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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1897)
YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY SUBSCRIPTION, - $2.50 PER YEAR. Foreign Postage, 40 cents per year. PAYABLE IN ADVANCE, Checks, drafts and orders should be made payable to the Yale Alumni Weekly. All correspondence should be addressed,— Vale Alumni Weekly, New Haven, Conn. The office is at Room 6, White Hall. ADVISORY BOARD. H. C, Roprnson, 538. J. R. SHEFFIELD, ’87. W. W. Skippy, ’658. J. A. HARTWELL, ’89 5. C. P, LrinpsLey,’75S. L.S. WELCH, ’89. W. Camp, ’80. E. VAN INGEN, ’91 58. W. G. DaaGetTtT, ’80. P. Jay, ’92. EDITOR. Lewis 8. WELOoH, ’89. ASSOCIATE EDITOR. WALTER Camp, ’80, ASSISTANT EDITOR. E. J. THOMPSON, Sp. NEWS EDITOR. FRED. M. DAVIES, ’99. PRESTON KuMLER, 1900, Athletic Department. Entered as sccond class matter at New Haven P. O. NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct. 28, 1897. As to Tickets. Readers of the Weekly are once more asked to remember what has been said about the tickets, If instructions are followed liter- ally, the subscribers can be fairly sure of excellent accommodations, If instructions are not followed literally, applicants can be sure of nothing. The Weekly can do nothing whatever with late or irregular requests. Full direc- tions have already been given in a most explicit manner. i YALE’S 2.25 RULE. At sundry times a zealous attack is made on Yale’s 2.25 Faculty require- ment and certain things are said about it which, if taken as perfectly fair com- mentaries on the statute, would seem to indicate a distorted ethical vision on the part of the governors of Yale, anda hopeless lack of common sense. The WEEKLY has at times briefly indicated one or two highly justifying considera- tions. But much talk is still made and some strange things are said, and, as most exciting athletic times are now upon us, it may not be out of place to go just now somewhat extensively into the history and purpose of the regula- tion. For many years it was a frequently re- curring experience that some man who had been prominent in athletics or the Glee Club or some other special stu- dent activity, was dropved at the end of the season. That in itself was disquiet- ing. Not only did it cause justifiable criticism from outside, but it was often very painful to both Faculty and stu- dents to see a good man, justly liked by both Faculty and students, end up the season with a failure in the main busi- ness of his course, and at best lose a whole year of time. Moreover in many cases it was quite clear that the failure was directly due to the outside activity, rowing, football, or whatever it might be. The reason for that is plain enough. Ifa man gets On a crew or a team, or has the man- agement or any important part of the responsibility for an organization on his hands, he naturally feels bound to do his best for that organization. All his loyalty to class or college is aroused. The sense of duty to those who placed him there urges him, and rightly so, to put forth his best efforts to merit the trust. There arise occasions when he is forced to choose, or feels forced to YALE ALUMNI choose, between a college exercise and an hour’s practice or some other phase of his duty to the organization. Any generous and high-souled young man in such a case chooses unselfishly, even if he knows he is risking his standing or his place in the class. If a man has not a wide margin of safety, it re- quires a higher degree of forethought and care in planning hours of work than most young men possess, to ar- range matters so that college work shall not suffer. These facts are patent to anyone who knows student life and character. In view of these facts and experi- ences the Faculty began to look about for a remedy. Their duty to students and parents required them to prevent men from getting dropped for ath- letics. That was plain. Of course they could not make it the principle that a man prominent in athletics should never be dropped, whatever he did. They tried first the plan of keeping close watch of men who were in dan- ger, and giving them frequent personal warning, urging them to be careful. But that proved insufficient, because it didn’t reach the root of the difficulty. As was said before, any generous and high-souled young man will choose a risk to himself rather than a risk to the interest that his fellows have intrusted to him, as he ought to. Now many years of experience have shown that 2.25 may be regarded as a sort of danger line. In the college, if a man falls below 2.25 he is warned, and his parents are informed that he is in danger of coming out below 2.00 at the end of the term. That is a long- standing practice. Clearly if a man is in some danger of failing when he has no extra responsibilities on him, to take such extra responsibilities will in- crease his danger. A man who is in such danger may properly be saved from his own indiscretion by being pre- vented from taking such extra responsi- bilities. As the Freshmen were most exposed to this risk, from their com- parative youth and inexperience, it was the Freshman Faculty who first adopted the plan of taking off from athletic teams or the Glee Club men who were under warning for low scholarship. One incident at this stage in the evolution of the rule is instruc- tive. A certain Freshman who was under warning that he was in danger of falling below 2.00 was taken off the Freshman crew. Thereupon his father requested in writing that his son be permitted to go on with the crew, say- ing that he, the father, would take all responsibility for the risk incurred. The man was thereupon allowed to go on. At the end of the term he came out below 2.00 and had to take the year over again. After two years of such experiment- ing the rule in substantially its present form was adopted by the Academical Faculty by a unanimous vote. Since then, in that Department at least, no athlete or Glee Club member has been dropped for low standing. The end seems to have been attained. The rule now reads as follows: “No student is allowed to represent his class or the College in any athletic or musical organization, as member, substitute, or officer, if he is under dis- cipline for irregularity of attendance or conduct, or under warning for low standing, or if his average mark for the previous term (or half-term, if that be the first half of the second term) was below 2.25. The same restriction ap- plies in the Fall term to Freshmen hav- ing five entrance conditions.” The primary object of the rule, then, is to prevent men from falling out of their classes. To say, as is often WHE KLY thoughtlessly said, that it requires a higher standard of athletes than of others, while it sounds true, is in fact so partial a statement as to be really a distortion and a misstatement. The rule does not require an athlete to come out at the end of the term with a higher mark than his fellows in order to pass. He passes at 2.00 as every one else does. The rule merely requires that before a man goes into athletics in a responsible position ‘he shall have such a margin as to make it safe for him to do so, that is, such a margin as to make it probable that at the end of the season he will come out with 2.00 instead of less. That is all the higher standard for him amounts to. It may not unfairly be compared to the physical examination which a rule of the Corporation requires of every stu- dent who proposes to use the apparatus of the gymnasium. The object is to make sure that no man shall run spe- . cial risk of injury, by taking forms of _ exercise that are specially dangerous to him because of physical defects that might exist undiscovered but for the physician’s examination. If the exami- nation reveals an organic disease that makes an exercise dangerous, the man is not allowed to take that exercise in the gymnasium. One might say, in a sense, that students using the gymna- sium are required to reach a higher physical standard than others; but ob- viously that simple statement would be quite misleading. The rule of the Cor- poration is purely a protection to the student and to his parents. So of the 2.25 rule; it is primarily a protection both to the student and to his par- ents, But besides, the most devoted lovers of athletics and music agree that after all, the prime business of an insti- tution of learning is learning. The members of a team in a peculiar degree represent the institution in the eyes of a large public. Students and Faculty alike have a right to be represented be- fore that public—and Yale usually has been and means always to be so repre- sented—by men of character, and by — men who are not on the, point of drop- ping out of the institution for lack of learning. While therefore, as was said, the prime object of this rule is to present men from dropping, the repre- sentative aspect of these different or- ganizations is not to be overlooked, nor the right of the entire University to be represented worthily. So much has been said about the so- called 2.25 rule, that the following ac- count of its origin and scope, from a member of the Academic Faculty who is familiar with its. history, will be of interest to the alumni as well as to the undergraduates. A BEGINNING MADE. The football coaches have come. They have helped out Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Hinkey and Captain Rodgers wonderfully. They have put on their clothes and given practical illustrations of football as it ought to be played. A good beginning has been made. For what has been done the Yale heart is grateful. But Yale demands that in- finitely more shall be done than has yet been done. Yale standard football has yet to be played. REPORTING FOOTBALL. The animus against Yale had a fine opportunity to show itself in the ac- counts of the Carlisle Indian game, and the opportunity was not lost. There were exceptions and perhaps people know more what to believe and what not to believe than is sometimes supposed. There is also some quiet pleasure in contemplating the feelings of intelligent men who really see what ‘feports A HAT EXPRESSLY DESIGNED FOR A GENTLEMAN’S HEAD: THE ENGLISH PoriRkio. LY Five Dollars, by express, prepaid, to 2ny address in the United States. BROOKS & COMPANY, IMPORTERS OF Silk, Felt and Straw Hats, Chapel, cor State St. goes on at such a game as that of last Saturday and then are asked to be- lieve by their paper a lot of things that were quite foolishly impossible. And perhaps the time will come when men who are sent to write what happens at a football game will know what goes on and be willing to record it. Yale men who are in a position to do so might, if they think it worth while, be instituting some experiments in this line. There are really some accurate written of every important game, and if people are anxious to get the facts they may find them. > —__—_———— Plainfield Yale Club. At the annual meeting of the Plain- field Yale Club, held on the evening of Oct. 12, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Albert H. Atterbury, 782; Vice-Presi- dent, Herbert L. Moodey, 82; Secre- tary and Treasurer, Arthur Lovell, ’92; Executive Committee, Dr. William R. Richards, ’75, John Leal, “74, and S. S. McCutchen, ’7o. Two new men were admitted to the club membership, making the total en- rollment forty-four. at ee Sophomore Deacons Elected. The Sophomore Class held a meeting for the election of deacons in Dwight Hall, Monday evening. | The following men were chosen: Matthew Mills of Chicago, IIl1.; Howard Corode Heinz of Pittsburg, Pa.; Frederick Baldwin Adams _ of Toledo, O.; Charles Lewis Tiffany, 2d, of New York City. Yale Law School. For circulars and other information apply to Prof. FRANCIS WAYLAND, ‘Dean. NEW-YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. JANUARY 1, 1897. ASSETS: 2, $187 176,406 LIABILITIES . . 160,494,410 SURPLUS . . $26,681,996 INCOME sian = .-$39:139,558 *New Business < paid for in 1896 ' 121,564,987 *Insurance in force . 826,816,648 * No policy or sum of insurance is included in this statement of new business or insurance in force, except where the first premium therefor, as provided in the contract, has been paid to the Com- pany in cash. JOHN A. MCCALL, President. HENRY TUCK, Vice-Pres.
