eat 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
or Annapolis, there to engage in a gridiron contest, has had an
experience that he will always cherish. Every team, as a rule, looks
forward to out of town trips, but when an eleven is to play the Army or
the Navy, not a little of the pleasure lies in anticipation.

Mayhap the visitor even now is recalling the officer who met him at the
station, and his hospitable welcome; the thrill that resulted from a
tour, under such pleasant auspices, of the buildings and the natural
surroundings of the two great academies. There was the historic campus,
where so many great Army and Navy men spent their preparatory days. An
inspiration unique in the experience of the visitor was to be found in
the drill of the battalion as they marched past, led by the famous
academy bands.

There arose in the heart of the stranger perhaps, the thought that he
was not giving to his country as much as these young men. Such is the
contagion of the spirit of the two institutions. There is always the
thrill of the military whether the cadets and midshipmen pass to the
urge of martial music in their purely mili