Letters to the Editor

MORE ABOUT PROFESSOR HARDY

Editors of the Alumni Magazine: My December number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE just reached me today. I do not recall any number of that periodical which gave me as much pleasure in the reading. What I wish, however, to write you of is your very excellent article on Professor Hardy. It is wonderfully well done and, as an old-time admirer of his, I wish to thank you for so vividly reproducing for us his wonderful personality.

It was my privilege to come into closer contact with Professor Hardy than most students of that time. Fifty years ago next month, as a sophomore, I began a course in analytical geometry under him. He was then writing his treatise on that subject and I made for him hectograph copies for each of the sixteen students in First Division Mathematics. We then had first and second division mathematics, the classification being made on basis of the students' ability. He gave me copy sometimes after class; at others I went to his house for it. In this way I had opportunity to know him far better than the ordinary student. Inherently an aristocrat in the best sense, he had none of the petty qualities that crop out in a lesser mind. As a teacher I do not believe he ever had a superior and I know he has had few equals. It was a pleasure to see him, by a single stroke, as by drawing a line in the figure or by a question merely, set a fellow who was wallowing beyond his depth on solid ground.

I have always remembered with the utmost pleasure my winter term of senior year when I had quaternions with him. The elective system was begun during my last two years in College. Four of us had signified the wish to take the subject but on the first day at the designated hour when he was to meet the class, I was the only student present. It was the privilege of the professor to drop any class of less than four. To my surpirse, after waiting a few minutes, Professor Hardy asked if I knew about the others who had elected quaternions. On being told that they had decided to take another subject, he smiled in that quiet way he had and said "Then we shall have the whole hour to ourselves," and proceeded to open up the subject to me in a short talk. Then followed eleven weeks, an hour a day four days a week, with us two doing quaternions. It was the best course I ever had at Dartmouth or elsewhere; more than forty hours spent with him in the work on that abstruse subject. Never was he late or absent, and with the lesson all that I could prepare, we filled the time. Sometimes after we had exhausted what I could prepare, he would show me the bearing of what we had gone over on other mathematical subjects. In greater degree by far than any man I ever knew, he had the ability to make things clear to the student mind. We exhausted his book before the end of the term, but he took me further into the subject and our hours were for the most part spent in this way. Occasionally he would "yarn" about his course at West Point, and the problems he met during his Army days. Throughout the whole term all our contacts were made with the utmost simplicity and genuine good fellowship. Those were halcyon days for me, and the memory of them is still as fresh as yesterday's events though I've long since left behind all knowledge of quaternions. But never shall I forget the man, his marvelous mind, and the way he tried to give me all I could absorb.

He had published "But Yet a Woman" just prior to this course and this, his first book, had brought him into favorable notice as an author. His course of lectures on art had shown his ability in this line. He was an accomplished musician. He rode his wonderful gray horse about Hanover as only the perfect horseman could—an earnest of his military accomplishments. I've never seen a man who did so many things so well. All in all he was the most versatile man I have ever known and that includes a goodly number of the men called great. An aristocrat in bearing, and apparently through every fiber of his being, yet he was most easily approached and in reality most truly democratic. With Milton we may truly say "Lycidas is dead—we shall not see his like again."

As I recall all my teachers, not only those at Dartmouth, but in the professional school as well, Professor Hardy stands out preeminent, greatest by far of them all, a master mind, yet withal a most companionable and lovable man. He wielded the greatest influence over the student body during my day. He was of the elect. Would that the old Mater might always have an Arthur Hardy on the faculty.

Secretary, Class of '84

IMPROVING FOOTBALL

By a Princeton Man

The game itself attracts largely because of tradition and color as well as the primitive love we all have for a fight. In itself it is a somewhat stupid game, because so much has been done to hinder the vital principle of any swift, virile game, that is, continuity of play. Would not these changes in the rules tend to make play more continuous and interesting? A. A grounded forward pass may be advanced by the defending team but not by the passing team.

B. A grounded punt untouched by the receiving side may be advanced by the kicking side as well as by the receiving side.

C. All players on the passing side eligible to receive a forward pass. No restriction as to point from where pass must be made.

D. Goal posts restored to goal lines. E. End zone abolished and, of course, then no touchdown allowed for pass comp leted over the goal line.

F. No substitutions permitted except in the periods between quarters and the halves. Except that a competent, neutral physician shall be added to the number of officials. Upon his own initiative or on appeal from other officials, team captains or college authorities, the physician may order a physically unfit player out of the game and permit a substitute, the unfit player not to return to the game.

G. Allow no person on the playing field, including side lines, except the teams and the officials. Lengthen time between quarters to as much as five minutes if need be and also period for time out when asked by captains to twice present time. Then all water swigging, care of injured, etc., to take place off the playing field. Shorten quarters in heat of early season to ten minutes, or no games before October 10.

H. Allow advancing of fumbled ball by both sides.

The rules suggested strike directly at the evils of the game as a game, which are, chiefly, (1) Control of game by coaches through use of substitutes carrying instructions; (2) Irritating interference of officials largely due to enforcing technicalities of the forward pass; (3) Inadequate penalties for resorting to wild, indiscriminate forward passes; (4) Annoying interference of trainers, substitutes and others rushing on the playing field; (5) Decline of attempts at scoring by field goals.

The management of the game might well be improved by going back to first principles. If it is primarily an undergraduate game let it be returned to the students. Let the captain rule the coach both in practice and in games. Let the student managers actually make schedules and handle the business affairs. Let the interference of trustees and faculty be limited only to such necessary disciplinary regulation as will insure physical safety and proper conduct of the students in their charge.

The other alternative is that if football is too complex a game and too big a business to be trusted to immature undergraduates, the trustees direct the faculties to take full control and responsibility of training, playing, schedules, finance, etc., recognizing that intercollegiate football as a means of teaching and character forming is on a par with mathematics or chemistry and deserves to be taught and controlled by men with the full professional standing and ideals of faculty members. By all means let us abolish the professional coach and the graduate managers of all kinds. The saner ones among the alumni will be ready to confine the activity of graduates to attendance at games.

It might be worthy of note that from all we can learn this problem has been solved at the University of Chicago. I know Mr. Alonzo Stagg has been a regular member of the faculty since he first went there in the early Nineties. Without making insidious comparisons it may be said no coach in football history has been reputed to be a better influence on the boys than he has been these forty years. He devotes his full time and makes a life career of training youth through athletics. Despite scholastic standards of the strictest kind he has turned out his share of victorious teams as we of Princeton know well.

By comparison, for years the coaches of Harvard, Yale and Princeton have received relatively princely salaries for part time, side-line service. By that I mean not one of them has given as much as four full months of undivided service to the job. Not one has expected to make a life work of the profession of coaching, but each has planned to make his career in his business or profession, whether law, medicine or the leather trade. It is bad enough that these educational institutions pay coaches more than they do any of their world-famed scholars, but it is worse when they do not even get full-time service for the high pay. Perhaps not the least of Mr. Rockne's reasons for his success has been that he is primarily a coach, not a professional man coaching in his spare time.

Any university that desires to purify the game may do so by first cleaning house and then scheduling only opponents of like ideas: for example, the rules adopted by Harvard, Yale and Princeton confining participation to three years of undergraduate life and barring all transfer athletes.

Princeton 'IS.

Bordentown, N. J.From N. Y. Herald Tribune

Dear Mr. Frey: I write you because I am not personally acquainted with the editorial staff of the MAGAZINE. Ever since its renaissance and its publication in the new format, I have been so pleased with the ALUMNI MAGAZINE that I could scarcely wait for each succeeding issue to arrive, and now arrives the January number with certain proof that my idol has feet of clay. In the words of Andrew Brown "Oh! Oh!"

On page 200 you show an excellent picture of Nashua's stalwart son, the captain-elect of next year's football team, Stan Yudicky, with the explanatory caption which seems to indicate that he is a native of that northern suburb of Nashua, the Amoskeag dominated village of Manchester.

I know that Stan is too modest to indicate his natural annoyance at such an error, but it seems as if there should be accorded to the Editorial Department that form of punishment which "Time" uses in similar situations —"to the careless editors a thorough going reprimand."

GEORGE F. THURBER

Nashua, N. H.

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