by the central association
to spur our players to greater and more scientific effort. The contests
last year at Newport, and again this spring at the Neighborhood Club,
West Newton, Massachusetts, where our men came in contact with
foreigners, brought out both our weakness and our strength; it showed
clearly that our worst fault is the unsteadiness of American players.
That this early tournament playing, accustoming young men to watch their
strokes and play carefully, must aid in remedying this evil among the
rising players hardly needs to be pointed out, while the new opportunity
of meeting equal or better players must also promote skill and
brilliancy in play. Add to this the closer contact of school and
college, and there seems strong argument for the more vigorous support
of such a cause.

In less than a month football will be taking up most of the time and
attention that school athletes can devote to sport. The coming season
should be a notable one in the history of the game too, for it will show
whether or not the schools are going to allow themselves to be
influenced by the better or the worse element that is identified with
the game. The better element is the one which has been trying for years
to arrange a code of rules that would purge the sport as much as
possible of opportunities for the practice of rough and unsportsmanlike
methods. The other element is the one which has been trying for just as
many years to evade the rules laid down. If the school players will
frown upon all unfair methods, and refuse to countenance sharp practice
in the game, if they will insist upon adhering to the spirit as well as
to the letter of the law, they will soon swell the ranks of the better
element of football men to such proportions that the other class will
find itself entirely overruled.

It is unfortunate that we should be forced to admit that sharp practice
occurs in football to a greater extent, probably, than in any other
sport. But, nevertheless, I think this is true. More acts of meanness
are performed in the course of one football game almost than in a whole
season of baseball or tennis or track athletics. Men will punch and kick
one another when the referee is not looking, and they will resort to all
sorts of small tricks that they would blush to acknowledge afterwards.
But, remember, this is not the fault of the game, it is the fault of the
man. And the endeavor of every true sportsman should be to get this sort