Profound Problems

Profound Problem

Quite unexpectedly, President Ernest Martin Hopkins of Dartmouth College offered a solution of the intercollegiate football "problem." Let only sophomores and juniors play on the varsity teams, he said; let each college have two varsity teams, so that each college could have "the big game" at home every year (idea first advanced by President Clarence Cook Little of the University of Michigan); let the coaches be undergraduates, presumably seniors. President Hopkins did not believe that Dartmouth was in a position to bring about these extensive reforms singlehanded. He begged the Dartmouth Athletic Council, through which he addressed himself to the college world at large, to cooperate with other colleges at a conference. Himself, he was fond of football, thought it preserved the masculinity of college men. But, "I do not believe that the problem can be too greatly simplified."

Other colleges--Harvard, Williams, Princeton, Rutgers, Yale, Notre Dame--were chary of comment, wanted to think it over.