Athletics have in the last thirty years come to be a force more or
less dominant. Athletics represent a mighty force for collegiate and
human betterment. Football, which is _par excellence_ the college
game, is an admirable method of training the man physical, the man
intellectual and the man ethical. But football is not a college
purpose; it is a college means. It is a means for the promotion of
scholarship, for the formation of manhood. When football or other
forms of college sport are turned from being a method and a means into
being ends in themselves the misfortune is lamentable.

At a recent Harvard commencement, Professor Shaler, than whom no man
in Harvard was more vitally in touch with all undergraduate interests,
spoke of the harm wrought upon many students through their absorption
in athletics. It cannot be denied for an instant that many men are
hurt by giving undue attention to sports. Of course many men are
benefited, and, are benefited vastly, by athletics, but men who are
harmed should at once be obliged to learn the lesson of learning their
lessons. That is the chief lesson which they ought to learn.

VI

In the appreciation of scholarship is found the strain of intellectual
humility. The scholar is more inclined to inquire than to affirm. He
is more ready to ask "What do you think?" than to say "I know." He is
remote from intellectual arrogance. Humility means greatness.
Cockiness is a token of narrowness. The Socratic spirit of modesty is
as true a manner of wisdom as it is an effective method of increasing
wisdom. The man who has an opinion on all things, has no right to an
opinion on any one.

This intellectual sympathy and appreciation should take on esthetic
relations. You should be a lover of beauty as well as of wisdom. Good
books, good pictures, good music, good architecture, should be among
your avocations. Read a piece of good literature every day. See a good
picture or a good copy of one every day. Hear some good music every
day. The chapel service may give it to you. And see a piece of good
architecture every day. Some of the college buildings can give it.
Alas! many do not. Such visions and hearings will soak into your
manhood.

All this is only saying lead the life intellectual. You should not
only be a thinker, you should be thoughtful. You should be a man of
large thoughtfulness. You should be prepared to interpret life and all
phenomena in terms of the intellect. Many of