In all justice, however, to these young men whom I am addressing as they probably never have been addressed before, let me say that their "sporting" spirit (and I use this word here in the sense of a bad mercenary spirit in matters of sport) is largely due to the attitude adopted by some of the principals of the New York schools. I do not hesitate a moment to put a large part of the blame on these principals, because they deserve it, and are directly responsible for a great deal of the unsportsmanlike conduct of the boys who attend their schools. If they chose, they could easily prevent a great deal of the evil that is done to the true spirit of sportsmanship. But they do not look at it in that way. Their idea is to encourage sport for the sake of the medals to be won, and they look upon a championship as one of the best of advertisements for their school. Medals, medals, and more medals; and let sport take care of itself! There was a rumor last spring that one of the New York principals made one of his pupils sign an agreement to the effect that he would only enter in certain events at the interscholastic games. The young man was after medals, and wanted to grab for several; but the older "sport" was wiser, and he knew there was a better chance for gold or silver disks if the energy was concentrated on certain ones. All this may be idle talk and without the slightest foundation. I hope it is; but it was a good healthy rumor, at any rate, last spring. The managers of the New York Football Association are having considerable difficulty in securing the services of college graduates to act as umpires and referees at interscholastic championship games. It is easy to see that this might very well be a hard task, for the games are played at Williamsbridge, and it means a whole afternoon devoted to the purpose for a college graduate--in all probability in business--to accept an invitation to act as an official on these occasions. Nevertheless, in this great city of New York there ought to be a sufficient number of graduates of the local schools, likewise graduates of colleges, familiar enough with the game to be efficient, and willing to devote at least one or two afternoons of the season to the good work of advancing the interests of football in the schools.