"Fudge!" snorted Professor Gooch.
"Truth," asserted Professor Gunn.
"Fudge!" again burst from Professor Gooch. "I say fudge, and I mean fudge! Does it make a stronger and manlier chap of a fellow to put him into a game of football and break his leg or his collar-bone? Bah! Don’t talk to me, Professor Gunn! It makes that boy just so much weaker. Yes, sir!"
"The youth who is properly trained and prepared for the game of football rarely meets with a serious accident."
"Fudge, sir—fudge! What is the good of all this training and preparing for a game so brutal?"
"The training and preparing helps build up the physical powers of the lad, gives him health and strength to fight the battles of life. It prepares him for success in the world."
"Tut! tut! tut! What nonsense! It’s education, sir, that prepares the boy for the battle of life."
"But what is education without health, Professor Gooch? Give a man a fine education and a weak body, and he has not the energy or courage to make the most of his education. I’m an old man, sir, and I can remember the time when I entertained ideas similar to your own. But I have studied and sought to advance with the advance of time. I have endeavored not to become antiquated and a back number. I have seen that it is the young man with the strong and healthy body who wins in the battle of life. Of course, he must have education to go with his health and strength, and, therefore, the two things go hand in hand. I believe, sir, the time is coming when physical training will be compulsory in nearly all the schools of our land. I hope the time is not far distant when it will be compulsory here at Fardale. A boy cannot be a successful football-player unless he is something of an athlete. Thus football encourages a certain class of aspirants to train their bodies and to become athletic, as the only way they can get on the teams. In that way alone, regardless of any other, it is a good thing."
Several times Professor Gooch had sought to interrupt the head professor, but Professor Gunn checked him and persisted in speaking till he had finished.
"He! he! he!" laughed Professor Gooch sneeringly. "That’s fine talk, but it’s nothing but talk. I’d like to know what good it would have done me to train and become an athlete when I was a boy?"