1787.1

Ballplaying Prohibited at Princeton - Shinny or Early Base Ball?

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags	Bans, College, Pre-Knicks NYCBans, College, Pre-Knicks NYC
Location
City/State/Country:	[[{{{Country}}}]]
Modern Address
Game
Immediacy of Report	Contemporary
Age of Players	YouthYouth
Holiday
Notables
Text	"It appearing that a play at present much practiced by the smaller boys . . . with balls and sticks," the faculty of Princeton University prohibits such play on account of its being dangerous as well as "low and unbecoming gentlemen students."
Sources	Quoted without apparent reference in Henderson, pp. 136-7. Sullivan, on 7/29/2005, cited Warnum L. Collins, "Princeton," page 208, per Harold Seymour's dissertation. Wallace quotes the faculty minute [November 26, 1787] in George R. Wallace, Princeton Sketches: The Story of Nassau Hall (Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894), page 77, but he does not cite Collins. The Wallace book was accessed 11/16/2008 via Google Book search for "'princeton sketches.'" The college is in Princeton NJ.
Warning	Caveat: Collins - and Wallace -believed that the proscribed game was shinny, and Altherr makes the same judgment - see Thomas L. Altherr, "Chucking the Old Apple: Recent Discoveries of Pre-1840 North American Ball Games," Base Ball, Volume 2, number 1 (Spring 2008), pages 35-36.
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Query	Can we determine why this "shiny" inference was made? Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
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