s want to win _all_ the games
_all_ the time. I would like to ask you young gentlemen if you can take
a beating? If you cannot, I would like to add that you are not yet fitted
to go out into life. A good beating, occasionally, is a wholesome thing.

"Well, to come to the point now: I find, after studying the situation,
that the old varsity players and undergraduates of this university have
been lacking in--let us be generous and say, college spirit. I do not
need to go into detail; suffice it to say that I know. I will admit,
however, that I attended the game between the old varsity and the new
candidates. I sat unobserved in a corner, and a more unhappy time I
never spent in this university. I confess that my sympathies were with
the inexperienced, undeveloped boys who were trying to learn to play
ball. _Put yourselves in their places._ Say you are mostly freshmen,
and you make yourselves candidates for the team because you love the
game, and because you would love to bring honor to your college. You
go out and try. You meet, the first day, an implacable team of skilled
veterans who show their scorn of your poor ability, their hatred of
your opportunity, and ride roughshod--I should say, run with spiked
shoes--over you. You hear the roar of four thousand students applauding
these hero veterans. You hear your classmates, your fellow-students in
Wayne, howl with ridicule at your weak attempts to compete with better,
stronger players.... Gentlemen, how would you feel?

"I said before that college spirit fluctuates. If I did not know students
well I would be deeply grieved at the spirit shown that day. I know that
the tide will turn.... And, gentlemen, would not you and the old varsity
be rather in an embarrassing position if--if these raw recruits should
happen to develop into a team strong enough to cope with Place and Herne?
Stranger things have happened. I am rather strong for the new players,
not because of their playing, which is poor indeed, but for the way they
_tried_ under peculiarly adverse conditions.

"That young fellow Ward--what torture that inning of successive hard
hits to his territory! I was near him in that end of the bleachers,
and I watched him closely. Every attempt he made was a failure--that
is, failure from the point of view of properly fielding the ball. But,
gentlemen, that day was not a failure for young Ward. It was a grand
success. Some one said his playing was the poorest exhibition ever se