Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/750

728 has not so affected the scholarship of the players themselves. But the facts are against this theory. I took the trouble to go through the scholarship record of two decades—1869 to 1888—decades which witnessed the great development of athletics. For the first decade the average was 2·67 on a scale of 4; for the second decade it was 2·69. In the various sports the average scholarship of the football men was the only one which rose in the second decade higher than in the first, passing from 2·51 to 2·68.

Evil No. 2: Extravagance in expenditure of money earned. Charges of this kind have been made quite recklessly, not only against football but against athletics generally. Knowing that the football teams have earned a great deal of money and not knowing exactly how it is spent, enemies of the game have apparently assumed that it must have been spent extravagantly. None of this money goes to members of the team. It is all paid into the treasury of the Financial Union. The treasurer is a graduate. He pays out money according to the orders of the president of the Y. U. F. B. C, or of the manager of the team. The only persons, then, who could possibly be liable to the charges of wastefulness or extravagance are these three persons. The treasurer can be thrown out of consideration. He is simply an agent, and the writer can testify to the fact that the treasurer exercises a restraining influence. Moreover, as the Financial Union holds and disburses, through this treasurer, the moneys of the other athletic organizations, all the officers of that union (who are also officers of those athletic organizations) exercise a mutual oversight and watchfulness toward one another. This influence is felt for good by the two officers of the university football club as well as by all the others.

Undoubtedly every year much more money is spent than is necessary. Undoubtedly, also, much more money has been spent on football in the last few years than was spent in the first years of the existence of the game, and a judicious economy might have saved a good deal of this money. But it must be remembered that the age is extravagant; that more money is wasted in dress, in furniture, in all the vain show of living than was spent thirty years ago. It must also be borne in mind that in the infancy of the game only the fifteen or eleven members of the team were expected to have their unusual expenses paid out of the football treasury. Now there are a second team of regular substitutes, and many possible candidates for either team, whose extra expenses are defrayed. Again, the students themselves are aware of the danger, and have selected for treasurer a graduate and a business man who will save hundreds of dollars for the organization, besides by his influence in a quiet way acting as a check on any tendency to unnecessary or extravagant expenditures.