Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/167



many a generation past the athlete has been the undergraduate idol, the big man in college, the god whom the incoming freshman worshiped and to whose attributes and accomplishments he hoped through physical tribulations to attain. There may have been a time, when our great grandfathers were in college, that the orator or the scholar was most envied and emulated by the ambitious undergraduate, but, if so, that time is long past. The student crowd will go wild over a successful athlete, shouting themselves hoarse in proclaiming his excellencies, and fighting like demons to get a chance to carry him off the field. No one molests the orator or the scholar or follows him down the street with an ovation. They have an unobstructed path from the scene of their accomplishments to their lodging houses.

Don't misunderstand me: I am in no sense advocating or defending this condition of affairs; I am simply making a conservative statement of facts. Scholarship may be and should be the goal toward which the ambitious undergraduate in general is struggling, but physical strength and physical accomplishment is in reality what youth most admires. We might as well recognize and acknowledge the fact, change it if we can, and become resigned to it if we must.