Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/745

Rh 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. In the years 1879 to 1888 the average standing of men not on athletic organizations was on a scale of 4, 2·69; for members of the university boat crew the average was 2·52; for members of the baseball nine it was 2·41; for members of the football team it was 2·68. Track athletics were not in existence as an organization through the whole decade, but for the few years when there was a university team the average was 2·66. In the previous decade, 1869 to 1878, it is only fair to add that the average of the football men was slightly below that of the other athletes, it being 2·51 to their 2·56. I can only account for the fact of the rise of the average in the second decade by the change in the numbers of the team from twenty to eleven—a change giving opportunity for more skill, thus rendering the play more attractive to men of mind. 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 academic department, including players and substitutes, was higher than the average of any class which ever graduated. I can not believe, however, that the high scholarship 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 baseball nine, and three more than the crew of eight men. The substitutes, having a systematic training, are more numerous than the substitutes for either baseball 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 substitutes, it is doubtful if even the numbers of those engaging 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 arms, and the trunk are all used. No part of the muscular system is developed