RECLAIMING SOLDIERS FIELD

Again this year the cricket team has been obliged to abandon its season because no suitable ground on soldiers Field is available for play. The Leiter Cup baseball series has also been given up for the same reason. Unfortunate and irritating as these necessities have been they would be more bearable if there was some prospect of more room on soldiers Field next year. But such is not the case. By the recommendations of the investigating Committee, which were recently adopted by the Governing Boards, the Athletic Committee is instructed to apply the "entire surplus of athletic receipts beyond the sums needed for current athletic expenses to the extinguishment of the debt on the Stadium until that is paid;" and after that is accomplished--a task which in all probability will require two and probably three years--"to reduce gate receipts in such manner as it shall decide, so that there shall only be sufficient surplus each year for the gradual development of the athletic grounds and buildings of the University."

If the new Athletic Committee at present a provokingly indeterminate body, feels bound to carry out this recommendation--and we can get no assurance to the contrary--cricket and the Leiter cup series in baseball and football must be abandoned for several years at least. The cry against college athletics is that they afford only a comparatively few men helpful exercise, and yet by this single, narrow recommendation, more Harvard men than participate in training for any two of the major teams are deprived of their opportunity to enter sport. It is indeed a near-sighted policy, to blindly insist upon the payment of the Stadium debt to the exclusion of improvements and extensions so obviously necessary. We realize that the hands of the present Athletic Committee are tied, but we hope when the new Committee assumes control, it will assert its better judgment, and ask the Governing Board to reconsider their recommendation.