Communication

(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

A recent article in the Advocate entitled. "Low Gear" and an unfavorable criticism of Freshman Physical Training seems to us to be rather well written and at times even witty, but, we think, because it possesses a surface brilliance does not mean that the opinions are therefore sound. The article is written by a member of the class which is having the training, and therefore ought to be worth something.

From the point of view of the upper classman any thing that restricts the "laissez faire" principle that pervades Cambridge is regarded as undesirable, and therefore there was at the beginning of the year a genuine feeling of disapproval of compulsory athletics. That feeling, we think, has passed away, as time has shown what the system has done.

The Physical Training Department has not only helped the Freshmen, but also the un-athletic upperclassmen. Squash and Squash-Racquets have been played this year a great deal more than heretofore, and the installation of the new squash courts in the Randolph Gym is to be directly credited to the Physical Training Department, Basketball has been revived, and a promising Freshman team is the result. Also an inter-class series has been arranged. The Hemen-Gym., which has been a desert for some years, is once more a used building. Besides this, expert boxing instruction is available gratis, not only to Freshmen, but to upperclassmen. We call this instruction. So much has the Physical Training Department accomplished.

And yet, Mr. Williams says the Department is inefficient, because he is able to call to mind a case where some classmate did not change his clothes before exercising, or another where the Freshmen matched pennies instead of taking the exercise simply because they were not watched. Such incidents do not make an impartial observer think that the Freshmen are so capable of managing themselves as Mr. Williams thinks. It seems to us that if they were good sports they would have at least made the best of it and not shirked.

The situation may be summed up, perhaps, by the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It appears that some of the upperclassmen are sufficiently "thirsty" to use such facilities as the Physical Training Department offers, so perhaps the system is not all wrong after all.

We write this not because we expect to change anybody's mind, but because there are always two sides to a story, and it is the other side we wish to present.