Fencing and the Athletic Policy.

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

With the adoption of the new policy of the Athletic Committee towards the minor sports has come the necessity for prompt and ready University support of the organizations by which these sports are carried on. I am speaking through your columns particularly in the interests of fencing, but what I shall say, can, I think, be applied equally well to hockey, lacrosse, and basketball.

It is only by hearty support of these games that their right to the aid which the Committee is so amply able to give can be vindicated. This aid has now been almost entirely withdrawn, not for the sake of economy, but because the Committee has decided to support only the four "big" sports in the belief that they alone have earned by their popularity the right to receive financial support form the Committee funds. Among these sports, to be sure, rowing is not self-supporting, nor, I believe, is track; yet the Committee has refused to concede the injustice of giving $3,200 worth of instruction to 400 rowing men and at the same time refusing $800 worth of instruction to fencing men. It would doubtless ignore a plea for proportionate expenditures on hockey as compared with track. By this arbitrary choice of sports and unhappy discrimination among the interests which are forced to submit in common to its rulings, the Committee has thrown upon the lovers of the minor sports the duty of attempting to secure unsided those opportunities for instruction and for play which make the minor sports valuable to the health, manliness and good-nature of the undergraduate body.

Condemnation of this short-sighted policy cannot be too severe. It can take no more practical form than spontaneous support of the sports now under the ban of the committee. For fencing this support can best be shown by large atten dance at the Fencing Room in the basement of the Gymnasium this afternoon at 4 o'clock, when the first class will receive instruction from the experienced fencers now in College. By the response at last night's meeting some professional coaching is assured. Every fencer should see that Captain MacLeod has his pledge for further aid.  H . W. HOLMES '03