erate, vicious, wicked, treacherous, and irresponsible.

But "while there is life there is hope," and, to my mind, the present generation of little boys and girls, who, under the ruling of the Military Government, trudge merrily off to learn their A B C's, represent the nearest approach to the hour when the Republic will be sufficiently supplied with educated citizens who have grown to maturity amid peaceful surroundings to carry on the affairs of the Government successfully with level-headed earnestness and ambitious endeavor. Until then there is no alternative but to maintain a state of Military Government.

The majority-the peon class-are a kindly, simple-minded people who, as I have said before, are easily ruled. They live an extremely montonous existence, having absolutely no conception of the value of time or money. I have passed pack-train after pack-train of these country people on their way to market, a trip sometimes taking several days, during which they eat but little and travel the entire distance on foot. snatching a little sleep now and then and traveling most of the time in the cool of the night, eventually arriving at their destination only to compete with hundreds of others in selling their small cargoes of green bananas to an entirely unsympathetic set of bargain hunters for a trivial sum that is absolutely out. of keeping with the amount of labor concerned in the production of the fruit. On the other hand, the article for sale may be tobacco, rope, pottery, basketry, or mahogany chairs, and in each case the price is the same as that established years ago, and is absolutely absurd when one considers the time and labor devoted to the making of these articles. As an example, I shall describe the labor involved in the making of one of the native rope bridles. This is made of hemp, which takes many months of care in growing, after which it is dried, shredded, and selected for quality. It is then, by tedious labor, twisted into rope of various thicknesses and the strands laboriously woven into a bridle. The finished product, which is by no means produced in any quantity, is then carried to market, where, after much bartering and bickering, the maker may call himself very lucky if he sells it for as much as 90 cents (gold). Think of it, 90 cents for a bridle which takes weeks and weeks to make! Do you wonder why Santo Domingo is called the "island where time has stood still"?

And how about the roads? Roads, which are the making of a country; roads, the value of which even the early Romans recognized when they built those magnificent highways which are in use to this day. Again, I must say, the Dominican people had failed to produce anything worth consideration previous to the arrival of the American engineers. For four hundred years the people were content to travel on foot or by burro, horse, or steer over trails that

through constant use and with no care have become impassable, for the mud and mire are often belly deep. Incidentally I recall that, while I was surveying the line for the great highway that when completed will connect the north coast with the south coast of the island, a fellow-engineer quite aptly named a section of the old "Camino Real" (Royal Road), which it was our misfortune to have to use daily to get up to our fly camp, "Corruption Boulevard to Camp Desolation," and he hit it right, for no other title could so adequately describe our camp or its "royal" approach.

But it will be many a day before there are enough good roads to permit successful enterprises in the interior. For there to-day stand millions upon millions of feet of first-quality mahogany, lignum-vitæ, satinwood, and pinevast fortunes in wood that will stay where they are, simply because it costs the value of six logs to get one down to the seaport, and even that must be limited in size, for it can be hauled out only by animal power.

Two great rivers there are, but to what avail when one finds that they penetrate a district three-quarters arid and at the deepest points they are only ten feet or so, while for the most part they flow restlessly for miles over rocky beds at an average depth of a few inches, entirely too shallow to float logs, even if mahogany would float and was within an available distance?

That lawlessness still prevails is clearly proved by statistics showing us that in the northern half of the Republic, comprising the provinces of Samana, La Vega, Pacificador, Espaillat, Santiago, Puerto Plata, and Monte Cristi, with a population of about 450,182, there were 537 fugitives from justice on the official records and an astonishing number in the civil and military prisons during the year 1921.

Voodooism does not exist as a religion among the Dominicans, as it does across the border in Haiti, neither is cannibalism practiced, though in Haiti it still prevails in the remote regions. Not a year ago at this writing a native sergeant of my company captured two Haitians just after they had finished eating a little Dominican girl. His report of the arrest stated that he had found these two Haitianos eating meat off the thigh bones of a little girl whose body was found near by, and who, as investigation proved, was on her way to get water when they had attacked and killed her. The strange part of this event was that they had with them a little Haitian girl of about ten years, who, upon kindly questioning, informed us that she had often seen "the men eat meat" and complained that they had never given her anything more "substantial" to eat than fruits and vegetables. She could not explain why she traveled with them, where she had come from or where she was going, which left us to suppose that she was merely being

tolerated as a reserve in case other food was not available. Another interesting feature of their capture was the fact that one of the cannibals wore the torn remnants of a pair of officer's breeches of the kind worn by the Gendarmerie d'Haiti, and their apparent age very closely corresponded with the amount of time that had passed since an American officer in Haiti had mysteriously disappeared, presumably at the hands of the "Cacos" (bandit tribes). Who knows?

The soldiers of the Dominican National Constabulary are by all means to be commended. They are men whose characters have been well investigated, whose ambition is the upbuilding of a substantial self-governing nation through the actual demonstration of the better mode of living, and they are at the same time loyal to their country and to the American officers through whose untiring labors they have been drilled and made soldiers.

During the latter part of the past year I was ordered to duty as second in command of a newly established training center for native troops. There we were in charge of the training of one hundred raw recruits-and they were raw, as we soon discovered. To each man a complete uniform, bedding, and an excellent hospital cot were issued. The men were then quartered in brand-new concrete buildings that had been built by the Department of Health for use as a leper colony. Imagine, if you can, my surprise and consternation when during my tour of inspection that first night I found half of the company sleeping upon the hard concrete floors or sprawled out on the beds with all their clothes on and their newly acquired paraphernalia spread about in a chaotic manner. That started an investigation on the part of the captain and myself, and we then discovered that the majority of the recruits had never slept in a bed before; so the company was lined up and shown how to make up a bunk, how to go to bed. how to arrange clothing and equipment according to the Manual of the Soldier, etc., and all that led to the necessity of establishing a canteen. Then came the fun. Men who had never shaved before could purchase a safety razor at cost price, and mirrors, soap, towels, tooth-paste, and other sundries, including face powder (though we had to put a ban on the sale of that article when the entire company turned out one bright morning with peculiar blue-white complexions); and then after a month's time the progress became noticeable. and we breathed a sigh of relief. Such a contrast! The barefoot peon of a month before parading around as slick as a weasel, with a polish on his shoes that one could use for a mirror, with a uniform that was clean and snappy, and a smile of accomplishment on his face and already a desire sneaking into his soul to become a great general some day.

Those men went out to their desig nated outposts a little later, confirmed

advocates of the civilized mode of life. But it won't stop there; for, no matter where they go, they'll instill in the minds of their fellow-countrymen a desire to dress well, behave well, and work hard, with the corresponding reward of good living.

So, to get back to the theme of this article, I wish to state, finally, that it is

ridiculous to consider the possibility of the Dominican of to-day in the rôle of a peaceful citizen unless each and every one of them is put through the same "course of sprouts" that is given the recruits in the process of soldier making; and, as that is an utter impossibility, it only remains for us to await the time, which will come soon, when the present

generation of schoolboys and schoolgirls are graduated from their new high schools, thoroughly equipped with a substantial education that will aid them in taking over the Government their ancestors made such a muddle of and in maintaining a self-respecting Republic to the glorification of their national emblem"Dios, Patria y Libertad."

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BY T. W. BURCKHALTER

AVING followed the profession of physical education for over fifteen years, ten years of which have been in the university field, where I have had the opportunity to observe athletic practice and management, I am therefore interested professionally in discussions of athletic problems. I was very much interested in the address of President Alexander Meiklejohn, of Amherst College, published in The Outlook of March 8, 1922. I would like to offer a few remarks and suggestions, partly in reply to certain statements which President Meiklejohn made and partly to point out causes of many of our athletic problems and a possible solution of them.

His statement, "It [the intercollegiate game] should be managed by undergraduates, coached by undergraduates, and played by undergraduates," is good policy only in part. It is conceded by every one that the games should be played by undergraduates only. But upon the other points of the statement there is difference of opinion.

To turn the coaching and management of athletics back into the hands of the undergraduates would be to ignore the expensive lessons of the past-expensive in student morality and college honor; to ignore the opportunity which athletics offer the college to mold the character, to guide the judgment, to steady the impulses of youth, to substitute high motives and ideals for the determination to win at any cost and the tendency to employ questionable measures to match the real or hearsay bad practices of an athletic rival.

Two or three decades ago, when the evils of undergraduate management forced the college authorities reluctantly to exercise some control over athletics, only half-way measures were employed. Partial responsibility was assumed, but the real burden was shifted by the appointment of joint committees or boards known as the Athletic Council or Athletic Board. The council is usually composed of faculty, student, and alumni representatives, who are guided in their deliberations by the graduate manager of athletics. Faculty representation is invariably in the minority, and may be further weakened by poor selection and lack of personal interest

and responsibility. The result is in effectiveness on the part of the college in the shaping of athletic policy. The student members of the council are followers of the group which offers the greatest freedom for the realization of their athletic ambitions. This group is the alumni representation, which is interested in athletic competition as a spectacle and an opportunity to humble an ancient rival. The idea of the games as a builder of character first and a spectacle second is far out of mind.

The introduction of the graduate manager and the alumni representation into college athletic affairs-purely college affairs-was a substitution of the alumni evil for the undergraduate evil. An influence was introduced which is far more subtle and unmanageable. With alumni participation in athletic promotion and management came alumni corrupt practices, such as recruiting, illegitimate inducements, the migratory athlete, the unscrupulous but efficient coach, etc. These are practices which the college cannot control, in many instances, because they are secret, outside, independent, detached transactions against which it is difficult or impossible to secure evidence. However, there would be fewer of such instances if the college faculty and the student body alone managed their own affairs.

The statement was made that athletics are "over-managed." It seems to me that it is at present a question of wrong policy in management rather than one of over-management. The managing is not too well done, but the wrong persons are doing it. The undergraduate assistant managers are understudies of the wrong group. A faculty manager who is responsible to the fac ulty can be as efficient as a graduate manager who is chiefly responsible to the alumni body. Furthermore, he could perform his work under less pressure from the wrong sources than the graduate manager of the finest and highest ideals. I see no objection to a faculty manager who is an alumnus, providing he has the welfare of the student at heart rather than the pleasure of the mob.

Undergraduate coaching is essentially wrong except as it is used as an assistive measure under the guidance of an

expert. The blind cannot well lead the blind and accomplish commendable results. We must keep in mind that athletic practice and competition are means to a great end, and are not themselves the goal. We do not require students to teach one another mathematics or any other academic subject. An expert is provided for that purpose. It would be better to make such a requirement than to require the undergraduates to coach athletics. Less progress would be made and smaller damage would result to the individual and to society than would occur in undergraduate coaching.

We are now, in most cases, at the opposite extreme. There are too many coaches of the outside variety of specialist. These men are interested chiefly in producing champion teams in one sport. They disappear when the season is over and reappear when the season returns. Such coaches cannot have the proper view-point. They are one of the accompaniments of alumni influence and alumni managerial participation.

The coaching, which is the athletic term for instruction, should be done by an expert, a man trained for the purpose, as the professor of mathematics or philosophy is trained for his kind of instruction. The athletic coach should be a man who is trained thoroughly in the humanics as well as in athletics, in order that he may have the view-point of developing men instead of merely training athletes. He should have a year-round position and faculty ranking on an equality with other members of the college faculty. Only that type of coach should be employed. He should be responsible to the college administration instead of to a group outside the college circle. This would remove the necessity of his producing champion teams at the cost of manhood in order to make a reputation for himself and retain his position. Reasonable success is desirable and is not incompatible with the realization of the highest ideals in the student athletes. Coaches and managers must have the vision of developing character, and hold the game a very potent means to that end.

Now, what is the matter with college athletics? There is really nothing wrong with athletics as such. They are the source of great good or great evil,

depending upon how they are used. The trouble is in our misunderstanding of them and our misuse of them. The seat of the trouble is the failure of the college and university authorities to grasp the idea that they are training men for citizenship and are therefore equally responsible for the character and morality of their product as they are for the knowledge of subject-matter and the type of mental training possessed by that product.

College authorities generally seem just beginning to realize their responsibility regarding student health, and since the revelations of the draft are showing greater diligence in the matter. Most of the colleges now make certain requirements in physical education during the first two years. These requirements are administered more or less strictly in accordance with the facilities at hand and the degree of co-operation rendered by deans and department heads.

The next step in progress is for the college administration and faculty to

assume responsibility for the character -in the broad meaning of the termand the physical equipment of their graduates. The colleges are the mills of citizenship. A graduate trained only in intellect may be a bad or an inefficient citizen. The Nation needs a citizenry which is sound in body, keen in mind, and lofty in ideals. In an intelligent programme of physical education for the whole student body lies the secret for physically sound graduates. In athletics both within the college and between the colleges lies the greatest force for the developing of character that can be found. Nothing else in college life makes an equal appeal; nothing else stirs to such depths or rouses the spirit to such heights. It is a power which should be turned to a great purpose.

The faculty and undergraduates should co-operate to manage and promote athletics for the greatest good of the whole student body first and as a spectacle for the outsider last. Make the objective as near one hundred per,

cent participation as possible and the membership on the teams a reward of merit for the bona-fide student athlete instead of a position of prominence for the recruited and subsidized star. Faculty and student co-operation should keep athletics a purely college affair, free from outside dictation of policy and exploitation and other attendant evils.

No good reason can be offered for the alumni domination of athletics, which is now so common, that cannot be offered for the same domination in other college affairs and functions which they do not presume to touch. The passing of this influence might reduce the excitement of the spectacle, but it would increase the real service of the game. The college shirks its opportunity and its responsibility by passing it on to the alumni, who muff the main idea. The college is held responsible even though responsibility is not assumed. Athletic scandal reflects upon the college, not upon the individual or the guilty group. The willingness of the college to do its own job will solve the athletic problem.

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T may appear presumptuous for me to attempt to enlighten the general public on varsity athletics following

so closely the discussion presented by some of our able college presidents, but my knowledge of the situation is most intimate, and it convinces me that the conditions existing can be remedied only by a publicity that will force college faculties, alumni, and students to stop in their backward course, revise their methods, and "play the game fair" with one another and before the world.

For the past twenty-five years as, successively, varsity football captain, coach, professor, dean, chairman of athletic committee, and athletic conference representative, I have learned what clean, vigorous athletics can do for a college, especially if it is coeducational and threatened, as they all are now, with the moral blight that is sweeping the country.

To attribute lack of interest in scholarship and learning to over-interest in athletics in many of our colleges is like attributing engine trouble to the quality of the oil when there is no gasoline.

Administrators and professors decrying the damnable influence of athletics oftentimes have neither the ability to lead nor drive, and American youth, needing a little of both, get it in football, and in nothing else, in many of our colleges.

My story follows:

As chairman of a special committee appointed by the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Mr. Story sent me some months ago a list of recommendations approved by the Association, one of

which advised depriving varsity men of the right to wear the "athletic letter" should they engage in professional football after graduation.

I wrote Mr. Story that there was work nearer home to be done by the Association and that it was far more essential that they attempt to keep varsity athletes amateurs during their undergraduate life than to meddle with their pursuits of later days.

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I added that I had just seen the list of the All-American football team for the year, chosen by the past-master of the game, and was strongly moved to write and ask him why he had not chosen two such teams-one made up of the leading professional athletes playing amateur intercollegiate football, and the other of the amateurs, adding that, as it was, he had, to my certain knowledge, mixed them badly. I knew one of them personally, who entered college without a cent and graduated with five thousand dollars in the bank and a college education in football.

In place of consigning the letter to the waste-basket, as I fully expected, Mr. Story asked to have it copied and sent to all colleges, which was done, with a request for suggestions and criticisms. Excerpts from about fifty responses were later sent to members of the Association, most of which showed a decided disinclination to discuss the delicate questions raised.

The athletic chairman and dean of a large Eastern university wrote that similar charges in part had already been brought to his attention, but that proof was lacking and jealousy might have

He sug

been at the bottom of them. gested to Mr. Story that his letter be forwarded to me, and, replying, I stated: "I know of no better way of encouraging professionalism in varsity athletics in the Middle West than for institutions in the East of the rank of yours to ignore the eligibility requirements of her football opponents when coming from west of the Alleghanies."

I wonder if the presidents and deans of some of our large colleges, "suffering from over-development of varsity athletics," have ever thought of the situation existing in colleges a tenth to a twentieth of their size, supporting teams their equal or superior?

Why have the coaches in the Middle West gone on record as absolutely opposed to professional football? Many of their star performers are amateurs only in name and professional through and through in spirit, and, knowing this, they would like to remove temptation from them as the Eighteenth Amendment removes it, or should, from the liquor addict.

Why not complete the work of cleaning out such men? Let them join the professional ranks, where they belong, and fill their shoes with bona-fide college amateurs, whose places these men have too long pre-empted.

As a follower of one of the smaller colleges, I cannot with fairness close this article without stating my confident belief that professionalism in the Middle West has by far its strongest and most vicious hold on some of the smaller colleges-church schools, most of themwhich, countenancing crooked athletics,

at the same time profess to train not only mind and body but the soul as well.

Don't deceive yourselves; only the ground has been scratched in the work of discarding the professional college amateur. Let some of the small colleges now step forth into the limelight.

I close with two stories which are apropos. Three weeks ago a friend living in a small town supporting a champion college football team stopped me and said that he had just made a bet with a lawyer, an alumnus of another college unbeaten in football last fall, on the game that was to be played the coming year between the two institutions.

The lawyer had insisted upon one prior condition, and when asked what it was, had replied: "Provided neither team is investigated before the game."

Last evening I ran across an old friend with whom I had not conversed since he coached football a dozen years before at the college where I was a professor. Naturally, the conversation soon became athletics, and, entirely unsolicited, he volunteered the information that the institution where he coached last fall had this year begun to subsidize their athletes, that it had cost many thousand dollars, and was already causing discord among the underpaid

amateurs. He ascribed this change of policy entirely to alumni influence.

Let me say a word for the coaches. Most of them are clean men, of high intelligence and fine leadership ability. I would feel safer with my son associating with the average professional college coach as I know him, than with the average college instructor as I know him. My friend was ashamed of the situation, and many a coach is and would be glad to "clean up" if given the support and co-operation of others. Of course there are exceptions, and I could name a few of National reputation coaching championship teams.

HE maintenance of soil fertility, the foundation of permanent agriculture, is the greatest material obligation which this generation owes to future generations. Decreased crop production with increased population eventually leads to disaster. The late Colonel Roosevelt, writing in The Outlook, once said: "I have always been fond of history . . . and deeply impressed with Liebig's statement that it was the decrease of soil fertility, and not either peace or war, which was fundamental in bringing about the decay of nations. While unquestionably nations have been destroyed from other causes, I have been convinced that it was the destruction of the soil itself which was perhaps the most fatal of all causes." It is also probably true that the greatest menace to peace in this country to-day is essentially due to the inability of another nation to feed its own population.

Therefore it is not surprising to find that the Secretary of War says that he

BY W. H. STROWD

favors the Ford offer on the Muscle Shoals plant if it means cheaper fertilizer to the farmers. The use of fertilizers, to the lay mind, means bigger crops and richer soil; but this is not necessarily true. The proper use of fertilizers, along with other proper methods of soil management, means just that; but the improper use of fertilizers means bigger crops (temporarily), but a soil of diminishing fertility. A small amount of fertilizer added to a crop will stimulate the plant roots to reach out and draw in more of the soil's exhaustible plant-food materials, thereby increasing the crop yield, but unless the fertility thus removed is returned in one way or another the ultimate effect on the soil is obvious. Proper soil management, so far as fertility is concerned, consists essentially in returning to the soil by means of fertilizers, barnyard manure, legume crops, and crop residues (stalks and similar plant parts) the exhaustible plant-food materials that are removed from the soil by crops. This

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system of treatment was called by the late Dr. Hopkins, of Illinois, a permanent system of soil fertility. At the present time it is probable that only an infinitesimal fraction of our soils are treated on the basis of permanent soil fertility. This means that the potential production of practically all our soils is decreasing, and that the American of to-day is waxing fat at the expense of his children. In view of Colonel Roosevelt's statement, as well as the statements of numerous authorities on soil fertility, this is a matter of grave concern which has not received the attention which its great importance deserves.

It is therefore well to consider the effect of the Ford offer regarding Muscle Shoals as well as any other disposal or use of it with reference to the vital problem of permanent agriculture. If any use of this property, either by the Government or by private parties, will aid materially in the solution of this problem, the expenditure of millions, or even hundreds of millions, by a longterm bond issue or otherwise, would be money well invested. There are three elements needed by plants which are not usually present in soil in inexhaustible amounts-namely, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium-and of these, only nitrogen can be produced at Muscle Shoals. There are two plants at Muscle Shoals for the production of nitrogen compounds. According to the Secretary of War, nitrate plant No. 1 was built to produce 22,000 tons of ammonium nitrate per annum, while nitrate plant No. 2 has an annual capacity of 110,000 tons. Neither plant has been operated over any extensive period, although both have been given tests. Plant No. 1 was unsuccessful on test, while plant No. 2 proved successful.

Recent press reports state that Mr. Ford will guarantee a minimum fertilizer production. Although the Ford offer considers only the operation of nitrate plant No. 2, let us assume that nitrate plant No. 1 is put in condition to operate successfully and that both