of man out of the way. We don't want him. He does more harm than good,
even if he is the best player on the eleven.

It is considered clever by many to do as many small and mean acts as
possible in a match game of football. To resort to petty practices is
looked upon by them as good playing. But there is no good playing,
except fair and honest playing. These same men who will kick their
opponents in the shins when the umpire is not looking are those who
encourage players to attend school during the football season, not
caring whether they remain afterwards or not. It is surprising how much
of this is done, and I have actually heard men say (instead of refusing
to play with a team composed of such men) that they, too, have hired or
obtained players to meet their rivals' crooked tactics. What an
argument! Where would the ethics of sport end up if such logic were to
be accepted? Why cannot we all become thoroughly imbued with the idea of
sport for sport's sake only? We do not play to _win_. We play for the
sake of playing--for the sake of the sport, the exercise, the
fellowship, and good blood that is to result.

Last year and the year before there was more than one school in the
Connecticut High-School League that resorted to practices not entirely
consistent with true sportsmanship. I speak of these now because my
attention has been directly called to them, and because I believe from
personal investigation that they were guilty certainly of a portion of
the misdeeds that rumor credited them with. In the other scholastic
football associations I have known of irregularities, but of none quite
so flagrant as those of Connecticut. There several football players have
suddenly been seized with a desire to attend school just as the season
opened, and have lost all inclination to study immediately after
Thanksgiving.

It is, of course, impossible to say outright that these men are
improperly induced to enter school, for such a thing is very hard to
prove. But it is perfectly just to say that no Captain of an amateur
eleven or of a school eleven should allow any man to play on his team
whom he does not believe to be a _bona fide_ scholar who means to remain
in school until the end of the year--a scholar who has come to learn
what is taught in the class-room, not what is practised on the football
field.

It is ridiculous for any Captain to assert that he does not know what
the men on his team intend doing a month hence. It i