these contests annually as among the "big games" of the year. Tactically
and strategically football bears a close relation to war. That is a
vital reason why it should be studied and applied in our two government
schools.

On the part of the public there is general appreciation of the spirit
which these two academies have brought into the great autumn sport, a
spirit which combines with football per se the color, the martial pomp,
the _elan_ of the military. The merger is a happy one, because football
in its essence is a stern, grim game, a game that calls for
self-sacrifice, for mental alertness and for endurance; all these are
elements, among others, which we commonly associate with the soldier's
calling.

If West Point and Annapolis players are not young men, who, after
graduation, will go out into the world in various civil professions or
other pursuits relating to commerce and industry, they are men, on the
contrary, who are being trained to uphold the honor of our flag at home
or abroad, as fate may decree--fighting men whose lives are to be
devoted to the National weal. It would be strange, therefore, if games
in which those thus set apart participate, were not marked by a quality
peculiarly their own. To far-flung warships the scores are sent on the
wings of the wireless and there is elation or depression in many a
remote wardroom in accordance with the aspect of the news. In lonely
army posts wherever the flag flies word of the annual struggle is
flashed alike to colonel and the budding second lieutenant still with
down on lip, by them passed to the top sergeant and so on to the bottom
of the line.

Every football player who has had the good fortune to visit West Point