games which may be won by disabling your adversary, or wearing
out his strength, or killing him, ought to be prohibited, at all
events among its youth. Swiftness of foot, skill and agility,
quickness of sight, and cunning of hands, are things to be
encouraged in education. The use of brute force against an
unequally matched antagonist, on the other hand, is one of the
most debauching influences to which a young man can be exposed.
The hurling of masses of highly trained athletes against one
another with intent to overcome by mere weight or kicking or
cuffing, without the possibility of the rigid superintendence
which the referee exercises in the prize ring, cannot fail to
blunt the sensibilities of young men, stimulate their bad
passions, and drown their sense of fairness. When this is done in
the sight of thousands, under the stimulation of their frantic
cheers and encouragement, and in full view of the stretchers
which carry their fellows from the field, for aught they know
disabled for life, how, in the name of common sense, does it
differ in moral influence from the Roman arena?

Now, the point in the above notice is that it is written of
"gentlemen"--of university men. It is to be feared that very similar
charges might be brought against some of the professionals of our
association teams: but our amateurs are practically exempt from any
such accusation. The climax of the whole thing is the statement by a
professor of a well-known university, that a captain of one of the
great football teams declared in a class prayer-meeting "that the
great success of the team the previous season was in his opinion due
to the fact that among the team and substitutes there were so many
praying men." The true friends of sport in the United States must wish
that the football mania may soon disappear in its present form; and