No Headline

We understand that the Committee on Physical Training has submitted a report to the Faculty, and that the question of the advisability of instituting some course at Harvard, is soon to be decided.

As we said some weeks ago, there are three alternatives which present fair possibilities of success: compulsory training with credit given, compulsory without, or an elective course with, credit. Much would naturally depend on their administration, but we believe that any one of these systems could be carried on her with good results. Between a compulsory and an elective system, we should favor the compulsory; since, as the aim is not to bind everybody down to a single form of physical culture but to give credit for healthful exercise in a variety of forms and merely make sure that a man gets such exercise, a compulsory course would prove as truly elective as an optional, and more generally beneficial.

In regard to the manner in which undergraduates would receive a compulsory course, the opinion of those who have written on the subject in English course, has been almost unanimous in approval, and this we believe is general. It would certainly seem that there could be no danger of the opposition of future undergraduates. Those who come here take things as they find them. If applied only to Freshmen as has been suggested, there could thus be little fear of its meeting with opposition. The idea of a Freshman attempting to clog the administrative wheels of an established course, is rather chimerical.

Thus if the Faculty should consider a compulsory course, these facts are to be remembered. First that the word compulsion includes the mere fact not the form of exercise, and second that the plan is not only now favored among the undergraduates, but promises to be in the future.