Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/266

 262 In all 135 letters were sent out: 78 to players upon college teams; 39 upon public school teams—mostly high school—and 13 to players upon athletic-clubs and other unclassified teams.

Before discussing the particular replies to the letters, I wish to say that I recognize fully that in appealing for information to football men I am going to interested witnesses for testimony. If these men had not been partizans of football they would not have played the game and consequently would not have been injured. Yet the questions are largely those of fact and not of mere opinion, and I doubt if we should in any important way impeach their testimony. I recognize, too, a possible basis for criticism in my making the loss of time from class work the criterion for judging the seriousness of the injury suffered. It is probably true that one might meet with serious or even ultimately fatal mishap on the football field without immediate incapacitation for classroom work. Yet such cases would be in all probability exceedingly rare, and the question of class-absence taken in connection with the next two questions would seem to be sufficiently conclusive. If one had lost no time from an injury which at the time of answering the query—some weeks later—was entirely recovered, it would seem as if the injury was of no great consequence. Certain it is that no interference with the main aim of college life, i. e. study, had been suffered. The only other sufficiently definite criterion for the measure of the injury would be that of enforced absence from football practise. This does not seem to me to be as fair a basis of judgment as the other, since it means to measure the perfection of physical condition not by an ordinary, but by an extraordinary, physical stress. It would also involve the problem of saving a man for a particular game rather than keeping him out purely and simply because of the injury, and would thus tend to introduce error.

Up to the time of writing this paper (January 20), 84 replies have been received, 60 of which are from college men, 22 from high-school players and 2 from others. Twenty-four letters, have been returned marked by the postmaster 'no such person in the directory.' An analysis of the 60 replies from college men shows the following somewhat interesting facts:

First, that 14 of the number assert the entire falsity of the report; in one or two instances the man had not even played the game in question; in the rest, any injury whatsoever is denied.

Second, the 46 other college men acknowledge the report as true in a general way. Of this number, however, 24 say that the injury was the merest trifle and that no time whatsoever was lost from classes.

Third, the time lost from college work on the part of the 22 college players who specify some loss as follows: