the jaw, knocking out a tooth and splitting the lower 
 jaw at symphysis. So that I have been hurt but twice 
 legitimately — the onl}^ time sufficient to lay me off be- 
 ing when I was out of condition. At no time has 
 sprains or wrenches kept me away from play more than 
 three days. 
 
 Physically, football has made me. To it I owe my 
 development and strength, being the incentive to 
 systematic exercising. It has given me endurance, 
 muscular vitality, and quick coordination. It has 
 allowed me to live to this day — for I was so delicate 
 as a boy as to be predicted a corpse before I was 
 sixteen. 
 
 Mentally, it has widened my comprehension, sharpened 
 acuteness, quickened perception, given stability and 
 permanence to purpose, dissipated bigotry and intoler- 
 ance, showing that men are equal and equally important. 
 Finally, it is the one game for college-men to play, but 
 it requires proper training, and is not safe for untrained 
 men. I am, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 J. KiNZER Shell, M. D. 
 13 
 
178 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Philadelphia, April 19, 1894. 
 In my experience, which has extended over a con- 
 siderable time at school and college, I have never known 
 any one to be permanently injured in playing football. 
 By " permanently injured " I mean injuries of such 
 a nature as to affect the after health or ability to 
 move about freely in their after-life. I believe that 
 the fatal injuries which have appeared in the columns 
 of the daily press are due to the fact that those who 
 were injured were improperly clad, in poor physical 
 condition (such as would render it dangerous to engage 
 in any sport), or careless as to their plaj'ing. I am 
 further of the opinion that much harm has been done 
 the game by reporters, ignorant of the rules of the 
 game, who misconstrue pushing and shoving into the 
 so-called " slugging." I am. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Hbnbt W. Thornton. 
 
 Newton Highlands, Mass., April 1, 1894. 
 Your statements and queries concerning football 
 playing have been received but cannot be well answered, 
 as A. Rogers Crane, Harvard '84, passed away several 
 years ago. 
 
 He played football for several years, but never 
 received to my knowledge any serious injury. We 
 have always considered that his football playing had 
 left a good effect generally. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Edwin R. Crane. 
 
 Upper Lake, Cal., April 2, 1894. 
 
 It is with the greatest satisfaction and pleasure that 
 I am allowed to send you my mite of evidence in favor 
 of the dear old game. 
 
 Having seen little or nothing of the present style of 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYEES 179 
 
 play, I do not feel that I can give an opinion for or 
 against it. As to the game itself, one requiring such 
 tact, perseverance, and courage must stand at the head 
 of college sports. 
 
 If only a grand reunion of all the old players might 
 be held, what a living testimonial it would be as to the 
 good the game had done and how small and narrow- 
 minded would seem the charges against it. Of course 
 I believe in a searching physical examination, and then 
 go in and win ; only let the game be fair, with not the 
 slightest opportunity for unsportsmanlike work. 
 
 As to myself, I think I played as hard as a man 
 could, and yet I Avas very fortunate as to accidents, 
 which I attribute to being in splendid condition and 
 studying the game. I am very well indeed and know 
 that my old days at the game have been of lasting 
 benefit to me. Trusting in your victory over the 
 fanatics, I am, 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 W. O. Edmunds. 
 
 Savannah, Ga,, April 9, 1894, 
 It is the first such favor that has reached me. I am 
 sorry my record misses being perfect. But I only left 
 the practice field once, and a game never. Thank yon 
 for your effort for the game. 
 
 Yours, with cordial remembrance, 
 
 Richard M. Hodge. 
 
 MiDDLETOWN, Cal., April 7, 1894. 
 I herewith enclose the blank as per your request re- 
 ceived yesterday. I desire to state further that I have 
 never been in better condition, physically and mentally, 
 than while "in training" for botli football and the 
 crew. Thus far I have never noted any injurious after- 
 effects, but on the contrary believe my power of endur- 
 
180 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 ance was greatly increased by participation in both of 
 these sports. 
 
 I do not know personally of any cases where there 
 have been deleterious after-effects. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Roland E. Hartley, M. D. 
 
 PoRCELLiAN Club, April 9, 1894. 
 It seems to me that though while playing many men 
 do suffer slight injuries, yet whenever the training is 
 judicious, as it is now in all the leading colleges, the 
 risk of the injury proving serious is very slight, and the 
 effect of the game, morally and physically, is exception- 
 ally good. Yours sincerely, 
 
 George R. Fearing. 
 
 New Rochelle, N. Y., April 3, 1894. 
 Let the good work go on — but who the devil is mak- 
 ing you all this trouble ? They are not going to pass 
 anj^ State laws against it, I hope. Football, in my opin- 
 ion, is best at its worst — to be Irish. I do not believe in 
 all this namby-pamby talk, and hope the game will not 
 be emasculated and robbed of its heroic qualities, which 
 is its charm and its distinctive quality. People who 
 don't like football as now played might like whist — 
 advise them to try that. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Frederic Remington. 
 
 Boston, April 6, 1894. 
 It seems to me that the danger in football is not so 
 much to the men, if they do not play a style of game 
 beyond what they are trained for, as to the game itself ; 
 that I think is in serious danger. If the game be prop- 
 erly modified this hue and cry about the danger to the 
 men and against the game itself will cease. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 181 
 
 The game as played to-day is grand, is magnificent, 
 but it savors too much of the gladiatorial, and if it is 
 ever to become a truly national sport, as it deserves, it 
 must be made practicable for the large body of young 
 men in business, clerks, etc. 
 
 As for the mass plays (relics of the Theban phalanx !), 
 if they be not positively dangerous they appear to be 
 so ; they make the game forbidding to the fathers 
 of all would-be players, are fearfully wearing on col- 
 legians, are impossible for all others, and are enjoyable 
 by none. 
 
 Trusting that my ideals are no higher than yours, I 
 will close, wishing you every encouragement in the 
 work of improving the grand old game. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Charles F. Oilman. 
 
 Chicago, April 3, 1894. 
 
 Dr. Arnold of Kugby, on a certain occasion when 
 asked his opinion of the game of football, is reported to 
 have said that at that time tlie British empire was gov- 
 erned by the men that had plaj^ed football at Rugby. 
 This is of course a high approval of the game, but in my 
 judgment it is not overdrawn. The moral qualities that 
 are essential to success in the game are the same qual- 
 ities that lead to success in the career of a college grad- 
 uate. A lack of courage, or a lack of the capacity to act 
 quickly in an emergency, or to meet a crisis with de- 
 cision and determination, would make a failure of a man 
 as a football player, and the lack of those qualities would 
 as surely produce a failure in after-life. 
 
 From the standpoint of physical culture I think 
 that too much cannot be said of the game when the 
 training is had under the supervision of one who under- 
 stands its possibilities. A competent " coach," in my 
 judgment, is a very necessary appendix to a university 
 
182 FOOTBALL PACTS AND PIGUBES 
 
 eleven, and he should be a man that has some knowl- 
 edge of physiology. 
 
 The training as well as the practice and the actual 
 playing of a match game are of course a severe test of 
 one's physical powers, but in my career of three years 
 as a football player I do not recall a single instance 
 of over training or single illness or injury resulting 
 therefrom. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Jas. S. Haelak. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 22, 1894. 
 
 I have taken considerable pleasure in answering your 
 questions. My only injury in two years' play was a 
 broken nose, the result of a display of temper and not 
 to be placed against football. 
 
 Football is undoubtedly the best of our out-door 
 sports. 
 
 It seems to me that I still feel the good effects of the 
 training, and know tliat the lessons in self-control 
 and obedience will aid and benefit me in the struggle 
 for existence. 
 
 I most heartily recommend the present game, with its 
 systematic methods and training, believing it to be an 
 important factor in modern educational methods. 
 
 I have observed that the best men in the field are 
 usually the best men in the classroom, and certainly out 
 in the world they stand out in the great game of life, 
 in fair competition with other men. 
 
 Please record me as a stanch supporter of the game. 
 I am, sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 Geo. G. Ross, M. D. 
 
 Neav York, March 3, 1894. 
 I am glad to contribute my portion to your enquiry 
 regarding the effects of football. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 183 
 
 During the two years playing on Princeton team I 
 was never more than bruised. 
 
 Without hesitation I regard my athletic work as one 
 of the best features of my college life. Before it I 
 had but moderate health and strength; ever since I have 
 enjoyed uninterrupted good health and seem able to re- 
 sist any thing. Hospital work is confessedl}'- most try- 
 ing. Few men complete their service witliout some 
 sickness, or without showing to a marked degree the 
 effects of confinement, hard work, and irregular hours. 
 Two years of service seem to have made no impression 
 upon my health. However, I think we would make a 
 great mistake if we were to confine ourselves to the ques- 
 tion of the physical well-being of the lovers of the game. 
 
 In teaching us, as no other game does, the value of 
 regular habits, good food, and avoidance of all excesses, 
 it does a most excellent service. 3Iost of all I value t])e 
 coolness of mind, readiness in emergency, and self-con- 
 trol, which, I am sure, football playing gives. These 
 points one can make, not only from personal experience, 
 but from the common testimony of all who watch the 
 game, for I know that I have never heard a discussion 
 on this topic in a general company where it was not 
 granted that these qualities were prominent in the 
 make-up of football men. To me it is this effect on 
 the mental stamina which makes the game the best of 
 all we have. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Davtd Bovaird, M, D. 
 
 Bluepield, W. Va., March 21, 1894. 
 
 Football is, in my opinion, the best game there is. 
 Besides playing while at school and college, I have 
 played at least one game every year for the past five 
 years, without injuries of any kind except small bruises. 
 
 The training received in football has been of the 
 
184 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 greatest benefit both to myself and to others with whom 
 I have played. Since leaving college I have gone 
 through a good deal of hard physical labor, which I do 
 not think I could have stood without the training I re- 
 ceived in football and base-ball while at college. 
 
 I may add that I know of no one, personally, who 
 was ever permanently injured at football. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 F. R. Wadlbigh. 
 
 Soudan, Minn., March 16, 1894. 
 In reply to your circular in regard to football, I wish 
 to say that in spite of the fact that the effect of the 
 game upon myself was bad, I am much in favor of the 
 sport. At the principal colleges the training is ridicu- 
 lously severe, and I believe, as at present played by the 
 university teams, is nearly an unqualified evil. But 
 with judicious and moderate training the sport is the 
 best, for vigorous men, that I am acquainted with. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 J. R. FiNLAT. 
 
 Cambridge, March 14, 1894. 
 In addition to the questions answered I should like to 
 say that I consider football not only a very interesting 
 game, but a wonderfully good mental discipline. I 
 have always believed, and still believe, that football and 
 boxing have done more to make it possible for me to 
 keep my temper than any verbal instruction, mental 
 exercise, or good example could possibly have done. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 F. J. Bangs. 
 
 New York, March 26, 1894. 
 As a boy I was quite frail and sickly. At the age of 
 about ten I went to school at Rugby in England, which 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 185 
 
 was one of the preparatory schools for Rugby College. 
 Having a natural fondness for out-of-door sports, I im- 
 mediately went in for steeple-chasing across country, 
 football, and cricket, and I have always claimed that it 
 was owing to these sports that I developed physically 
 into a fairly powerful man. I plaj'-ed football for two 
 years at this school, and was on the team the last one. 
 I then left Rugby, owing to the expectation of coming 
 back to this country and going to Harvard. Before 
 returning, however, I was another year at a school at 
 Norwood, just out of London, and played on a team 
 there. I then came over to this countrj'^ and plaj'^ed on 
 a team in New York City for a year, the team being 
 composed of the best playei's we could find at that 
 time. I then went to the Adams Academy, Quincy, 
 Mass., and played for two years on their first eleven. 
 From there I went into Harvard and played on the 
 university team, freshman year, and also on the fresh- 
 man team. During all these years I do not know of 
 any player being permanently injured in any of the 
 games in Avhich I played, nor was I at any time hurt, 
 except that, as I played full-back or half-back in all the 
 games, and, therefore, had a great deal of kicking to 
 do, the muscles of my right leg were very much 
 strained, but I do not feel that I have ever had an}^ 
 ill effects from it. In the series of questions which 5'ou 
 have asked me to answer and which I enclose, j^ou ask 
 " What Avas the most serious injury you ever received 
 on the field ? " The answer I gave, saying, that a front 
 tooth was extracted by a fellow catching his glove in 
 it, seems rather a peculiar one to happen on a football 
 field, but it was certainly the most serious injury I 
 received, and a cavity, in reply to your second question, 
 made it " permanent." I was terribly disappointed at 
 having to leave college at the beginning of my sopho- 
 more year, owing to my father's failure in business, but 
 
186 FOOTBALL PACTS AND riGTTEES 
 
 even after that pla5^ed for a year or two occasionally on 
 different teams around New York, and also one in 
 Chicago, and have been in splendid health all these 
 yeai's. Of course, I realize very fully that the competi- 
 tion between the different colleges was not nearly so 
 great in those days, nor was the training as severe as 
 it is now, but I feel from the experience I had, and 
 all the men who played at that time, and the fact that 
 none of us were injured permanently, that the game in 
 itself is a grand one. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Fked L. Eldeidge. 
 
 Washington, D. C, March 2, 1894. 
 
 I entered college at the age of seventeen, not very 
 well developed physically, and weighing 160 pounds. 
 I had never seen a game of football played under col- 
 legiate rules, but went into it for exercise and kept 
 it up because I found it of benefit to me physically, 
 mentally, and morally. At the end of my senior season 
 of football I weighed .183 stripped, had put an inch 
 or so on my chest and had gained correspondingly in the 
 rest of my anatomy. This was not, of course, all due 
 to football, but I am positive that a large percentage 
 of gain came from that source. 
 
 I was never seriously injured, and never saw but two 
 such cases during my time of play : one a green man 
 who had his leg fractured, and the other Holden's 
 injury in the game against Harvard which you refereed 
 for us — the latter one the result of palpable carelessness 
 on Holden's part. 
 
 I never stood better in my studies than during the 
 ball season, and I was never more free from college 
 forms of dissipation. I think the game is a vast advan- 
 tage to any young man, as an educational factor, if kept 
 in its proper place. 
 
LETTEES FROM PLATERS 187 
 
 There are, I think, now, three valid objections to the 
 sport : 
 
 1st. The tendency to professionalism, which has ruined 
 several of our sports, notably boxing and horse-running, 
 introducing inevitably an undesirable element. 
 
 2d. The increased power of the game toward personal 
 injiuy, due, I think, to making mass plays the game, 
 instead of subservient to and a part of it. 
 
 3d, The amount of time it may take up from the 
 work of the curriculum. The last I am not so familiar 
 with, but from the reports of a younger brother now in 
 college, I judge that instead of concessions being made 
 for football it excludes and outranks study more than 
 it ought. 
 
 Outside of these three objections I know of nothing 
 against it. I am very fond of the game, have followed 
 it pretty closely, and am only sorry that I am too old 
 and too much of a "back number" to ever actively 
 enter the arena again. 
 
 It has aided me in my profession, inasmuch as it has 
 taught me self-reliance, to judge quickly and for myself, 
 and to keep my temper — three very essential points in 
 my profession. Believe me, sincerely, 
 
 James R. Church, M. D. 
 
 New York, April, 1894. 
 I played the American Association game for thirteen 
 years, for three of which I was member of the Princeton 
 University team, and captain of same for one year. For 
 one year I played under the Rugby rules in Princeton 
 University team, and was captain of the same. For two 
 years I played on tlie Columbia University team (Rugby 
 rules). In proportion to the number of players I con- 
 sider that quite as many men were seriously injured 
 under the old Association rules as are at the present 
 time under the American Rugby rules. 
 
188 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 In recent years as a surgeon I have had considerable 
 experience with football injuries, but very few of such 
 accidents have been of a serious character. I feel sure 
 that reports of injuries received at football have been 
 very much exaggerated. A. J. McCosh, M. D. 
 
 March 20, 1894. 
 
 It is with pleasure that I answer your circular-letter, 
 and I highly appreciate your efforts. 
 
 I forgot, in answering your questions, that I once 
 broke that important bone called the clavicle. That 
 shoulder is my strongest limb. 
 
 I do not think it best for a timid boy to try and enter 
 the game of football. The worse knocks are received 
 when trying to make them easy. 
 
 How grand it must be now to play football, since it 
 has become a scientific game ! We always played it 
 scientifically, but each one used his own judgment, and 
 it was individually scientific. Now it is truly scientific. 
 How I would like to try a game nowadays ! But I know 
 my staying qualities would be short, for want of train- 
 ing. One must train for it, if only for wind. A tired 
 man is weak, therefore liable to get hurt, where a trained 
 one would escape. 
 
 I note with pleasure that the game is taking a hold 
 down in the South, at Dallas, Waco, and Fort Worth, 
 in Texas. 
 
 I am out in the western part of the State of Texas, 
 so do not get to enter the sport, though I don't believe 
 I shall ever get too old to enter it if the opportunity 
 ever affords. 
 
 My advice to young people would be to learn to tum- 
 ble (not gracefully) easily ; and, above all, learn to take 
 a knock without feeling pugnacious. Be a gentleman ; 
 if the time comes and you have to fight, your chances 
 are best. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 189 
 
 If I had a son, whether he were going into football, 
 or, later, entering business, I would advise him the same. 
 I am, as ever, 
 
 Jas. a, Wetherbee. 
 
 Atlanta, Ga., March 26, 1894. 
 I began to play football as soon as I was able to play 
 anything, and kept it up continuously all through my 
 school life and at college. I played on a great many 
 different elevens before I went to college, and had a 
 pretty rough experience in the game, always playing 
 with men who were older and heavier than myself. I 
 do not remember ever having received any injury of tlie 
 slightest consequence. Of course, I have been covered 
 with bruises, and have had slight sprains that disap- 
 peared very quickly. I do not remember ever having 
 been incapacitated or of losing time from any injury. 
 I follow the game as closely as possible in the news- 
 papers, but have had very few opportunities to see any 
 of the games since 1882, and, of course, do not feel that 
 I know very much about the present game. I think the 
 battering-ram idea is all wrong. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 H. M, Atkinson. 
 
 New York, April 2, 1894. 
 
 You, I am sure, understand thoroughly how deep is 
 my interest in " the " sport, and how great is my desire 
 to have the public realize the value of the game. 
 
 I played one year at Phillips Exeter Academy on the 
 scrub team, and afterward as a substitute. The next 
 j'ear I played on the Harvard freshman team, and the 
 Harvard second eleven. The two following years — my 
 junior and senior years — I played on the Harvard 'Var- 
 sity. The two years also, while studying at the Law 
 School, I played on the 'varsity. 
 
190 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 Up to the time of my graduation — five seasons — 
 I think I did not miss a day's practice ; certainly I 
 could not have missed more than a day or two. I never 
 missed a game during this time. The same statement 
 applies to the two years when I played as a graduate, 
 except that I did not begin to play until about the 
 fourth week of each of these seasons. Moreover, I lost 
 two days' practice at the close of the first of these sea- 
 sons. Still further, I never left the field on account of 
 an injury either in a game or practice, and was never 
 disqualified. 
 
 In the course of these seven seasons I received innu- 
 merable small scratches and bruises, and knew what 
 it was to be sore and lame in every portion of my body. 
 The only injuries, however, which I can remember which 
 amounted to anything at all were : (1) A badly sprained 
 finger, (2) a slightly twisted knee, (3) several cuts in the 
 eyebrows. 
 
 (1) The sprained finger annoyed me a good deal, 
 especially at first, but did not keep me from a moment 
 of practice. It came around all right in the course of the 
 winter, and now shows no trace of the injury. 
 
 (2) In a "scrub" game, a few days after the end of 
 my last 'varsity season, while trying a kind of work to 
 which I was entirely unaccustomed, I twisted my knee. 
 I had no difficulty in finishing the game, and the only 
 effect was a decided limp for a couple of weeks. 
 
 (3) My eyebrows were cut open several times, owing 
 to the sharpness of the underlying bone. These cuts 
 healed up in about a week, usually, except one which I 
 received late in my first Law School season. I was then 
 in very bad condition — needlessly overtrained — and as 
 a result, I think, the cut was very slow in healing. It 
 was fully six weeks before the cut was completely 
 healed, and it caused me considerable annoyance. There 
 has been no further trouble, however. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 191 
 
 This is a complete list of all the terrible calamities 
 which befell me during seven years of football play- 
 ing. All these injuries — as I believe is usually the 
 case — were received in practice, excepting only the 
 twisted knee, received in " scrub " game, as I men- 
 tioned above. A few almost imperceptible scars in 
 my eyebrows are the sole reminders of these football 
 accidents. 
 
 I shall not enlarge upon the mental and physical 
 effects of the game upon myself and upon many others 
 whom I have known. You know my ojsinion about 
 these matters already. I firmly believe that there is no 
 training so good for growing boys or young men, not 
 only pliysically and mentally, but morally as well. 
 Ever}'^ boy should be induced — almost compelled — to 
 take part in the game ; and, if you can only get the public 
 generally to understand and appreciate its true character, 
 it will be a long step toward that desirable result. 
 
 As you ask me to tell you of my present occupation, 
 etc., I add that I am a lawyer liere in New York. I am 
 sure that my strong constitution and capacity for hard 
 work, which Avere developed by football, will prove of 
 great advantage to me. 
 
 Forgive me if I have written too much for your 
 purposes. Faithfully yours. 
 
 Perry D. Trafford. 
 
 Boston, April 4, 1894. 
 I played football seven years, three at school and four 
 at college, and notwithstanding my weight — for at no 
 time did I ever reach 142 pounds — I never received any 
 injury which amounted to any thing very serious. I 
 have played in nearly foi'ty games and have never been 
 obliged to leave the field for any injury ; in fact I have 
 never been hurt, except badly handled in one — Penn- 
 sylvania — game. I feel that the game of football has 
 
192 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 been very beneficial to me in every way. Before I went 
 to college I was obliged to go West for my health on 
 account of weak lungs, but throughout ray entire col- 
 lege course I enjoyed splendid healtli. I think besides 
 it has given a certain confidence, coolness, and self- 
 reliance that is of inestimable value to me in other 
 sports, as running, sparring, tennis, etc. I was alwaj's 
 very nervous before any game, large or otherwise, but I 
 found that after the first plunge it rapidly disappeared. 
 This talk of terrible roughness and brutality in the 
 championship games seems to me to be absolutely 
 untrue. I found that the larger games were not really 
 so rough, tlie only difference I noticed was the terrible 
 earnestness and determination, which cannot but be 
 impressed on one's mind. Perliaps the reason of this 
 was, that I was outweighted in every game and 
 didn't notice the difference, but I hardly think so. My 
 physical condition in football season was not generally 
 very good, as I was apt to go " fine," but with the 
 exception of a few abscesses and boils, I never felt any 
 after results. I recommend the game to every boy, for 
 I consider it the very best sport in the world. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 S. V. R. Cbosby. 
 
 Knoxville, Tenn., March 18, 1894. 
 I think football is a game that, if modified a bit, 
 would be the most fascinating of college games. How- 
 ever, in its present state, I am a great admirer of it, and 
 shall continue so as long as I am able to advocate and 
 play the game. I have played base-ball and football 
 both, the former for eight years. Even though my con- 
 nection with football is yet in its infancy, I admire it 
 much more than I do base-ball. I am. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Hakeis T. Colliek 
 
 i 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 193 
 
 Oswego, N. Y., March 6, 1894. 
 
 1. I played (Rngby) about ten years in all, a year or 
 two on an English team abroad, then four years (fresh- 
 man, substitute, and university) in college, and three 
 more in the Theological Seminary (university). 
 
 2. My most serious injury was a slight cut over the 
 eye from a collision with Jack Harding. 
 
 3. It was not a permanent injury, but it gave me a 
 permanent idea why the Yale boys had the reputation 
 they bore at the time. 
 
 4. Received in a practice match with Trinity, when as 
 substitute I was detailed to take the place of a Trinity 
 man. 
 
 5. That was a valuable part of my training. 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS 
 
 1. Does anybody think boxing should be suppressed 
 because bruisers and sluggers give brutal exhibitions in 
 the prize ring ? It is perfectly true of football, as it is 
 of boxing most certainly, that it affords a fine oppor- 
 tunity to the brute to show his brutality, and a tempta- 
 tion to the man whose gentlemanly qualities are only 
 skin deep to exhibit his coarse nature. For the very 
 same reason it also affords a fine opportunity, as boxing 
 does, for a true gentleman to show that he is one, and 
 for the man whose gentlemanly qualities need temper- 
 ing and strengthening to develop them in practice. 
 But if we believe in the predominance of gentlemanly 
 qualities in college athletes — and who does not ? — by 
 the same token we must believe that the prevailing 
 influence of football will be of the best. 
 
 2. Does anybody think that the right way to develop 
 manly and gentlemanly character in young men, when 
 temptation arises — as in football it undeniably some- 
 times does arise — to do an ungentlemanly act, is to re- 
 move them from the influence of the temptation ? There 
 
 13 
 
194 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 may still be colleges which forbid card-playing, billiards, 
 theatre, and dancing, on the theory that the way to 
 keep young men from vice is to remove the possibility 
 of transgression. I am loath to think that manly Yale 
 will ever take the ground that it cannot trust its students 
 to be gentlemen if opportunity is allowed them to do 
 otherwise. That would be the real meaning of abolition. 
 
 From the tenor of your questions I judge you want 
 an opinion as to the effect of training toward prevention 
 of injury, as well as development of health. My em- 
 phatic opinion is that the man who goes in with all 
 his miglit, in apparently absolute recklessness, is far 
 safer than the man who tries to save himself a bruise or 
 two. You remember the match with Columbia in 1880 
 when we agreed not to hurt one another, as the Prince- 
 ton game came the following Thursday. Don't you re- 
 call that three of the best men on the team were laid up 
 — Chummy Eaton with a broken collar-bone — because 
 we undertook to " play easy " ; but we came out of the 
 Princeton game without a scratch ? Training gives a 
 man confidence and shows him how to handle himself. 
 It is not only valuable for the match but afterward, as I 
 can testify. I am sure I owe much of my vigorous 
 general health to old football days ; but I also think it 
 is partly because we practised " falling on the ball," 
 that though I do a good deal more running, jumping, 
 and falling down than becomes a D. D., it never occurs 
 to me that I am going to hurt myself, and I never do. 
 
 Moreover, I think I owe something mentally and 
 morally to my football playing. My stand was always 
 highest in the fall term. But besides the "humanities" 
 which were dinged into me in the classi'oom, I value 
 what some would be pleased to call the " inhumanities " 
 dinged into me on the football field. There is a " human- 
 izing " in the true sense of the word which comes by 
 tackling your college adversary in a good football game, 
 
LETTERS FKOM PLATERS 195 
 
 as well as that which comes according to the old school- 
 men by disputation in the lists of logic. 
 
 Finally, if you will pardon length, they say : " After 
 all, who gets the benefit of all the training, etc, except 
 eleven to fifteen men out of tlie fifteen hundred in 
 the university?" Who besides? Every man jack 
 of them who from the time he was in petticoats 
 dreamed he might sometime be on the 'varsity eleven, 
 and kicked his baby legs, and sprinted and wrestled 
 and felt his biceps. Show me the man who never 
 felt the ambition to be swift, or strong, or shrewd, 
 or quick-eyed, or skilful in foot, or arm, or back, or 
 legs, or head, and there we may find one who never 
 got any benefit from the 'varsity football games. 
 
 While all the rest of the football world has been 
 airing its views, and you, old fellow, more than all the 
 rest put together, have been holding the game up out 
 of the reach of the detractors, as you used to hold the 
 ball up tantalizingly out of reach of a tackle till you 
 " passed it back," I have been moved from time to time 
 to put in my oar. Still I have felt that my business 
 was to " keep back." Now, as you call me up, I will 
 deliver ray kick, which I only trust may not this time 
 be too long. 
 
 I am to preach at Battell the 20th of May, and if you 
 are in New Haven then shall hope to see you. 
 
 Cordially, 
 
 B. W. Bacon. 
 
 Newburgh, N. Y., March 19, 1894. 
 I consider football the game, and although from its very 
 nature it is naturally a rough one, still, when you take 
 in consideration the thousands who are to-day playing 
 it, bad accidents are very rare, and in the great majority 
 of cases these will be found to have happened where the 
 men were not properly trained or looked after. With 
 
196 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 one exception I know of no one among my personal 
 acquaintances who is at the present time suffering 
 from a serious permanent injury, the result of foot- 
 ball. 
 
 The newspapers are responsible for the grossly exag- 
 gerated idea a great many people have on this score. 
 Only the other day the New York papers contained an 
 account of the death of a young lawyer, a graduate of 
 Yale in 1885 or 1886. The papers stated that his death 
 was due to blood poisoning, the result of an injury 
 received in a game of football at Yale. It has since 
 been proven that no such man ever played on any of 
 the teams at Yale, and not only that, but his room mate 
 states that to the best of his knowledge and belief the 
 man never played even " scrub " football. 
 
 I asked a well-known doctor as to whether it would 
 be possible for any one to die from blood-poisoning, the 
 result of an injury received eight or nine years previous, 
 and the reply was " No." Still, in spite of all this, this 
 man's death will be attributed by the great majoritj'^ to 
 football. This only serves as an illustration of how 
 people get such absurd ideas in regard to the injuries 
 and deaths resulting from the game. 
 
 The only bad effects traceable to football are in those 
 very rare cases where men have been permanently 
 injured. On the other hand it undoubtedly has a ten- 
 dency to promote regular and good habits, as that is one 
 very essential part of the training ; it teaches self- 
 control, and strengthens and quickens one both men- 
 tally and physically. 
 
 I have no doubt that years will be added to the lives 
 of many as the direct result of the greatly increased 
 endurance and vitality received from playing the game 
 of football. 
 
 In ninety-nine cases of a hundred, the most rabid 
 opponents of football are those who know absolutely 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 197 
 
 nothing about the game, and, in fact, have never even 
 seen it played. 
 
 Wishing you every success in your work, I am, 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Edwin S. Belknap. 
 
 San Antonio, Tex., March 17, 1894. 
 
 No man was seriously or permanently injured in the 
 four years I was in college, and as far as I have been 
 able to follow them have no knowledge of any bad 
 effects since, traceable to football. The other questions 
 I have answered on the blank sent me. I had the ordi- 
 nary Princeton football training. I had two brothers 
 on the team, neither of whom was injured, and both 
 are enjoying good health to-day. Now, as to my opin- 
 ion of the game, mentally, physically, and morally, I 
 know of no game that is as capable of developing a man 
 physically, his perseverance, his determination, and 
 quickness of thought and action, as football. I am a 
 great enthusiast on the subject in spite of the strong 
 feeling prevailing against it, and will do all in my power 
 now and hereafter to uphold the greatest of athletic 
 games — football. 
 
 This is my opinion as a college man, a football player, 
 and a surgeon. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 John H. Bryan, M. D. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass, March 20, 1894. 
 
 All I can say is that I never received any serious, and 
 certainly, no permanent, injury. 
 
 I have been temporarily stunned, but that never 
 amounted to anything. 
 
 When I hurt my shoulder I did it entirely myself, 
 by falling on it and tearing the ligaments, which let the 
 arm down off the shoulder and dislocated the clavicle. 
 
198 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 I think there is no need for me to say that I consider, and 
 have so far found the game the best kind that I can pos- 
 sibly indulge in for my mental and physical condition. 
 
 The good that I have obtained from football has 
 repaid me many times over for the few chances I have 
 taken. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Robert W. Emmons, 2nd. 
 
 Lynn, Mass., March 19, 1894. 
 The short statement about my injury in reply to 
 your printed question would make it appear that my 
 injury was entirely due to the collision I had in my last 
 game. As I wrote you in answer to your last circular, 
 the blow was only one of the factors in bringing about 
 my nervous trouble. It is only due to football to say 
 that the ordinary player, in average condition, would 
 have been in good condition again three or four 
 days after Thanksgiving Day, having received the 
 shock that I had. That last fall I had an unusually 
 large combination of circumstances to deal with as cap- 
 tain. We had practically a new team to pick out of 
 the incoming class, lacked the usual support of the 
 coachers, and had to cope with probably tlie strongest 
 line Yale ever had. I am not a man with a great 
 reserve of strength, and the anxiety I had in turning 
 out a team out of so much raw material, and the fact 
 that I didn't miss playing a single practice or regular 
 game during the season, brought me down altogether 
 too " fine" the week before Thanksgiving. I suffered 
 from insomnia, and was altogether unfitted to enter the 
 final match. I received the blow on the head as I was 
 attempting to block off Hefflefinger from one of our 
 half-backs. My head collided violently with the lower 
 part of his body. I was stunned for a few seconds, but 
 the play was not stopped. After tlie game I was in a 
 
LETTERS PEOM PLAYERS 199 
 
 very nervous and weak condition. Very unwisely, for the 
 next few days I indulged in late hours and mild dissi- 
 pation, which certainly aggravated my condition. If 
 I, in the condition in which I entered the Yale game of 
 the previous years, had had this experience, I believe I 
 should have had no trouble in resuming my work at 
 college. I think college football is a benefit physically 
 and mentally to any man who starts in with a good 
 physique. 
 
 Trusting that this will not come too late to be of 
 service, I am. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Ralph H. Warren. 
 
 New York City, N. Y. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to answer j^our questions. First, 
 because of my love for the game of football, and second, 
 because I always found you, when the feeling between 
 Yale and Princeton was running very high, a game, 
 true sportsman in every sense of the word. 
 
 I played every game, and every minute of every game, 
 that Princeton played during the years 1811, 1878, 1879, 
 and 1880. I played at 135 pounds, and was never 
 seriously hurt ; but was in good shape when the time 
 for Princeton to get in the field again came around. 
 
 I am speaking now as a man who has not played foot- 
 ball since 1880, when I say I think it the greatest of all 
 games, and the effect on the players is generally good. 
 
 If I ever have a boy, he shall go to Princeton with these 
 instructions: "Get on the football team. If necessary, 
 play three years on the scrub team for the sake of 
 getting on the 'varsity in your senior year." 
 
 The great games of football I consider an excellent 
 training for a man who has to go out in the world to 
 make his way. The great fights that Princeton had 
 with Yale in my day taught me one thing : That when 
 
200 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 there was an opening in the Yale ranks I had to take 
 immediate advantage of it, or the line was closed, and 
 there is no use in running against a stone wall. So it is 
 in the game of "life." Every one at one time or 
 another has a great chance, but if advantage is not 
 taken of it immediately it is gone, the ranks are closed, 
 the numerous seekers after fortune and fame rush in, 
 and probably your chance never comes again. 
 
 The training which I got on the football field I con- 
 sider as having been of immense advantage to me since 
 leaving college. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Feancis Loney. 
 
 Peikceton-, N. J., March 12, 1894. 
 Enclosed please find the list of answered questions 
 which was desired of me. In the interest of the game 
 it gives me the greatest pleasure to be able to answer 
 in this way. Hoping in the most earnest way that the 
 effort will increase public favor for the game, 
 I am, sincerely, 
 
 T. G. Teenchaed. 
 
 Washington, D. C, March 17, 1894. 
 
 In playing football for a period of four years at 
 Princeton, I recall being injured only three times : 
 First, cut over the left eye by concussion with same 
 part of another man's skull. Second, being thrown 
 headlong on the face by a push in making touch-down 
 after long run. The ball had to be held, but it was 
 hard on the face. Both of above were in practice 
 games. Third, two fingers dislocated by a kick in game 
 with Rutgers, practically a practice game, their team 
 being very raw and vicious. None of these injuries 
 was permanent. I was in good condition at the time. 
 
 Respecting the general enquiry, No. 6, I am par- 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 201 
 
 ticularly well qualified to give yon an answer, having 
 considered the question very fully, and thought over it 
 a good deal while at college : I got on the university 
 team in sophomore year, and played through the season 
 of 1877. Was on team again in fall of 1878, and played 
 through all of the preliminary games, and to within two 
 days of the time the team left to play in Cambridge, 
 when I received a peremptory telegram from my people 
 at home to stop playing, my mother being much agitated 
 over sensational accounts of tlie game then circulating 
 in the papers, and certain medical opinions of a nature 
 similar to that mentioned by Mr. Moi'gan as having 
 been published in the Times. Knowing that such a 
 request would not have been made Avitliout reflection, 
 and having been very little interfered with parentally, 
 I felt bound to acquiesce in that instance, but not with- 
 out very indignant protests from Ballard, who was 
 captain at the time, and our football directors. Sub- 
 stitutes were not available as now, in those days, and were 
 very little practised in team play. It was a particularly 
 disappointing experience, as we beat both Harvard and 
 your team that fall. Before the next fall got around I 
 had gone over the whole question of the present and 
 after-effects of the game, and had convinced my family 
 by lengthy argument of the beneficial results from the 
 exercise and the training of body and temper in playing 
 football. Played on team through fall of 1879, when 
 we succeeded in beating Harvard and tying jowy 
 people. 
 
 I remember very distinctly in the latter game the 
 wonderful work behind the line of the Yale captain and 
 his remarkable long punts repeated again and again 
 from a clear space not over five feet square, sometimes 
 saved for him by his men, being the first instance 
 of any thing approaching interference that I recall. 
 It was wonderful playing, uniformly repeated, and 
 
202 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 wholly diilerent from the accidental long runs upon 
 which many men's reputations were then based. I 
 believe that that captain was none other than yourself, 
 and take great pleasure in giving you any information 
 in my power. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Blaib Lee. 
 
 Wausau, Wis., March 16, 1894. 
 The thoroughness with which you go at your football 
 statistics pleases me. 
 
 I trust you will receive a hearty response from all the 
 players to whom you have written. 
 
 The results will be interesting to all who want facts. 
 The two strong points in the game, to my mind, 
 are : First — physical development, and second, quick 
 decision. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Charles J. Winton. 
 
 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., March 16, 1894. 
 I started to play football in the fall of 1877, at 
 the Lawrenceville, and played continuously to 1887, in 
 practice and in match games at times, at the position of 
 either half-back or full-back. The training and exer- 
 cise made a great improvement in my health, both in 
 the opinion of my friends and of myself. The most 
 severe injury was a strain of the knee joints, causing 
 a synovitis which compelled me to go to bed and 
 have splints placed on the limb. This injury was not 
 caused in a scrimmage, but by an attempt to turn very 
 quickly at full speed. I was then playing full-back and 
 misjudged as to the direction in which the ball would 
 bound, and in order to recover it turned very quickly 
 and injured myself. No person was within twenty feet 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 203 
 
 of me when the injury occurred, and neither did I get 
 the ball. 
 
 Hoping all success in your undertaking, I am, 
 Respectfully, your friend, 
 
 A. G. Fell. 
 
 Grakd Rapids, Mich., March 14, 1894. 
 
 As you will remember I was always rather a timid 
 player and never was hurt. The effect physically was 
 good, but mentally I am in doubt, as I can distinctly 
 remember using some pretty hard language two or tlivee 
 times against the Princeton men, and was willing to 
 back it up too, and think I would do the same to-day. 
 
 It cei'tainly is a game that requires one to hold or 
 lose his temper. I have never held mine, and it would 
 take more than football training to accomplish it. So I 
 am in doubt as to the mental effect. 
 
 I have watched with interest the progress of the game, 
 and your great success, and offer you my congratula- 
 tions. 
 
 Hoping to see you next June, I am, 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Ph. C. Fuller. 
 
 HoBOKEN, K J., March 3, 1894. 
 I consider football the best sport in every way that a 
 man can indulge in. It requires a man to be in good 
 healthy condition, or if he be not, then one or two 
 weeks of playing will bring him into good condition. In 
 order to play one has to give up any injurious habits, 
 and one great lesson that the game teaches is that when 
 forced to give up smoking or drinking a man learns 
 that he is able to give them up when it is necessary to 
 do so. No game or sport is a greater developer of the 
 physique, nor is there any thing that adds more to health. 
 
204 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGtlEES 
 
 That it is rough cannot be denied, but that slight ele- 
 ment of roughness develops pluck and teaches one how 
 to control one's temper. Both physically and morally 
 as the developer of a true man nothing equals it. 
 
 Edwin A. S. Lewis. 
 
 Princeton, N. J., March 5, 1894. 
 
 I have not only played myself, but I also number 
 among my best friends men who have taken an active 
 part and prominent position in the sport, and I can only 
 speak of it in the very highest terms. 
 
 Occasionally, as in my own instance, a man is compelled 
 to quit the game on account of some slight temporary 
 injury, but it is for the most part of very rare occur- 
 rence. 
 
 The injuries received are for the most part little more 
 than bruises or strains, and seldom prove permanent. 
 The vast amount of good acquired by the playing of the 
 game, both mentally and physically, far outweighs any 
 thing that can be said against it ; because, if we were 
 to abolish such sport as this we would soon have a 
 weaker race of men, who would be much more subject 
 to the ordinary ailments and complaints of mankind, 
 and whose results are far more injurious than any 
 effects produced by football. 
 
 The training to which a college man is submitted pre- 
 pares him for harder knocks and blows, and the ground 
 on which he plays is free from all obstructions and ex- 
 cresences which might injure the player in a fall. 
 Most of the injuries we read of in the newspapers, and 
 which create such a stir among the outside w^orld, are 
 for the most part received by men or boys who know 
 little or nothing of the game, and who play in some back 
 lot where there are plenty of rocks and other obstruc- 
 tions, which bruise and sometimes permanently injure 
 the players. This latter, however, is not the result of the 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 205 
 
 game, but the ignorance and carelessness of the players. 
 I am. Very sincerely, 
 
 Chas. S. Mackenzie. 
 
 Auburn Theological Seminary, 
 
 Auburn, N. Y., March 5, 1894. 
 
 Your communication relative to the American college 
 game received. Being an enthusiast on the subject I 
 might go into details, but aware of the fact that it is 
 greek xoith and not against Greek (notice I use small and 
 large letter to express proper relation), I shall only give 
 you my experience, and this will make my position 
 clear to you. 
 
 As you notice, my most serious injury was a sprained 
 ankle. I received this hurt in a game in Avhich a man 
 acted as captain who never had filled the position before. 
 Four times (I was a half-back) he sent me through the 
 same opening, it being a plunge through the centre. 
 The fourth time my ankle, being weakened by the suc- 
 cessive strains, gave way, one of the opponents treading 
 on it while my leg was stretched out. The injury 
 lasted about two weeks. I go into details at such full 
 length because I wish to make it clear that it was not 
 due to over- or undertraining. 
 
 Other hurts and small injuries, such as one receives 
 even in acting the fool — letting football aside — these I 
 was subject to as everybody else is. 
 
 I have played, i. e., taken part, in match games each 
 year since I left college, and find that I am never in 
 better condition morally (I believe this is one of the 
 strongest arguments in favor of the game), mentally, 
 and physically, than when indulging in that sport. 
 Morally, in that it uses up that surplusage of animal 
 spirits and vitality which, if allowed to work out its 
 own salvation, usually finds some weak point in a man's 
 moral nature and assails it successfully ; and for myself 
 
206 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 I would prefer every bone in my body to be broken 
 than that I should suffer some of these habits to hold 
 dominion over me, even for a season. (This is from the 
 inside, for I've been there.) 
 
 As to our mental nature, we all know that what 
 quickens life stimulates thought. And as a professor in 
 the University of Virginia said to me in 1892 while 
 coaching there, "Mr. S., if I should pick out a man 
 whom I could follow in peace and in war, my choice 
 would be a good football player." 
 
 Physically, I am more of a man than I should have 
 been had I never known how to play the game. It took 
 pigskin to make a man of me ! I can stand fatigue 
 and endure hardships (and we have them in theo- 
 logical seminaries) and withal not lose heart. That's 
 the greatest lesson I learned — to be a man even in 
 defeat. 
 
 I trust you will not regard the above as mere verbosity. 
 I mean every word I have said, and if it be not of any 
 use in the work you are about to do, only remember 
 that it is the feeble voice of one who, an ardent lover of 
 the game itself, hopes to see it pi'eserved that other 
 generations may taste and see that it is good. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Wm. C. Spicee. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Pa., March 5, 1894. 
 
 With the understanding that my answers are en- 
 thusiasm and not egotism, I will try and answer fully : 
 
 1st. I played (the old game) at Andover three 
 years, 18V2, 1873, 1874, and at Yale (the old game), 
 1875, and (the new game) 1876, 1877, 1878, and have 
 played every season since, playing my last game in 
 November, 1893, and have during that time played more 
 football than any living man, I believe. 
 
 2d. Never left a game on account of an injury 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 207 
 
 or Stopped playing during a game until it was finished 
 on any account during twenty-two years of playing. 
 
 3d. I weighed when I began to practise at Yale 
 (my first real training) in 1876, 198 pounds, and have 
 from my training there and the feeling inspired by my 
 general physical and mental condition, in a degree kept 
 up ray training, and to-day weigh 197^ pounds. Have 
 not been sick from any cause twenty-four hours since 
 1872. I also believe that a man who will train properly 
 and conscientiously will have a mind that will be able 
 to do better work and in less time than the same mind 
 M^ould otherwise ; that such a man is more esteemed by 
 his associates and can set an example that does much 
 good in society, and unless he abuses himself when out 
 of training, will lay the foundation for a healthy after- 
 life, and be able to meet the trials in business and over- 
 come them with more ease on account of his physical 
 training received at football. (I have a son eleven 
 years old who has been playing and training in his 
 boyish way and has not been away from one lesson at 
 school for three years, and has excellent health and 
 a clear mind.) 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 O. D. Thompson. 
 
 Chicago, III., March 5, 1894. 
 
 While in college I played for three years. Freshman 
 year on freshman team, and last two years on university 
 team. While I have never received any serious injury 
 either in practice or in the game, and have never lost 
 a day on account of injury, I have been conscious at 
 times of a little weakness in my left knee, the result of 
 a strain in practice. 
 
 I think the game of football the best sport that we 
 have and think that the benefits resulting from the 
 game greatly off-set the chances for injury. In my 
 
208 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 case it has been very beneficial, and I should dislike to 
 see any steps taken to put an end to the sport. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. B. Newell. 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions, 
 
 New York, March 6, 1894. 
 I enclose herewith the blank sent in your letter of 
 February 23. I am very glad of any opportunity to 
 assist in the defence of any honest college game. 
 I think objections are truly made to football upon the 
 ground of the time it consumes and for the false ideal 
 it sets up of excellence, not for its own sake, but for the 
 sake of vanquishing an adversary. Along both of these 
 lines it is capable of improvement. But even with these 
 objections to it I think it is a game which those who 
 know it best approve most. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Robert E. Speer. 
 
 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., March 6, 1894. 
 
 I played football regularly throughout the season 
 during the four years I was in college, either against or 
 as a member of the university team. I had previously 
 had a little practice at the game at St. Paul's School, but 
 without any systematic ti'aining. My most serious acci- 
 dent at any time was a sprained ankle ; my ankles being 
 naturally weak, they seemed to have a dangerous ten- 
 dency to turn, whether in practice or in a regular game, 
 and regardless of whether I was in good condition or 
 otherwise, but the results were never more than tem- 
 porary and never kept me from playing a game through 
 or left any permanent injury. 
 
 I unhesitatingly say that the general effect of playing 
 football in my case was good in every physical sense, and 
 I. have never been conscious of any bad results men- 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 209 
 
 tally. The habit of regular exercise, regular eating and 
 drinking, and regular living generally that is essential 
 in training for a college team, not only developed all 
 the latent muscle and plij'sique in me, but continued 
 witli more or less force after the training season was 
 over. I am decidedly in favor of college football as 
 advantageous both mentally and physically to any man 
 who has any thing in him worth developing. 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 John S. Harding. 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn., March 5, 1894. 
 I started to play football two years before I entered 
 college, playing with High School team. I never was 
 hurt until I had j^layed four seasons — that is to say, so I 
 could not go in and play if my captain required me to. 
 Of course, at times, a man is apt to get slightly hurt, in 
 which case it is policy to lay off a few days, as one is 
 able to do much better work for the team upon start- 
 ing again than if one continued to play with slight 
 sprains. The only injury I ever received that amounted 
 to anything was when I wrenched my shoulder in the 
 fall of 1890. This injury laid me off five weeks, but in 
 reality I could have played much sooner if Captain 
 Rhodes had not considered it better policy to make 
 sure that I was absolutely well before starting again. 
 Upon starting to play I did not notice any pain in my 
 shoulder, and I have not felt any weakness or pain in 
 this member up to this day. I never received an injury 
 in playing in the large games, that is, against Harvard 
 and Princeton. In fact, I never received a scratch in 
 those games, and I have always noticed that a man is 
 less liable to get hurt when playing against a scientific 
 team. While I was plaj'ing on the Yale team no man 
 received injuries that resulted permanently. During all 
 the years I have played I have known no one person- 
 U 
 
210 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 ally who has been seriously injured. It is undoubtedly a 
 fact that many teams now playing do not understand the 
 game, but there are fewer of such aggregations every 
 year. As the science of the game advances in the dif- 
 ferent sections, I am confident that less will be heard of 
 the so-called injuries. The slight strains are more liable 
 to be I'eceived early in the season before the player gets 
 into shape ; and seldom are strains received later in the 
 season unless they are renewals of the old ones. There- 
 fore great caution should be taken at beginning of sea- 
 son to put one's self in some kind of shape before start- 
 ing in to play hard football. My shoulder was wrenched 
 early in October, just two weeks after I started to play. 
 
 I can easily praise football as a physical developer. 
 When I started to play in New Haven in fall of 1888, 
 I only weighed 180 stripped, whereas I weighed just 
 202 pounds the last year I played at Yale. I did not 
 increase any of my muscles to an enormous size, thus 
 becoming muscle-bound, but all of them showed the 
 effects of my training, and every muscle increased in 
 size, according to measurements of Dr. Seaver. I have 
 not even now lost good results obtained in training, and 
 I am much better pi'epared to stand any hard strain or 
 work than before entering college. The muscles of my 
 legs, arms, back, and neck were especially developed. I 
 think the discipline I received on football field in re- 
 straining my temper was alone worth the time given up 
 to training. Besides, learning to take advantage of 
 openings, and learning to quickly change tactics when 
 laid out plans fail, are essentials of a football player, 
 and to do this one must think quickly and act much 
 quicker, which trains the mind by keeping it at all times 
 concentrated on the game. These are just a few of the 
 advantages on the field, and to wind up I shall give a 
 few of the other benefits resulting. 
 
 In the first place the mind is much clearer and in 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 211 
 
 better shape to study, and one can accomplish much 
 more in a shorter time. I have no doubt whatever that 
 my stand in college studies was as good, if not better, 
 while playing than when I was out of training. Then 
 a man in training has many temptations removed from 
 his sphere which every j^oung man is subjected to, 
 either in college or in the large cities. One is also a 
 much better judge of character after a season of foot- 
 ball, as a good player will constantly study the men 
 playing opposite to him, as many men give away much 
 by movement of muscles of face, eyes, etc., especially 
 when excited. 
 
 Very trul}^ yours, 
 
 W. W. Heffelfinger. 
 
 Manayunk, PniLAELPHiA, Pa., March 8, 1894. 
 It is my opinion that in my case football has certainly 
 been of very great benefit to me. I knoio that I would 
 not have been physically the man I am to-day without 
 the training I got in college playing the game of 
 football. For three years I played half-back on the 
 'varsity, and one year upon my freshman team in the 
 same position. The only injury of any note I ever re- 
 ceived was a dislocated shoulder received in the Harvard 
 game of the fall of 1882. I considered myself, as well 
 as the whole team, overtrained in that game, which fully 
 accounts for the injury I received, for had I been in a 
 proper physical condition I am sure it would not have 
 occurred. I consider it a dangerous game for men not 
 in training to attempt, but for a man receiving the 
 proper training as practised in our large colleges to-day, 
 it is a healthful, safe sjDort, and many a time have I 
 wished myself back again to my college days, when I 
 could go through again those three years on a 'varsity 
 team. I have never to this da}'^ regretted it or felt in 
 any way any bad effects from it. I have two boys 
 
212 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 now, that some day I expect to send to college. If 
 they don't both make the 'varsity, I shall be greatly 
 disappointed and consider that they have missed one of 
 the great advantages of a college life. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Alfred T. Baker. 
 
 Baltimore, March 15, 1894. 
 I am now a lawyer and no longer indulge in out-door 
 sports, but I know that I am better physically and men- 
 tally and morally for having played the game. I never 
 received but one injuiy that laid me up for any time, 
 and that occurred in a practice game with the scrub 
 team in my senior year early in the season. Since leav- 
 ing college I have played off and on, but I have never 
 been in good condition and even then was only hurt 
 once about two years ago : no bad results have come 
 from either injury, and although I have been out of col- 
 lege for ten years, I have not spent one day during that 
 time in bed from any sickness. In my opinion the game 
 as it was played in my time, and since, is a thorough 
 educator in all the qualities that go to make a manly 
 man. It teaches obedience, self-restraint, unselfishness, 
 and calls for the greatest amount of pluck, self-denial, 
 and quickness of thought and action. My interest in 
 the game still remains unabated, and every year I go 
 back to college to see the practice of the eleven. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 S. Johnson Poe. 
 
 Wilmington, Del., March 14, 1894. 
 I would state that I played for two years at Prince- 
 ton, at the Association game, and my last year in college 
 played Rugby in the fall and spring seasons. It being 
 the first Rugby team that the college sent out, of course 
 the game was not as hard, nor did it require the special 
 
LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 213 
 
 development, as you are well aware, tliat it docs row. 
 I can state from personal experience that I regard my 
 football training at Princeton as equally as valuable to 
 me as the mental training that I received there. For 
 the first three years tliat I was out of college I was 
 subjected to hard manual labor, and I found the reserve 
 strength that had been cultivated by football not only 
 useful but absolutely essential ; and I believe that unless 
 I had had that training I should not have been able 
 to have gone through with the work that I did. I can 
 also state, based on my own experience, that the mental 
 effect has been to cultivate self-reliance and promptness. 
 In addition to m}'' own case, I have followed the game 
 closely since graduation, through my connection with 
 the advisory committee at Princeton, and as the result 
 of fifteen years' observation, my emphatic opinion is that 
 the physical and mental effects are conducive to nothing 
 but good results. 
 
 I would, however, state, as modifjnng the above, in 
 common with a number of others, that a reform in the 
 present rules is necessary, as the game as it isplaj'^ed to- 
 day is a dangerous one for the average schoolboy or the 
 man who is not in the best of training ; and we are all 
 aware that whatever rules the college adopts the public 
 will follow. 
 
 The above is probably superflous, in view of the an- 
 ticipated legislation that is now going on. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Henry B. Thompson. 
 
 61 Mt. Vernon St., March 13, 1894. 
 While at college I played two years on my class 
 eleven, one year on the second eleven and part of the 
 time substitute on the university eleven, and in my 
 senior year I was a regular member of the team through- 
 out the season. During this time I received only one 
 
214 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 injury wbich even approaclied being serious : In my 
 .fresliman year I was thrown on my head on the frozen 
 ground, as a result of a tackle at or below the knee. 
 I was laid up for five days, and felt some effects when 
 overtired through the winter. I was able to finish out the 
 season, playing in a match game a week from the day I 
 was hurt. The accident, such as it was, occurred during 
 a practice game, and while it is difficult to say what 
 might have been, I am inclined to attribute the injury 
 received to my inexperience, and to think that in case 
 a similar fall had occurred a year or two later, I should 
 have been able to protect my head. 
 
 I should like very much to enter my protest against 
 the common practice of reasoning from accidents occur- 
 ring on scrub elevens to the dangers of university 
 football. All players will join me in saying that 
 during the fii'st ten days of the season men get bruised 
 by things which later would have no effect, because the 
 men get out of the habit of falling easily, and it takes 
 time to recover the knack. 
 
 When men who are not in condition physically, and 
 who fall hard when they are thrown, start in to play 
 even a twenty-minute game, it is no wonder that they 
 get hurt. No man can be thrown with impunity when 
 he is exhausted ; but the accident which often happens 
 in that case is due to the folly of the man, not to the 
 danger of the game, which to my mind is very slight. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Wilder D. Bancroft. 
 
 Ansonia, Conn., March 16, 1894. 
 I think football is a good thing, and that people will 
 be surprised at the result of your figures. I know that 
 the game built me up and was the best thing for me. I 
 used to have a very quick temper, and now I can control 
 it. I attribute this entirely to football. For goodness' 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 215 
 
 sake don't " monkey " too much with the rules. We 
 want one game that cannot be played in the parlor. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 F. W. Wallace. 
 
 Seattle, Wash., March 9, 1894. 
 
 In my experience I have only seen one serious acci- 
 dent, and that was in the fall of 1886 when Harry 
 Hamlin broke his leg on the Yale field, and as I was 
 playing next to him I remember the accident perfectly. 
 His opponent in the pi*actice game was Charley Gill. 
 Hamlin turned suddenly and fell ; the ball was not in 
 play at the time and Gill was not in any way responsible, 
 as the accident could have occurred in any drawing 
 room. 
 
 I believe the training that a man undergoes, both physi- 
 cally and morally, is the best that any sport offers, and I 
 have had fair experience in the university boat. It 
 gives a man courage, such as nothing else can secure for 
 him ; he measures his strengtli against that of other 
 men, and it gives him confidence. He is obliged to 
 control his temper, which is invaluable in after-life. 
 My own experience is that I have not suffered physically 
 in the least from the game, and that I have in many 
 ways profited. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. R, Carter. 
 
 Princeton, N. J., March 8, 1894. 
 I think all lovers of football will appreciate this inves- 
 tigation on your part. That the public should be so 
 prejudiced against the game wwould hardlj^ seem possible 
 when one considers the fact that all those who have 
 ever played the game speak so highly in its favor. To 
 me it represents the typical form of bodily exercise. I 
 
216 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 have gotten no end of good from the game, and my 
 only regret is that I have been obliged to stop playing 
 on account of other duties. I am, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Darwin R. James, Jr. 
 
 East Orange, K J., March 13, 1894. 
 
 I was in Princeton University from 1874 to 1878, 
 during the change from the old football game to the 
 Rugby. I played upon the university team in both 
 games, two years under the old rules and one year under 
 the Rugby rules. I received no injury of any kind from 
 either set of games. I consider the Rugby game the 
 less dangerous of the two, although it looks rougher. 
 During my experience with the latter I saw but 
 few players Avho were obliged to leave the field, and 
 then it was from a sprain or from some slight accident ; 
 but under the old rules I have seen many who were 
 carried off because of the dangerous system of "buck- 
 ing" then in vogue. The most serious results from the 
 game that I observed when in college came from playing 
 contrary to the rules, and those accidents were usually 
 the result of practice games. 
 
 I underwent a system of training, although compared 
 with the modern athlete's method it would be considered 
 rather tame. However, we were obliged to be careful 
 of our diet and to practise on the field or exercise in the 
 gymnasium twice every day. I was never better in my 
 life than when so trained, and I consider that my health 
 and general physique were so much improved that I 
 have been able to bear the severe nervous strain of my 
 pastoral work. From my experience and observation I 
 am convinced that athletic sports, when not carried to 
 a senseless extreme, are a benefit to the average college 
 student. 
 
 Thanking you for the opportunity to express my opin- 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 217 
 
 ion upon this subject, and trusting tliat this communi- 
 cation may be of some service to you, I am, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 David O. Irving. 
 
 Boston, March 13, 1894. 
 
 I am convinced that the time I gave to football 
 amply repaid me, in building up a physique which I 
 otherwise Avould never have had. From an overgrown 
 and vei'y clumsy lad I developed into a fairly strong 
 and far from clumsy college man. 
 
 I attribute this to football rather than to rowing, and 
 as far as physical danger is concerned, I consider row- 
 ing of more danger to a man's constitution than foot- 
 ball with its attendant casualties. 
 
 I do not mean thereby to condemn rowing. But 
 merely mention this as a comparison of any danger 
 which may attend these two sports. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Gardner Perry. 
 
 Montreal, March 10, 1894. 
 
 "Five years," is the answer which I have given to 
 your first question, but in reality I have played two or 
 three years more than that. I answered as I did, 
 because for five years I was a member either of my 
 preparatory school team, the class eleven, or the 'vars- 
 ity, while for the other two or three years I was not a 
 bona-fide member of any team, but simply a substitute, 
 and struggling on the scrub side for a position on the 
 school team. 
 
 I am somewhat in doubt what reply to make to your 
 second question, for I have never had what might 
 be called a serious injury. A broken nose, received in 
 a game with the Orange Athletic team, will have to be 
 the answer, I guess. This, however, was not serious 
 
218 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 enough to necessitate my leaving the field. My only other 
 injury which in any way might be termed serious was 
 received in a practice game. In making a tackle my 
 foot slipped in such a way that when we fell I stretched 
 a tendon in the inside of my leg. After about fifteen 
 minutes I was all right, and since that time I have felt 
 no evil effects from the accident. This perhaps would 
 be called the more serious of the two injuries, for I 
 gave up practice for the rest of that afternoon. 
 
 I consider the general effect of the sport, both phys- 
 ically and mentally, good. It has been argued that 
 the game is too rough and the exercise too vigorous 
 and exhausting. I have always held that to the 
 spectator the game appears much more rough 
 than it really is. The exercise cannot be consid- 
 ered too vigorous when the fact is not overlooked 
 that at the beginning of the season the work is 
 comparatively light, and the steps to the hard work 
 at the end of the season so gradual, that one does 
 not experience any bad effects if he keeps himself in 
 the condition that is expected of him. Among the 
 numerous good points which the game teaches under 
 good coaching, are the control of one's temper, to obey 
 without questioning, to think and act quickly, to do his 
 own duty, not forgetting to help his neighbor. These 
 are but a few among the many good points to be 
 learned by a season's work with a good team. The 
 exercise, the plain diet, and regular hours are bound to 
 keep one physically and. mentally active. The harsh 
 criticisms against football are not written by men expe- 
 rienced in the game; in fact, I don't remember ever of 
 hearing one speak against the game who had ever 
 played a season or a part of one. I hope these statis- 
 tics which you are collecting will prove all and more 
 than you expect of them. 
 
 During the last two years the game in the West 
 
LETTERS PROM PLATERS 219 
 
 has taken an increased hold on the interest of the 
 people. Tills is because it is becoming better un- 
 derstood. This better understanding is due in a 
 great measure to coaching of old players and help from 
 the East. Where you find the game best understood 
 and best played there you will find the most interest, 
 tlie least roughness, and the least number of accidents. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 F. E. Barbour. 
 
 Boston, March 12, 1894. 
 
 I have thought back over our teams of the old time, 
 and with the exception of a broken bone in ankle suf- 
 fered by Whiting, 1877, in a Montreal match, I remember 
 nothing of consequence, unless two broken collar-bones — 
 both in practice — be such. Other than the foregoing, 
 I know of nothing in the way of serious injuries to the 
 men of such constitution and build as do come to our 
 teams, and it should be said that Whiting's injury was 
 due to the slipping in the slime over a frozen ground. 
 
 As to after-effects, in my own case I found difficulty 
 in the change from active training and good condition 
 to a strictly sedentary life. These difficulties Avere of 
 course in no sense due to the game, but to the adjust- 
 ment to new habits. 
 
 We have many old football men in this vicinity. So 
 far as I know all are in the best of health, and all speak 
 well of the effects of the game. From them you will, 
 doubless, have direct information. 
 
 My word of caution — from a somewhat limited 
 observation — would be directed to nature and amount 
 of training and practice. I have in my mind a case 
 where an excellent man was lost to the game through 
 overtraining and practice playing when in poor shape, 
 and I think I see a danger in our modern methods of 
 making men " stale " by overwork. This should be 
 
220 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 taken as an impression rather than an opinion, as I have 
 not been able to follow affairs closely. 
 
 I am exceedingly glad to hear from you and to have 
 the opportunity of contributing even slightly to your 
 work. 
 
 From all that I hear the years have gone well with 
 you, and you certainly have been able to keep in the 
 game to an extent which makes the old men grateful for 
 your constant service. I am, with regards, 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Feakcis a. Houston. 
 
 Pittsburgh, March 8, 1894. 
 I am in the employ of the Westinghouse Electric 
 and Manufacturing Company, Pittsburgh, Pa. I cannot 
 say that I would have been any better equipped for my 
 work mentally, should I not have played football, but 
 I can most heartily say that physically I am twenty 
 per cent, better a man, for health, for constitution; and 
 I consider that in getting along among people the 
 sport has been of invaluable service to me. In my four 
 years' experience I know of no bad physical effects upon 
 any one, except upon some man, perhaps, a crooked 
 nose ; also I know of some who were poor students, but 
 I don't think football ever made them so. They would 
 have been poor students without it. I am, 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 A. F. Harrold. 
 
 Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 13, 1894. 
 You have touched me on a sensitive point in asking 
 for my opinion as to the dangers of football. I am 
 probably one of the oldest active footballists on the con- 
 tinent, having fifteen consecutive seasons to my credit, 
 and my experience ought to be of some general value 
 to you. My experience, too, has been varied ; two years 
 
LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 221 
 
 in Edinburgh at one of the best football schools, two at 
 Harvard, and the balance here, where we meet in the 
 army and navy teams some excellent exponents of the 
 game as played in the mother country. 
 
 I have witnessed no fatal accidents and few serious 
 ones, and, with almost no exceptions, the latter were 
 directly attributable to ignorance or recklessness on the 
 part of the player injured. 
 
 I am satisfied that football, as it should be plaj'ed, 
 and as I have, so far as I could, insisted that it should 
 be played, is by no means a dangerous exercise, and 
 that it is, if not the best, certainly one of the best, 
 means of disciplining the physical and mental faculties. 
 
 Unnecessary roughness does occasionally^ creep in, 
 and if not promptly checked by those in authority it 
 will increase like any other noxious weed, and eventually 
 lower the game in the estimation of nearly all. If 
 captains and committees of management will strenuously 
 set their faces against this evil it will soon disappear, 
 but so long as the powers that be tacitly permit it, just 
 so long will it exist. My own experience is that the 
 rough player is not the best player in any department 
 of the game. More can be done with the head than 
 with the muscles, in my opinion. Football is a game 
 of skill, not brute force, and the trouble with many 
 plaj^ers is that they fail to recognize this distinction. 
 
 You will permit me, sir, to say that I feel proud to be 
 associated in this good work, in however so humble a 
 way, with a gentleman whose name is a household word 
 wherever football is known on this continent. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 W. A, Henry. 
 
 Boston, March 14, 1894, 
 It seems a shame that such a good, honest game as 
 football should be allowed to fall to its present position 
 
222 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 in some people's opinion ; but while it may be less brutal 
 than it was seven or eight years ago, the whole style of 
 the game is a great deal I'ougher than the game of 
 twelve or fifteen years ago, and I am willing to confess 
 that I am one of the malcontents. 
 
 There is no need on this occasion to go into the 
 question of the position occupied by the game of to-day 
 in the eyes of the public compared with the interest 
 shown by the public in former years. I can only say I 
 am not a participator in the enthusiasm. 
 
 I am not prepared to show any evil effects of the 
 game as played to-day at the colleges ; but I do con- 
 sider that the spirit of sport and honor, and the fact 
 that it is only a game, are entirely lost sight of. The 
 training and preparation seem unnecessarily long and 
 severe, though I thoroughly appreciate the fact that a 
 man should be in first-class shape to play a good game. 
 
 If one may make a few suggestions about the rules, 
 permit me to say that to me the greatest evil of the 
 present game is the interference, which is nothing more 
 than " off side " play — call it as you will. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 F. Warren. 
 
 Boise City, Idaho, March 8, 1894, 
 Every one who admires the game and has played on 
 a college team appreciates the gallant fight you and 
 others are making to establish this noble and manly 
 sport in its proper light before a misinformed public, 
 whose opinions are fast becoming biassed and teem with 
 the ideas of some reporters who are ignorant of the 
 game and fond of sensation. 
 
 I cannot understand, if football is as injurious to 
 mind and body as some would have us believe that it is, 
 why all the old football players stand so loyally for the 
 game. Surely if there was any doubt about its bene- 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 223 
 
 ficial result, there would be some traitor among our 
 own ranks who would lead the fight against us. The 
 fact that there is not a dissenting or discouraging voice 
 among those who have plaj^'d on the large college 
 teams is enough to satisfy any just and enquiring mind. 
 
 There is no doubt that nine-tenths of the accidents 
 that are heralded about in the daily press occur in 
 games wliere there is practically no knowledge and 
 science of the game, and decidedly no training for it. 
 
 I firmly believe that there is no game or amusement 
 where youthful energies are so readily developed into 
 manliness, restraint of nature and temper encouraged, 
 the mind and body strengthened, a noble character 
 established, and a man taught to Jcnow himself , as in 
 football. 
 
 I regret very much the stand that some of our leading 
 professors, and even college presidents, have taken in 
 this matter, and only hope that when the facts are pre- 
 sented to them their better judgment will prevail, and 
 they will aid in establisliing this game, which above all 
 others should be encouraged. 
 
 Most respectfully yours, 
 
 Pringle C. Jones. 
 
 Chicago, March 12, 1894, 
 In gives me great pleasure to do any thing in my 
 power to preserve football, a game which is, in my judg- 
 ment, of the most benefit to our j'^oung men, both physi- 
 cally and mentally, of any played in our American 
 universities. Of course the effect this sport has upon 
 the player will depend largely upon the condition he is 
 in at the time he begins to play, and what course of 
 training he is put through ; but the game itself, if it 
 is properly taught, and the man properly handled, gen- 
 erates and encourages three qualities by which I set a 
 great store, viz., health, endurance, and self-control. 
 
224 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 I am perfectly frank in saying that I know of abso- 
 lutely no instance in which a member of any team play- 
 ing at Harvard University has been permanently injured, 
 either at practice or in a match. The most serious 
 injury that I know of was to Holden, the captain of the 
 first team with which I was connected, when his breast- 
 bone was broken in the Princeton game of 1887. Of 
 course he was confined to bis bed for a number of weeks, 
 but he looks stronger than ever before in his life. I 
 saw him the other day, and I am thoroughly convinced 
 of this. 
 
 As I have noted in the statement enclosed, the only 
 injury to me was water on the knee, which happened in 
 practice that same season, and disabled me from playing 
 for about three weeks. The injury was immediately and 
 properly cared for, and there has been no trouble from 
 it in these after years. I make no note of broken noses, 
 because they are one of the necessary adjuncts of almost 
 any sport. Mine has suffered from base-ball, boxing, 
 and football, and, I may say, has been at times put 
 thoroughly " out of joint " by rowing. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. a. Caepentek. 
 
 Cleveland, O,, March 16, 1894. 
 Regarding my personal experience, the late W. Earl 
 Dodge and I were the Princeton delegates to the first 
 Springfield convention in the fall of 1876, which organ- 
 ized the college association and introduced the Rugby 
 game under settled rules. Messrs. Baker and Atwater 
 represented Yale at that meeting. I played in the first 
 Yale-Princeton game in 1876, and in the first Harvard- 
 Princeton game in the spring of 1877 at Cambridge. 
 Since that time I have followed the progress of college 
 football with keen interest and have witnessed many of 
 the great games. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 225 
 
 I am fully convinced of the great advantages of 
 football and football training in the colleges, mentally, 
 morally, and physically, but concur heartily in tlie 
 movement for amendment of the rules in the direction 
 of abolishing flying mass play and making the game 
 decidedly more open. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. Potter. 
 
 Boston, Mass., March 20, 1894. 
 
 I played football four years at Exeter Academy, 
 and three years at Harvard, and have no hesitation in 
 saying that I think nearly every serious accident I know 
 much about was due to the poor condition of the player 
 or the methods of the captain and coachers. 
 
 I also think many accidents occur in the early part of 
 the season, before the muscles are hardened, and while 
 the players are in such poor condition that after the first 
 few minutes of work they play in a loose, defenceless 
 way. 
 
 I also think many men are injured before they acquire 
 a knowledge of the game, when they think good foot- 
 ball is to slug and " do up" an opponent. 
 
 As for myself, I can state that I was never injured 
 seriously dui'ing the three years I was on the Harvard 
 eleven, and I know of no game that compels a man to 
 cultivate the power of self-control and develop those 
 qualities which are sure to help a man in after life 
 more than the American game of football. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John S. Cranston. 
 
 Omaha, March, 1894. 
 Entering college when very young and not strong, 
 fresh from honors at school, and feeling well fitted to 
 acquire more in that larger field, I am thankful that my 
 15 
 
226 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 enthusiasm was aroused and my attention early turned 
 to devote all the time allowed me to base-ball and foot- 
 ball fields. The training necessary to become a candi- 
 date kept me from dissipation (into which I might have 
 drifted), and built up a constitution into which so far 
 time and sickness have not been able make any serious 
 inroad. In my case, I consider the physical advantages 
 obtained during my connection with football and base- 
 ball fully as valuable to myself as the literary ones 
 I enjoyed during my college course. Only good has 
 resulted. 
 
 My experience has been that the accidents generally 
 occur in the unimportant and practice games, when the 
 men do not feel the necessity of being "braced," and 
 on the whole being alive, as is the case in the most im- 
 portant games. 
 
 I suffered no injury in two and a half years in match 
 games, and knew of none more serious than a sprain in 
 a regular team where the team had been trained. I 
 have no hesitation in saying that I think the effect of 
 the sport beneficial both mentally and physically, and 
 can see no reason why any one who is apt to be chosen 
 as one of a team should not be benefited, with the care 
 which is now exercised in training each candidate for 
 football honors. Keep up the good work, and let this 
 carping about brutality and cruelty cease. Make rules 
 punishing the brutal, but do not spoil the game for a 
 timid few. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 Leonid AS P. Funkhousee. 
 
 Vienna, Austria, March 24, 1894. 
 Your letter containing the statement of an old Oxo- 
 nian and enclosing a list of questions for football players 
 to answer, was received to-day, having been forwarded 
 to me from New York. It is with pleasure I am able to 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 227 
 
 have an opportunity to exalt the virtues of a sport to 
 which I can trace absolutely no bad effects, but on the 
 contrary feel that true enthusiasm which naturally 
 comes to one who feels in after years the healthy effects 
 of this manly game. It seems to me if public prejudice 
 against the game of football was more an offspring of 
 good judgment than sensation, it would be a blessing 
 to many a weak and sickly boy sent by fear-inspired 
 parents to our American colleges. I am asked what 
 the good effects are in my own case. This would be hard 
 to express. I certainly enjoy as a result of my seven 
 years on the football elevens of Phillips Exeter Academy 
 and Yale University a sound body and a healthy mind. 
 The game has given me that which no book or tutor 
 could — something of physical force and mental energy. 
 As a physician, I could prescribe nothing that could 
 reduce the mortality of our college students, those whose 
 health and minds are wrecked by too much confine- 
 ment and hard study, better than the indulgence in the 
 healthy exercise. 
 
 Sincerely yours. 
 
 War. C. WURTENBERG, M. D. 
 
 New York, April 3, 1894. 
 
 I went through several seasons' training with the Yale 
 teams, and during that time received no injury for 
 which I am the worse off to-day. I have a vigorous 
 constitution, and cannot remember having had a day of 
 sickness since leaving college. 
 
 So far as I know, the health of the men with whom I 
 played has not suffered any bad effects from the game. 
 
 As to the effect upon one's mental growth it is hard 
 to form any well-grounded opinion, as it is difiicult to 
 tell what one's intellectual powers would have been 
 under other than the actual conditions. It seems im- 
 probable that in the long run one's intellectual devel- 
 
228 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 opment will be impeded by sound lungs and perfect 
 digestion. 
 
 The charge that the game has a bad ethical tendency 
 in its influence upon the players is certainly false. Such 
 a charge it would not be possible to make for one who 
 has had any intimacy with a number of players during 
 a long course of training. 
 
 My observation has convinced me that a course of 
 football training where discipline is preserved tends to 
 create or strengthen in the player many excellent quali- 
 ties — qualities which men to whose opinion age and 
 experience give weight regard as most essential to a 
 successful and useful life. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 C. O. Gill. 
 
 Beookltn, N. Y., March 2, 1894. 
 I think that football as now played will gradually lose 
 its interest to the casual onlooker if there are not some 
 radical changes made, and as a partial remedy for this I 
 would suggest that the play be made more open, and 
 mass plays, which are dangerous, be done away with as 
 much as possible. "Would also like to see a player try- 
 ing for fair catch thoroughly protected. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. Ward Ford. 
 
 Chicago, March 2, 1894. 
 
 I enclose answers to printed questions and would say 
 in addition that I consider the lack of padded trousers 
 the reason for the shaking up referred to. It seemed 
 to jar the nervous system considerably, and I was some 
 time in recovering from the effects. 
 
 While writing on the subject let me say that I am 
 very glad that you have taken up the subject of a 
 
LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 229 
 
 change in the present rules to prevent the mass plaj^s 
 and injuries resulting from them. 
 
 Tlie open game was much prettier to watch, much 
 less dangerous, and free from the press criticism. I sup- 
 pose you are aware of the extent of the feeling on this 
 subject. In Chicago it is most intense and general 
 among all college men. 
 
 If the game is to hold its high and dignified position 
 
 some such change must come, and that soon. Trusting 
 
 that you will be successful in bringing it about, and 
 
 with best wishes for the future of the game, I am. 
 
 Yours sincerely. 
 
 John Farwell, Jr. 
 
 Hudson, Mass., March 13, 1894. 
 
 My experience in football extended over the usual 
 preparatory period of four years in school, and was 
 supplemented in college by the steady application of 
 the football enthusiast of that time. The game has 
 developed, of course, in the matter of team play to 
 a great extent since that time, but I feel, in com- 
 mon with many other old football men, that this has 
 been at the expense of many of the most interesting 
 features. How many times we hear surprise expressed 
 at an amount of kicking that in our day would have 
 occasioned surprise only at its scarcity. 
 
 I am in sympathy with any careful movement to make 
 the game more open, in order to give opportunity for a 
 brilliant man to obtain credit for the prowess he really 
 is capable of, and with this should be included a more 
 stringent code of rules. The development of the game 
 to its present state, in so many respects unsatisfactory, 
 is due chiefly to evasion or dodging of the rules, be- 
 coming each year gradually wider and wider, until 
 finally the evasion has become the rule itself. 
 
 My injuries were never received in match games. It 
 
230 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 may be because a team in practice usually has an extra 
 number of men added to its opponents, making the 
 chances of rough handling much greater. When my 
 hair grows gray perhaps the affliction of rheumatism 
 or some ailment of old age may make its appearance in 
 a knee that was lame or ankle that was sprained. Until 
 that happens I should be unable to say, truthfully, that 
 any of my injuries were permanent. 
 
 The question of good condition in my time did not 
 trouble the football players as it did the rowing men. 
 We were never " trained " as the word is used to-day. 
 We made a feeble beginning in that line, but the trainer 
 was obnoxious as an individual and a "professional" to 
 the faculty, and was allowed to retire from the scene as 
 gracefully as circumstances would permit. 
 
 Our training was not made to apply to individual 
 needs, with the exception of cases where injury made 
 rest imperative. The rule against smoking was not 
 rigidly enforced, etc., etc. 
 
 The watchful eyes of trainer and medical attendant 
 are advantages which we knew not of. 
 
 The effect of the sport on me was of two-fold advan- 
 tage : 
 
 It taught me self-reliance and quickness of decision 
 (much more than the team-work and preconcerted sig- 
 nals of to-day are capable of), and built up my body to 
 an extent that I think now would not have been possible 
 without that sport, although I will confess here that it 
 was supplemented by four years of rowing on class crews. 
 
 I fear I have been somewhat prolix, but I have the 
 feeling that in a full expression of opinion from the men 
 who have been " through it," lies the best chance of find- 
 ing the material for the reformation and defence of the 
 game we all love, at what seems to me a critical time in 
 its history. Yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. p. Keith. 
 
LETTERS FROM PLATERS 231 
 
 Berlin, N. H., March 13, 1894. 
 
 I enclose answer to questions asked and hope they 
 may serve their purpose. It is certainly a very good 
 idea to produce some facts in reply to the theories of 
 unfortunate man and woman. 
 
 For my part I regard football the very best sport in 
 every way that there is. It requires more physical and 
 mental perfection than any others, and produces them. 
 I rowed in the 'varsity in 1885 and 1886, but think foot- 
 ball more beneficial. 
 
 I think the flying wedge and concerted plays when 
 combined weight is used, to the elimination of agility, 
 skill, and quickness, and resulting in roughness that de- 
 tracts from the game, should be stopped by change in 
 the rules. These plays are not football proper, but 
 unfortunate developments which, I think, largely explain 
 criticism. 
 
 Yours, with best wishes, 
 
 T. B. Burgess. 
 
 Pittsburgh, March 8, 1894. 
 I think that I, possibly, am in a position to give 
 as good testimony regarding American Rugby foot- 
 ball as any body in the countr}^, with the exception 
 of yourself, and a few of tlie old men who have 
 stuck to the wheel througli thick and thin from the 
 very conception of the game. I not only saw the first 
 Rugby game played, and played on the first Yale fresh- 
 man team, but have seen every important game, with 
 the exception of two, up to and including last Thanks- 
 giving Day. In many of these games I have been 
 fortunate enough to be on the lines, in the dressing- 
 rooms during intermission, and with the team afterward, 
 and in all these eighteen years, with probably two 
 hundred players, have only known of two serious 
 accidents, and these you might say temporary. 
 
232 FOOTBALL TACTS AND riGTJEES 
 
 Eaton was hurt in Hoboken in 1879 badly enough to 
 be laid up for the rest of the season, but his injury was 
 not sufficient to keep him off the field the next fall, nor 
 to prevent his captaining of the 'varsity team the 
 following year. 
 
 Billy Brown was pretty badly broken up in the 
 Amherst game in 1878, but he is in good enough shape 
 to-day. I repeat, these are the only two injuries amount- 
 ing to any thing that I have any knowledge of, barring, 
 of course, temporary petty injuries which occur fre- 
 quently, and are over with in a very few days, such 
 as Hinkey received this year, and "Jean" Richards 
 received in his day. 
 
 Please keep up your good work until the last croaker 
 is compelled to give in. While I think that some of 
 the momentum plays of the past two years may have a 
 certain danger connected with them, yet with the diver- 
 sified game of the past eighteen years, including every 
 thing from the open long-passing game to the close 
 wedge momentum game of to-day, with the almost com- 
 plete absence of any serious injury among a properly 
 trained team, the verdict must be with the splendid 
 exhibitions of physical manhood throughout the country 
 to-day. " Football, with its pure air and systematic, 
 perfect training, is, together with being the best sport, 
 the most healthful of all the college sports of the day." 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John Moorhead. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEE 
 
 Having entered upon this investigation with a desire 
 to gather all the information possible in a short time 
 upon tlie subject, we find that the material thus collected 
 is sufficient to justify us in submitting it to the public, 
 and particularly to those interested in the schooling of 
 their own boys. We also feel that we are warranted in 
 drawing some conclusions from the facts at our disposal, 
 as well as in making some suggestions. They are 
 offered solely for the purpose of practically utilizing 
 the labor that has been expended in collecting the 
 evidence. 
 
 We find that the almost unanimous opinion of those 
 who have played the game of football at Harvard, Yale, 
 and Princeton during the last eighteen years is that it 
 has been of marked benefit to them, both in the way of 
 general physical development and mental discipline ; 
 also that they regard tlie injuries sustained as generally 
 unimportant and far outweighed by the benefits. We 
 find the same is true in regard to the players of the 
 University of Pennsylvania, so far as we have received 
 replies from them. Still further similar enquiries sent 
 out to the players of the majority of college teams of 
 the season of 1893 have brought back the same unvar}'- 
 ing replies, testifying to the fact that the game was one 
 of great benefit to the player, both mentally and physi- 
 cally. While it was fair to conclude that men who 
 have been out of college all the way from two or three 
 years to sixteen or seventeen would be fully competent 
 
 233 
 
234 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 to judge of the effects of the game upon themselves, it 
 seemed that something more would be necessary in the 
 case of the school-boy who had not yet entered college. 
 For this reason our enquiries in that direction were 
 made not only of the boy himself, but of the teacher as 
 well. The head-masters also of most of the prominent 
 schools were courteous enough to reply quite at length 
 to our request for the expression of an opinion. Such 
 replies we have published in full in this book, both 
 those favorable and those unfavorable to the sport. 
 We find, however, that the evidence here, too, is that, 
 in the majority of cases, the sport has been beneficial to 
 the physical development and discipline of the school, 
 and the concensus of opinion is that scholarship has cer- 
 tainly not suffered. Moreover, this latter conclusion is 
 borne out quite strongly in the later progress of the 
 boy, for we find in the colleges that the athlete holds 
 his own with his fellows in point of scholarship, and 
 that there are, in football at least, a number of instances 
 of remarkably high standing. 
 
 Coming to the most technical part of the subject we 
 find a large number of protests against the so-called 
 mass plays, as being productive of a style of game too 
 favoi'able to weight, less attractive to the majority of 
 the students, and, according to some, conducive to more 
 injuries, particularly in the school team. Here, it is 
 argued, a different condition exists from that in the 
 college team. At school a dull but mature student may 
 often be found Avho is too old for his mates and far 
 larger than the boys with whom he can play. He will 
 be used in the mass plays and injuries to the smaller 
 boys result. This committee is not prepared to discuss 
 the rules, but certain changes have already been made 
 in them looking toward an increased premium upon an 
 open kicking game, and something of a reduction of the 
 mass plays. 
 
CONCLUSION" OF THE COMMITTEE 235 
 
 As to the matter of injuries, the committee find that 
 by far the greater pai't of these injuries were sprains of 
 the ankle and knee, the former predominating. But 
 judicious protection of the ankle by means of special 
 shoes, it is found, does much to save that member. It 
 is probable, however, that the condition of the ground 
 is mainly responsible for any great increase in the 
 number of accidents to the knee and ankle, and the 
 committee would suggest that no school or college field 
 be used for football without some responsible person 
 being held accountable for its condition. 
 
 We find that the schools are ahead of the majority of 
 the colleges in one respect, and that is in the presence 
 upon the faculty of some college graduate thorough Ij-^ 
 posted upon the sports of the boys and able to tell what 
 regulations will be of most benefit as well as most 
 practicable in operation. This province seems to be 
 one that should be well regarded and not left to the 
 general information of some member of the faculty or 
 of the college physician, both of whom have their hands 
 full of other matters. 
 
 In the opinion of some of our committee, therefore, 
 it would be desirable that a graduate should be a resi- 
 dent at each college, whose province it should be to 
 keep himself thoroughly posted upon the sports and to 
 have at his command a mine of information for the 
 faculty and parents. Such a one would be able to furnish 
 facts which should make indiscriminate and ignorant 
 accusations against athletics, which needlessly alarm 
 parents from time to time, of less frequent occurrence. 
 He could be consulted upon both sides by the faculty 
 and students, and his oflices, rightly administered, would 
 have a tendency to secure moderation on the part of 
 both bodies. 
 
 Such a policy, however, must necessarily be regarded 
 at each college with reference to existing usages. In some 
 
236 rOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 
 
 the methods already in operation are, perhaps, sufficient, 
 and our committee refer to the point only to emphasize 
 the needs of such usages as will prevent the formation of 
 opinions by the public, hj parents, by faculties, and by 
 students respectively, without a clear knowledge of- facts 
 and sometimes under the influence of prejudice. 
 
 And this leads us to another suggestion. We find 
 that while the general result at the end of the year 
 shows that the football man more than holds his own as 
 a student, both at school and college, there is a com- 
 plaint that during the last few days of the playing 
 season the men are apt to be listless and inattentive' to 
 studies. This leads us to ask if it be not practicable by 
 agreement between rival captains, both of school and 
 college teams, to provide against a further increase of 
 the time put upon the game. We do not speak upon 
 the side of the alarmists, but we must contend that 
 already the strain is great, the amount of time devoted 
 to " summer practice " and " morning practice " has 
 doubled in the last two years, and that a further doub- 
 ling would certainly be inconsistent with either modera- 
 tion or benefit, physically or mentally. Upon the dis- 
 armament plan the rival captains could thus agree, even 
 if only upon a few points which should tend to keep 
 matters where they now are, without injury to the 
 chances of either or any team. 
 
 As to expenses and gate receipts, we feel that the 
 collegian should not use his sport for profit, but that it 
 is the nature of the American collegian, at least, to prefer 
 paying his money at the gates for what he chooses to 
 see rather than subscribing to any athletic body in bulk 
 for its support. If we were speaking, therefore, for 
 football by itself, we should be ready to recommend a 
 very large reduction in the receipts. We understand, 
 however, that the overplus acquired by football supports 
 the other athletic organizations which could not of them- 
 
CONCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEE 23-7 
 
 selves be self-supporting. It seems proper, nevertheless, 
 to suggest that efforts be made toward a reduction of 
 admission charges to more reasonable figures, but with 
 a due regard to the fair requirements of justifiable 
 sports as a whole, at the same time ensuring collegians 
 the first opportunity of witnessing the contests. The 
 admission charges recently made are, in the opinion of 
 many of the best informed, too high. The enormous 
 sums of money taken in as gate money shock the public 
 sense and breed extravagance on the part of the youth- 
 ful managers of the sports. 
 
 From the facts at our command we conclude that it 
 is possible to make a large reduction in expenditure, 
 and tliis being accomplished the necessity for immense 
 amounts in gate receipts disappears. This delicate sub- 
 ject must, of course, be left to the wise determination 
 of the representatives of tlie various colleges and for the 
 protection of all ; whatever is done should be done by 
 common agreement. In this way any undue advantage 
 or disadvantage to one or another team should be 
 avoided. In making these several suggestions we at 
 the same time submit that we are not in a position to 
 know the details by which these suggestions could best 
 be made of service, but we are sure that there are many 
 influential men among graduates and undergraduates 
 Avho will think as we do in the matter, and who can, 
 with their practical knowledge, effect the improvements 
 called for in the general conduct of what we feel ready, 
 after our investigations, to report one of our best sports. 
 
 THE END 
 
AMERICAN FOOTBALL 
 
 By Walter Camp. With Thirty -one Portraits. 
 New and Revised Edition. 16mo, Cloth, Orna- 
 mental, $1 25. 
 
 A volume which will aj^peal directly to the players 
 of America's robust game, as well as to the followers 
 of the sport. . . . There are few men so thoroughly 
 conversant with the subject as Mr. Camp. — N'. Y. 
 Tribune. 
 
 The game is described comprehensively and with ad- 
 mirable clearness. — JST. Y. Sun. 
 
 Easily the first treatise on that now popular game. 
 It is not only eminently readable, even to the tyro, but 
 it contains suggestions based on such profound experi- 
 ence in the science of football that no captain or coach 
 of any first-rate team can afford to miss the considera- 
 tion of them. — N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 Mr. Camp probably knows football more thoroughly 
 than any other man in this country, and he is emi- 
 nently well qualified to speak of the capabilities of each 
 place on an eleven. To the captains of the larger teams 
 what he has to say will of course prove hardly new ; 
 but to the players of lesser experience and to the ordi- 
 nary on-lookers Mr. Camp's description of the positions 
 will give a most accurate and valuable idea of how real 
 football should be played. — Harvard Crimson. 
 
 It would be hard to find a writer more thoroughly 
 conversant with his subject than Mr. Camp, The 
 technique of the game is carefully criticised and ex- 
 plained, and there are many valuable hints for captains 
 and players, each position being treated in detail. — 
 Princetonian. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 ^^Tlie above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, by 
 mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or 
 Mexico, on receipt of the price. 
 
PRACTICAL LAWN -TENNIS 
 
 By James Dwight, M.D. Illustrated from Instan- 
 taneous Photographs. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 
 $1 25. 
 
 This book embodies a valuable discussion of the game, 
 and makes an indispensable hand-book for daily use 
 during the tennis season. The illustrations are from in- 
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 the act of making the particular strokes under discussion. 
 
 The author has produced a manual which, if it is as 
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 York. 
 
 Dr. Dwight is the authority on lawn-tennis in the 
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 The manual is fully up to date. It deals with the 
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 Exhaustive in its rules, clear and simple in its explana- 
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 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 The above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by 
 mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or 
 Mexico, on receipt of the price. 
 
A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE 
 
 Riding to Hounds, Golf, Rowing, Football, Cricket, 
 Club and University Athletics. Studies in English 
 Sport, Past and Present. By Caspar W. Whitney. 
 Copiously Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental. 
 {About Ready ^ 
 
 The games of our college days and sports of our 
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 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 'The above ivork is for sale by all booksellers, or will he sent by 
 mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or 
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RIDERS OF MANY LANDS 
 
 By Theodore Aykault Dodge, Brevet Lieutenant- 
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 It is one of those delightful books in a conventional 
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