YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
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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.
