The rules adopted by the Milwaukee schools to govern interscholastic sport are in some respects severe, but it is very probable that the condition of affairs necessitated this stringency. Many of the students are complaining that the 70-per-cent. standard in scholarship required of all those who wish to take part in athletics is too high, and it is very probable that next year this figure will be somewhat reduced. It will not do any harm, however, for a short time, to bring things around with a sharp turn, and to make high scholarship a condition of participation in sport.
In looking over these new rules there are some which strike one as somewhat peculiar. For instance, it is specified that nobody shall play under an assumed name. That it has been necessary to insert such a regulation proves conclusively that amateur sport must have fallen to a pretty low ebb if boys would enter contests under names not their own. But we know that this is done, and that it was shamefully done, by a number of football-players in Chicago this last fall.
One of the new Milwaukee rules provides that "the principal of the school, or persons authorized by him, shall be the manager or managers of the teams representing the school." This is not a desirable change. It is always best for schoolboys to manage their own sports, and if it is found that they cannot or will not manage them properly and honestly and in a sportsmanlike manner, then it is time for older heads to take a hand in the proceedings. But even then it is not advisable to have head masters as managers.
It is far better to let graduates of the school act as an advisory board, and to empower graduates with sufficient power to control the actions of the undergraduate managers. It is hardly possible to find any school principal who can understand and be in thorough sympathy with the boys in their athletics. A schoolmaster is bound to look at things from a different point of view from his pupils, and he would naturally try to reach an end, doubtless for good, in an entirely different way from that which will appeal to the students.
On the other hand, graduates of the school, who are no longer affected by the influences of active personal competition in sport, can better understand the methods and feelings of the students and the requirements of school athletics. They are closer to the boys than the professor can possibly be, and they naturally inspire more confidence in the younger men, because the latter feel that these graduates have a livelier personal interest in sport itself than an older man can have, who has probably never participated in any of these games. Furthermore, a number of these graduates, who might be called upon as advisers, are probably in college or have been through college, and have there acquired much valuable experience in the conduct and management of athletics of all kinds.
