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Harvard, which organized its own Foot Ball Club Dec. 3, 1872, for games between classes, had to look elsewhere than to Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Rutgers for intercollegiate competition because of rules differences. So it welcomed a proposal that came from McGill University for a series of games. Two games were played in the spring of 1874 at Cambridge and a third at Montreal in the fall. It was agreed that the first of the 2 at Cambridge should be played under Harvard's rules and the second under McGill's rules, which were the rules of the English game of rugby.

So, on May 15, 1874, the game of rugby was introduced to the United States at Cambridge. This was an historic date in American football. Following upon Harvard's refusal to attend the 1873 convention that adopted a soccer code, the game with McGill set the stage for the evolution of football as played in the United States-a game distinctly American and not British.

The Harvard rules for the "Boston Game" permitted a player to pick up the ball at any time and also to run with it if pursued, as has been noted above. But, as William R. Tyler of the class of 1874 wrote in the "Harvard Advocate": "There were many points of difference from the rugby game. It (Harvard's game) was eminently a kicking, as distinguished from a running and tackling, game. The rules • .. existed only in tradition. We went to work to learn the rugby game, but I should question if there were 3 men in college who had ever seen the egg-shaped ball ... A dropkick was an unknown and almost incredible feat, and the intricacies of 'off side,' `free kick,' `put out' and such commonplaces of the game seemed inextricable mysteries to novices like us."

The first game at Cambridge, played under Harvard rules, resulted in victory for the home team, 3 goals to 0. The second, under rugby rules, ended in a scoreless tie. It was agreed to play 15 men on a side, but 4 members of the McGill team were unable to make the trip at the last minute and there were only 11 to a side.

The results were unimportant. The significant thing was that Harvard liked the rugby game so much that it adopted the rugby rules. Yale and Princeton in turn followed Harvard's action. So the battle was won that was to decide the pattern of a new game-a game stemming from rugby but gradually, step by step, departing from rugby in the evolution reflecting American inventive genius and characteristics.