The University of Michigan Part 13

The gregarious club-forming habit, as we have seen, began as far as the University is concerned almost with the admission of the first cla.s.s. A list of such organizations might be compiled from old _Palladiums_ and _Michiganensians_, but it would be to little purpose. In most cases these societies have been ephemeral, and if they did survive their own generations, they soon lapsed into pale shadows, or faded away, with no one to mark their pa.s.sing. There are certain societies, however, which have been in existence some time, that serve to mark a definite trend in undergraduate life, though most of them reflect not so much scholastic attainment as personal popularity. The most conspicuous of these is "Michigamua," a society which was organized in 1902 as an all-senior organization. It has always stressed the Indian tradition in its practices and names, and has made a picturesque ceremony of its annual "rope-in" of new members, who are surrounded on a certain day in spring with a howling band of painted braves. Similar societies in other departments and cla.s.ses soon followed, and we now have the "Griffins,"

another all-campus society; "Druids," senior literary; "Sphinx," junior literary; "Vulcans," senior engineering; "Triangle," junior engineering; "Archons," junior laws; "Galens," medical; "Alchemists," chemical students; "Craftsmen," Masonic students; "Quarterdeck," marine engineering; as well as several similar societies among the women, notably the "Senior Society" and "Mortarboard."

As for the real "honor" societies, those whose members.h.i.+p is in itself an academic honor, there are several whose members are selected with Faculty co-operation. These are best ill.u.s.trated by Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest inter-collegiate organization, which was established at Michigan only after long opposition centering about the introduction of a marking system, the absence of which was long a special characteristic of the University. In spite of this, many alumni were elected at the time of its establishment in 1907, upon the special recommendation of older members of the Faculty whose co-operation had been requested. Five years before the time when Phi Beta Kappa was established, Sigma Xi, a similar organization, was inaugurated as a recognition of excellence in science.

Tau Beta Pi in engineering likewise came in the field in 1906. There followed quickly, after this auspicious start, the following societies, most of them of national scope; Alpha Omega Alpha, in the Medical School; Tau Sigma Delta, in Architecture; Phi Lambda Upsilon, in Chemistry; the Order of the Coif, and also the Woolsack, in the Law School; Phi Sigma, in Science; Pi Delta Epsilon, in Journalism; Iota Sigma Pi for women specializing in chemistry; and Phi Alpha Tau for students in oratory. a.n.a.logous to these distinctions are the annual appointments to the editorial board of the _Law Review_, open to the best senior students in the Law School.

A society organized by upper cla.s.smen in 1900, "Quadrangle," for many years maintained outstanding scholastic ability as well as a certain degree of popularity as qualifications for members.h.i.+p. Its traditions have perhaps changed somewhat through a too great, though perhaps inevitable instructorial complexion and the abandonment of its original emphasis on literature and the arts. Among the women a similar a.s.sociation is found in "Stylus," a society established in 1908. Similar societies, which emphasize the literary and scientific interests of their members, are the University Branches of the American Inst.i.tutes of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, the "Prescott Club" of students in Pharmacy, the "Architectural Society," the "Commerce Club," and another women's society, "Athena."

For some years there was a marked tendency in the University to form sectional clubs, such as the "Rocky Mountain," "New York,"

"Pennsylvania," and "New England" clubs, usually with their own house and dining-room, organized somewhat on the example of the fraternities.

The impulse, however, has lapsed somewhat, though the foreign students in the University still maintain the "Cosmopolitan Club," a very active organization with national affiliations, as well as a "Chinese Students Club," a "South African Union," and a "Nippon Club."

In the earlier years the students came almost entirely from nearby towns in Michigan, many registering from little hamlets now almost forgotten.

By 1850, however, almost one-third of the total of 64 students in the academic department were from outside the State, some even hailing from as far as New England. Ten years later almost half the 526 enrolled were from other states than Michigan, with a sprinkling from Canada. The same was true of the 1,112 students in 1870, though by this time practically all sections of the country were represented--even California. Less than half the students in 1880 were from Michigan, 642 out of a total enrolment of 1,427, a condition that also held true in 1890, when the proportion was 1,019 out of 2,153. But by 1900 Michigan was again sending more than half the students in the University, 2,009 out of 3,440; and the same was true in 1910 with 2,832 out of 5,383 and again in 1920 with 5,793 out of 9,401.

Professor Hinsdale in his "History" publishes a significant little table showing that in 1870 the ratio of Michigan students to the population of the State was one to 2,300. This ratio was increased slightly ten years later and then dropped to one in 1,802 in 1890, one in 1,206 in 1900, and to one in 992 in 1910. The 1920 census shows one in 636.

The enrolment of foreign students in the University is also significant.

Aside from students registering from Canada, who came almost from the first, the first appreciable showing of foreign students came in the eighties, with nine enrolled in 1880. In 1890 there were forty-three including twenty-one from j.a.pan, but ten years later the number had dropped to nineteen. This was due partly to the fact that there were only seven j.a.panese students, while the seven from Porto Rico and two from Hawaii were no longer "foreign." The total, excluding fourteen from the United States dependencies and twenty-five from Canada, was sixty-eight in 1910. Of this number eleven students were from China; a little band which grew to thirty-six in 1919, when they formed no inconsiderable proportion of the 140 foreign students enrolled, strongly organized for social and educational purposes and affiliated with similar organizations in other universities. j.a.pan sent eighteen and South Africa twenty-eight the same year. Aside from these, seventy-four were registered from Canada and fourteen from Porto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii. Of late years there has also been a marked increase of students from Central and South America.

CHAPTER XI

ATHLETICS

Michigan differs in no respect from other American universities in the general and, some would have it, the extravagant interest in outdoor sports which have come to be defined under the general term "athletics."

This emphasis on contests and games of strength and skill is universal and is woven into the very fabric of student life in all our universities and colleges. We cannot therefore avoid the conclusion that it is an inevitable and characteristic expression of the American spirit. It is only natural for the sons and grandsons of the men who settled this country to take an interest in wholesome and vigorous sports; in fact it would be a sad commentary on the degeneracy of the modern generation if such an expression of their inheritance were not evident. But a distinctively American att.i.tude towards sport is also manifested in the intense personal and university rivalries developed, the very rock upon which the modern system of inter-collegiate athletics rests, no less than in the genius for organization and systemization which has, within the last twenty-five years, made organized athletics such a tremendous factor in the life of all American universities.

Whatever changes the future is to bring in the development and control of inter-collegiate athletics, our universities cannot very well escape the fundamental fact that they have become an integral part of our university system, and that, rather than attempting a change by radical measures, they can best correct any present abuses by wise regulation, by a constant effort toward a modification of the present overwhelming emphasis on the one game, football, and above all, by a consistent encouragement of universal partic.i.p.ation on the part of the students in some form of college sport. This, in fact, is the latest development. It is not so much a reform as a return to older traditions, from which we have departed only in comparatively recent years, as the following review of Michigan's athletic history will show. This survey is offered, however, not so much because of its relation to the general development of the present-day att.i.tude toward sports in American universities as because it may have particular interest for every Michigan graduate, whether he counts himself a radical or a conservative in matters athletic.

It goes without saying that there was almost no thought of organized sport in the early days. Nathaniel West, '46, once told the Was.h.i.+ngton alumni, that "among our athletics were various forms of activity--the foot race from a quarter to a half mile,--baseball, a few rods from the stile,"--and what will seem certainly a novel event to a modern athlete,--"sawing our own wood and carrying it upstairs." Edmund Andrews, the President of '49, has also left a record of his time.

Athletics were not regularly organized, nor had we any gymnasium.

We played base-ball, wicket ball, two-old-cat, etc., but there was no foot-ball nor any trained "teams." There was mere ex tempore volunteering. We had jumping wickets in the same way. Fencing and boxing were totally neglected. The Huron River furnished little opportunity for boating.

This we may take as a fair picture of athletic activities for many years. Cricket was undoubtedly the first sport to be organized in the University, as the _Palladium_ for 1860-61 gives the names of the eight officers and twenty-five members of the "Pioneer Cricket Club," while the Regents' Report for June, 1865, shows an appropriation of $50 for a cricket ground on the Campus,--the first official recognition of athletics in the University. The game of wicket, which was a modification of cricket, was played with a soft ball five to seven inches in diameter, and with two wickets (mere laths or light boards) laid upon posts about four inches high and some forty feet apart. The "outs" tried to bowl these down, and the "ins" to defend them with curved broad-ended bats. It was necessary to run between the wickets at each strike.

The need for a gymnasium was speedily recognized, but the agitation for it among the students continued for thirty years before the present building was finally completed in 1894. The first gymnasium was an old military barracks which was transformed into a gymnasium of a sort about the year 1858. It stood near the site of the old heating plant at the side of the present Engineering Building, and as it was very open to the weather, resting only on poles sunken in the ground and with a tan bark floor, it was used only in warm weather. The apparatus consisted of a few bare poles, ropes, and rings. Even this make-s.h.i.+ft was short-lived, for in 1868 the cla.s.s of '70 erected a "gymnasium in embryo" described by a graduate of '75 as "two uprights with a cross-beam and ropes dangling from eye-bolts--the remains of some prehistoric effort towards muscular development," which was to be found "back of the Museum";--otherwise the old North Wing. Mark Norris, '79, thus pictures the comparatively primitive state of athletics in the University of his day:

The athletic side of the University was almost wholly undeveloped in 1875. There was no organization and no chance for systematic work. The absence of a gymnasium and practice ground will account for this. Football was a contest between cla.s.ses, and a mob of 100 to 150 men on a side chasing the pig-skin over the Campus was a sight to make the football expert of today go into convulsions. We had a little base-ball of the "b.u.t.ter fingers" type. At one time we had a boat-club, which navigated the raging Huron above the dam in a six-oared barge.

But with the opening of the year 1885 the old rink, later to become the armory, was fitted up as a gymnasium and a great impetus was given to all athletic interests, which by this time were beginning to be organized. As a natural result the student demand for a real gymnasium was becoming more and more vociferous. As far back as 1868 the _University Chronicle_ had voiced the sentiment in a two-column editorial, in which the writer thus describes the awful state of the University, when the only form of exercise was the opportunity to,--

walk around two or three squares, down to the post office and back to our rooms again. This already has become a melancholy task; but we must choose it, or its sadder alternative,--the old buck-saw.

True there are students among us who _will_ have exercise if cramming professors are ever so vexed. They will not study on Sunday; they escape to the woods, admire nature--desecrate the Sabbath. They find relaxation at the billiard table, make effigies in the night to be burned in the morning, remove side-walks, dislocate gates, or arm-in-arm parade the side-walk singing: "Happy is the maid who shall meet us."

By 1865 the efforts of the students resulted in a fund of something over $4,000. The Legislature that year almost gave the necessary appropriation for a gymnasium provided the students contributed what they had raised. But the project finally fell through and it was not until 1891, when Joshua W. Waterman, of Detroit, long a patron of sports in the University, offered to give $20,000, provided a like amount be raised from other sources, that the building became a.s.sured. Three years later Waterman Gymnasium was at last completed at a cost of $61,876.49 toward which sum private donors had contributed $49,524.34. The $6,000 which the students eventually raised through so many years of effort were used for equipment. The new "gym" was 150 feet long by 90 feet wide, with a running track in the balcony of 14 laps to the mile. These accommodations proved ample for many years; but the recent growth of the student body finally made an increase in s.p.a.ce imperative, and in 1916 an extension of 48 feet was added at each end, making the main floor 248 feet long with a ten-lap running track.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WATERMAN GYMNASIUM FOR MEN]

The interest in all forms of outdoor athletics, which was developing rapidly by 1890, made an athletic field no less necessary than a gymnasium. The corner of the Campus where the Gymnasium now stands, which, from the earliest days of baseball had been devoted to athletics, was crowded and inconvenient, even for practice games; while the old fair grounds in the southeastern part of the city were not under University control, besides being ill-adapted to college games. The streets and Campus were popular for impromptu games, although the arm of the law was unduly active in the spring, and "the batting of b.a.l.l.s" was conspicuously forbidden on a sign which long decorated the south wall of the Museum. The Regents recognized this need of a great playground, however, and purchased what is now the south ten acres of Ferry Field in 1891, though it was not opened to the students until 1893. This went by the name of "Regents' Field" until 1902, when the Hon. D.M. Ferry of Detroit gave an additional twenty-one acres lying between the old field and the University, and furnished funds for the present impressive entrance gates and ticket offices, since which time it has been known by the name of the donor. Subsequent purchases of neighboring property have increased the total to nearly eighty acres. Though this is by no means all in use at present, thirty-eight acres are graded, drained, and enclosed on three sides by a high brick wall. Two great stands, one of concrete, accommodate nearly 25,000 spectators at the "big games," while an attractive club house at one end furnishes accommodations for the players and members of visiting teams.

An effective student athletic organization was only less tardy in making its appearance than the long-awaited gymnasium and athletic field. In contrast to the modern student journals, the earliest files of the _Chronicle_ are distinguished by their exceedingly rare references to athletic events, and then only in a very occasional modest item giving the immodest score of some cla.s.s contest, such as the baseball game between '71 and '72 on May 29, 1869, when the score ran 50 to 36.

Shortly after this time came the first student athletic organization, informally known as the "Baseball Clubs" which became the Baseball a.s.sociation in 1876. A similar Football a.s.sociation was organized in 1873 and continued until 1878 when both clubs were merged in the first Athletic a.s.sociation of the University. This was the organization responsible for the student fund for the Gymnasium. But successful as the new organization proved in financial matters, it soon fell into the almost inevitable desuetude of so many student undertakings and finally, in 1884, fell "victim of the football and baseball teams which it sought to control."

Its successor was the present Athletic a.s.sociation, organized in 1890 through a consolidation of all the athletic interests in the University.

This a.s.sociation was long maintained almost exclusively by the students whose voluntary members.h.i.+p was marked by a little "athletic b.u.t.ton" of varying design, without which no student in good standing with his fellows would be seen. With the establishment of a general athletic fee, or "blanket tax," by the University in 1912, which admitted the student to all athletic events and was paid with the other University fees, and with the growing influence of the Board in Control of Athletics, the character of the Athletic a.s.sociation gradually changed. However, the organization still continues to elect its officers and Board of Directors, who elect the three student representatives on the Board in Control from a list of six nominated by the Board. The student managers of the athletic teams are now appointed by the coach, the captain of the team and the retiring manager. Since 1899 the general direction of the affairs of the Athletic a.s.sociation has been in the hands of two men, Charles Baird, '95, who was appointed Graduate Director of Athletics in that year, and Phillip G. Bartelme, a former member of the cla.s.s of '99, who succeeded him in 1909, and now holds the t.i.tle of Director of Outdoor Athletics.

The first attempt at organized collegiate sport in the University dates from the time of the Civil War, for it was in 1863 that baseball was first introduced among the students. Two men are given the credit, John M. Hinchman, '62-'65, who had been a member of the Detroit Club, and E.L. Grant, '66, who as a freshman became interested in accounts of the game as it was being played by a few clubs in and around New York. With some of his friends he wrote for information in the spring of 1863, and later ordered bases, b.a.l.l.s and clubs, and proceeded to lay out a diamond on the northeast corner of the Campus which was afterward maintained by the University.

Baseball in those days differed considerably from the present game; the pitcher was restricted to an underhand delivery; the catch of a foul bound meant an "out"; strikes were not called; and bases on b.a.l.l.s were unknown; while owing to the straight-arm pitching, the batting was much heavier and the scores larger. There was not much of a team in 1863, but the effort resulted in the organization of the first University Baseball Club in the spring of 1864, with Hinchman, who was the catcher, as president and captain. The members of the team had no uniforms and paid their own expenses, as no admission was charged for the games. While the opposing teams and the scores are not on record, the nine was judged highly successful and was very popular. In the fall of 1865 the team defeated Jackson, Ypsilanti, and Dexter and was in turn defeated by a team from Lodi Towns.h.i.+p near Ann Arbor. General interest in the game was evidently spreading rapidly.

In 1867 the Club was groomed for the champions.h.i.+p of the State; student subscriptions were solicited; cla.s.s nines were formed to give them sufficient practice, and the dignity of white uniforms was at last attained. Finally the team, accompanied by seventy supporters,--it was long before the day of "rooters,"--traveled to Detroit and met the Detroit Champions. The game lasted three hours and a half, included six home runs, and was won by the University with the wholly satisfactory score of 70 to 18, Detroit being unable to hit Blackburn the University pitcher sufficiently, though, judged by modern standards, his record was not exactly a "shut-out." A return game, however, played in the fall resulted in the defeat of the University 36 to 20, while the final game of the series, a year later, ran to eleven innings with the University finally winning 26 to 24. Soon after this the Detroit team disbanded and for some years baseball languished in the University; partly because of the lack of opponents for so redoubtable a nine, and partly because the first enthusiasm for the game had waned. Interest revived somewhat in 1873, but aside from inter-cla.s.s games the only available opponents were mostly professional clubs from the neighboring towns, who were ordinarily outcla.s.sed by the college men. With the abolition of the old straight-arm pitching in 1875 and the calling of strikes established, the extravagant scores began to be materially reduced.

Michigan's first inter-collegiate baseball game was with Wisconsin on May 20, 1882. It was played at Ann Arbor and resulted in a victory 20 to 8. This game came as a result of the formation of an Inter-collegiate Baseball League, composed of Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Racine, in which the Varsity easily won the champions.h.i.+p. Unsatisfactory arrangements for the traveling expenses of the team, however, caused Michigan to withdraw from the League the next year and the nine was forced once more to fall back upon the professional and semi-professional teams in neighboring cities. Oberlin appeared upon the schedule in 1886 and Michigan Agricultural College twice defeated the Varsity the following year. But if these years saw no remarkable schedules, the team was, nevertheless, steadily improving. The fielding average of the '88 team was .908; and though less can be said of the batting, two members, McDonnell, '88, and McMillan, '86-'89, had averages of .448 and .406 respectively. The _Chronicle_ also was jubilant over the financial success of the '88 season which left a surplus of $50 in the treasury, after "elegant new suits" had been purchased.

Confidence in the ability of the team led to the first Eastern trip in 1890, which resulted in a close and exciting 2 to 1 victory over Cornell at Ithaca, May 16. From this time on Cornell and other Eastern colleges appeared with fair regularity in the schedule. Games with Harvard and Yale were arranged in 1891, and every candidate was pledged to strict training after February first under Peter Conway, a famous National League pitcher. The trip resulted in a creditable record; and although the game with Yale was lost 2 to 0, only three hits were scored off the pitcher, Codd, '91, a record for the Varsity almost as welcome as a victory. The game with Harvard, won 4 to 3, was peculiarly satisfying to the tired team, which had already played six games, and had had, in the words of Captain Codd, "as hard a course of training as any University team had, up to that time, ever undergone.... We had given our Eastern antagonists a pretty good 'practice game,'" (the Harvard manager's term). Conditions were reversed the following year when Yale was defeated 3 to 2, but Harvard won 4 to 2. Michigan returned to her Western rivals in 1893 and was almost uniformly successful for several years.

An Eastern trip in 1894 was less fortunate, for it resulted in an unbroken series of defeats from Vermont, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell. The spell with Cornell was broken, however, in 1895, when Michigan won a decided victory 11 to 0, at Detroit, and had some revenge for previous defeats. E.C. s.h.i.+elds, '94, '96_l_, center field and captain of the team that year, has described the winning of this game as the "most satisfactory moment" of his athletic career; the team was the best Michigan had ever had, and the game after the first few innings became a successful struggle on the part of the pitcher, s.e.xton, '98_m_, and his team-mates to make it a "shut-out." Since that day Michigan has more than broken even in her games with Cornell.

Baseball at this time was genuinely popular; all of the cla.s.ses in the Literary Department as well as many in the professional schools had their own teams, which not only gave the Varsity good practice but played in a league among themselves, while the fraternities also had a league of some years' standing. This popularity of the national game was soon to pa.s.s, however, with the increasing vogue of football, and it has never regained the pre-eminent place it held in student favor during the period which ended in 1900, though, it has always had many enthusiastic followers.

The year '99 saw an especially strong team, which not only was successful in the West but at least divided honors on the first Eastern trip of some years. Particularly spectacular was the final game with Illinois which won the champions.h.i.+p. Michigan had already won two out of three games, but with a victory in the last of the series Illinois saw a chance to claim the Western honors. In the sixth inning Illinois had men on second and third and no one out. Guy Miller, '98, '00_l_, otherwise known as "Sox," was put in as pitcher, and though he had won a hard game the day before, he struck out the next two batters. The last man was put out easily, and Miller held the rest of the game safely, with a final score of 4 to 2.

Two fairly successful years followed, marked, however, by a uniformly disastrous Eastern trip in 1901. Then followed in 1902 "the most unsuccessful baseball season in years," though the end came with a victory over Cornell, 7 to 4, largely through the efforts of Michigan's greatest all-round athlete, Neil Snow, '02, in the last contest of his athletic career. He was responsible for six of the seven runs, bringing in three men with one three-base hit, while he himself managed to score on a poor throw.

A final defeat from Illinois the following year just missed the champions.h.i.+p of the West for Michigan. It is worthy of mention that it was at this game, on which many undergraduate hopes were centered, that the custom of singing "The Yellow and the Blue" in defeat as well as in victory was inaugurated. The Western champions.h.i.+p rested with Michigan in 1905 and again in 1906, but this was destined to be the last time for many years. Much of the success of these two teams was due to Frank Sanger, '07_l_, who was considered the best college pitcher in the West.

With 1907 begins another story. Michigan was now out of the Conference and there began a progressive decline in interest in baseball. Many small colleges soon appeared on the schedules, and in 1908 the South began to figure prominently in the earlier season games. A few games with Eastern colleges relieved the monotony, but the results were far from being always satisfactory. Two interesting games with the j.a.panese students of Keio University ended the season of 1911. While the University won both games with scores of 20 to 5 and 3 to 1, they demonstrated how apt the Oriental has been in picking up the fine points of the great American game. Some amends for an unsuccessful season were made on June 26, 1912 by a thrilling 2 to 1 victory over Pennsylvania before the thousands of guests and alumni who had gathered to celebrate the University's Seventy-Fifth Anniversary.

The painstaking efforts of Branch Rickey, who had been coach of the team since 1910, and later became manager of the St. Louis American League team, began to show results in 1913. The following year Michigan, in spite of no significant Western games, had some justification for claiming the national champions.h.i.+p through victories in two series of games with Cornell and Pennsylvania, the acknowledged leaders of the East. This record was due in no small part to the prowess of one player, George Sisler, '15_e_, who, from his first season in 1913, showed the extraordinary ability that made him not only Michigan's greatest baseball player but one of the best all-round players in the history of the game. While in the University he alternated as pitcher and left fielder and was captain of the team in 1914. This was the year Carl Lundgren began his successful career as baseball coach. An unexpected weakness in critical games and an unfortunate discussion over professionalism were probably the reasons for the poor success in 1915 of what was essentially an unusually competent team, while a nine composed almost entirely of inexperienced players counted heavily against the 1916 record.

With the declaration of war in the spring of 1917 all forms of athletics were suspended. The value of outdoor sports, as a means of developing the physique of the future soldier, as well as the powers of leaders.h.i.+p and co-operation so necessary in military service, was not at first recognized, and only after the baseball and track seasons of 1917 were long past was a more reasonable att.i.tude toward collegiate athletics inaugurated as a result of an earnest plea on the part of the Government that, as far as practicable, they be re-established.

Michigan's return to the Western Conference early in 1918 was marked by her first undisputed baseball champions.h.i.+p since 1905, the team winning nine out of ten Conference games played. This record was practically repeated in 1919, the Varsity winning all but one out of a schedule of thirteen games, and that one not with a Conference college. The 1920 season was equally satisfactory.

Football was introduced in the University a few years after the establishment of baseball. The first record of a game appears to be the following notice in the _Chronicle_ of a game played on April 23, 1870.

The first foot-ball match in the University of late came off on Sat.u.r.day last, between the fresh and sophs. Seven goals, or byes, or tallies, or scores, or something--we are not _au fait_ on foot-ball phraseology--const.i.tuted the game, which was won by the freshmen, the sophs coming out second best each time. Foot-ball is a new inst.i.tution on the Campus, but bids fair to be popular, at least on cool days.

This was not strictly the first appearance of the game, as the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s in 1866 had secured a football, and the resulting impromptu contests had aroused some patronizing comment in the college paper. But this first effort was short-lived, and the sport went "to a grave too cold by far." That this death was "greatly exaggerated" is suggested by the paragraph quoted. As a matter of fact football steadily grew in favor from that time, although in its earliest years it was by no means the game we know now. There seemed to be no hard and fast rules, at least not according to the Michigan practice of the early '70's. It was largely, or more properly, entirely, a kicking game, with any number up to thirty on a side. This made it particularly popular as a vehicle for cla.s.s rivalries, and we have record of one game in 1876 in which forty-two soph.o.m.ores were defeated by _eighty-two_ freshmen, though the result was different when the two sides were equalized in a later contest. The number of partic.i.p.ants in cla.s.s games was not always limited to eleven players as late as 1889-90. The number of goals requisite to win a game also varied, depending upon a previous agreement of the two sides. The popular att.i.tude toward football, and the status of athletics in general is amusingly suggested in the following paragraph which appeared in the _Chronicle_, October 19, 1872:

The base-ball ground is well filled on these pleasant afternoons.

The games of foot-ball, base-ball and cricket are played at the same time. It is quite laughable for an outsider to witness the consternation of the players of the two more scientific games when the mob engaged in the other sport comes towards them.

By 1872 all four cla.s.ses had their teams and the four captains formed a loose football organization, which became a Football a.s.sociation the following year. Modern football, the Rugby game, was introduced in 1876 by Charles M. Gayley, '78, better known to generations of Michigan students as the author of "The Yellow and the Blue," and now Professor of English in the University of California. No inter-collegiate games were played, however, until May 30, 1879, when Michigan defeated Racine at White Stocking Park, Chicago, 7 to 2, in what was probably the first inter-collegiate contest in the West; certainly no game had ever attracted such attention or drew such crowds as this one. I.K. Pond, '79, in after years to be the architect of the Michigan Union, made a touchdown in the first half, and a goal from the field by De Tar; '78, '80_m_, accounted for the balance of the Varsity's score, while a safety was all that was permitted to Racine. In the autumn of the same year Michigan played a tie game with Toronto at Detroit. Four cars filled with students accompanied the team and demonstrated the growing popularity of the Rugby game. The team fully deserved this support, for the Canadian eleven was more experienced and even the _Chronicle_ acknowledged that they excelled in almost every part of the game. The following fall Michigan won a second game at Toronto, 13 to 0, much to the disgust of the Canadians.