The art of football constantly aspires to the condition of warfare. Let me hasten to assure both the followers of the game and those opposed to it that this statement is made in an academic spirit. I shall attempt here merely an examination of what appear to be the basic principles of the game and of the more sinister pursuit, and shall seek to bring to the surface similarities and differences.

Many a spectator on leaving the field after a big game is prone to declare that football, after all, is "miniature warfare." His opinion, as a rule, is based on nothing more tangible than the hazy feeling that something like a battle has been fought on the gridiron, that there has been much rough personal contact, much shock of masses, all in their nature more or less orderly. It is this orderly hurling of host against host that gives him his impression. He would be surprised, were he to dip into the writings of the militarists, to find how much real foundation there was for his hastily formed opinion.

There are of necessity deep fundamental differences between football and warfare, but once these are understood and kept clearly in mind one finds much in a theoretical way that the two have in common. I have often heard a football coach set forth a fundamental principle of the game that might readily be adopted word for word by a writer on strategy in warfare, and there are here and there in the writings of Major Wagner, of the United States Army, of Jomini, of Wellington, of Grant, of du Teil, and in the 15 maxims of Napoleon, phrases that might well be nailed up in letters of brass in the field house of any of our great universities.

While it does not follow that a great football coach might have been a Napoleon, I am convinced that the Little Corporal could have been a mighty football coach had he lived in our day and generation.

I am aware that certain military men well versed in foot-ball may consider a comparison between football and warfare rather farfetched, but they are easily answered, for those among them who are actively engaged in coaching are putting into effect on the gridiron every fall, whether consciously or unconsciously, the basic principles of their calling. There are a few, indeed, who to my certain knowledge are doing it consciously. I might add that it would broaden the gridiron horizon of any civilian coach were he to make at least a cursory study of the strategy and tactics of warfare, both ancient and modern. Many a football problem would have been solved years ago had the coaches been versed in the principles of the art of war.

Even the history of football bears a striking resemblance to the history of warfare. Both, in the beginning, were rooted in individualism; both went through that stage and emerged into the stage known to military men as "shock action"; and both are to-day largely given over to what is known as "fire action": in war the long range use of rifle and field gun, in football the long range use of the kicking game and the extreme development of the forward pass and individual interference. In both the deadliest arm of the present day was the slowest of development: in war the artillery, in football scientific kicking, handling and covering of kicks. In both the final "destructive element" has remained the same for a long period: in war the infantry, in football, the line as it blazes the way for the backs.

In warfare to-day the shock action of infantry, after its advance to within striking distance has been made possible by heavy artillery fire, is nine times out of ten the decisive factor, just as the work of the line, once the kicking game has brought it within striking distance, is the decisive factor in football. There is this difference, however, that while in war artillery is not a deciding factor save on rare occasions, in football the kicking game may settle the issue.

Generally speaking, then, in football, we may use our "artillery" in two different ways. It may be employed to bring the team within striking distance, that the line may get in its fine work, and with the running game sweep over the remaining yards for a touchdown; or the running game may be used to bring the football artillerist within striking distance. But both in football and in warfare the artillery is the great demoralizer; and, in football, all other things being equal, the constant use of the kicking game will at some time or another earn an opening for the employment of "shock action." The memory of the present day follower of football will run back easily enough to the period of constant shock action on the gridiron. The wedge, the turtle-back, the guards back, and the tackles back all came under this head. How little the kicking game was esteemed may be gained from the words of the late Gordon Brown, captain of one of Yale's greatest elevens: "We needed no kicker; we took the ball on our own two-yard line and carried it the length of the field for a touchdown."

There was no defense that could withstand the shock action of those days. But the shock action of to-day, robbed of its wonderful cohesion by the elimination of pushing and pulling, is quite as wearing on the team using it as on the defense, and therefore must be treasured against the moment when the demoralization caused by scientific kicking shall have had its effect and broken down the defense so that the running game may be cut loose in its full power and at its top speed with something like a fair chance of snoring. Just as in warfare the use of smokeless powder and the multiplied range of the rifle has made the ultimate shock action for infantry - the final "advance by rushes" - far more difficult and dangerous than it was at the time of the Civil War.

But the one thing after all that raises American college football strategically to a position of lonely eminence in sport is the fact that no big game has ever been played that had not its "psychological moment." And every great battle has had its psychological moment. So, clear down on the rock bottom, football and warfare are at one.