A SLOW DEVELOPMENT.

The traditional height of shamelessness in athletics is the existence of a probation team stronger than the regulars. There have been times, especially in class sports, when such conditions held. Slowly the rise of undergraduate opinion against neglect of studies, and the feeling that a man may break mental training as well as physical, have improved the scholarship standard of athletes.

Undergraduate opinion, however, still has far to go. Too few men realize that they come to college primarily to study, or if they realize it themselves, are too weak in their condemnation of the men who fail to observe it. If a man on probation were shunned as the devil, we could feel pretty sure that only those--and they are few--who were mentally incapable of earning two C's and a D would be there. As it is even the athlete, immensely more in the college eye than any other man, deprives a team of his services and is excused. Change is not coming like a miracle; the attitude of the undergraduates cannot be metamorphosed in a night; but every move toward the enforcement of probation is a move in the right direction. Enough of them, and perhaps we may come somewhat nearer the Utopia in which college work is awarded its proper place in the scale of importance.