The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-06-18


pairing for their day before the public, and
Commencements are coming thick upon us
30 fast indeed, that it is not easy to keep track
of them-another set Of men from these same
institutions bookish, to be sure, but none
the less eager and devoted to their favorite
work-have been actively addressing them-
selves to hard efforts of another sort one
which has required them to keep their bodies
in subsection in the hope of obtaining the
mastery in strife which will bring to their
alma mater more renown, temporarily, ct least,
than the subtlest reasoning and wisest sayings
of the gowned fellows who are on parade.
Already New York, the first to DO on hand
has sent forward her representatives to the
scene of the coming contest The Column
bia men, being thus early there, and taking
ample time to learn the currents and eddies
tho shadows and the deep places of the Con-
necticut water below Springfield, are but fol-
lowing the example Of that other New York
q newspaper goes, and who. year ago last
Fall, when England's doughty champions
of the oar had crossed the Atlantic to carry
away any honors America could offer. and
were parading about in the British provinces,
had quietly gone up to Saratoga Lake. long in
advance. and learned every wrinkle about the
course to be rowed which careful investi-
cation could bring them; and who, when the
hour Of trial came, though all the strangers
outranked them in the betting, easily van
pushed them oil, to the profound disgust of
most Englishmen and equal delight of our
countrymen.
Had the grandees at Vienna staked off few
English miles on the Danube and called in all
Europe and the rest of the world to see who
could furnish the best men these same Ward
brothers might have given an account of
themselves far more palatable than that of
any American production which has yet been
exhibited in that royal city during the present
show.
Four weeks from tomorrow not Harvard
and Yale only, as of yore, but they and Co.
lumbia, Cornell and Amherst Dartmouth and
Williams Trinity, Middletown and the AM
herst Agriculturals, and Bowdoin, too, all
mean to do good work and saving the ex-
year could be hit upon for this exciting strug-
gle, for it includes the early weeks of the long
vacation, and. excepting part of the annual
examinations, interferes not at oil with the
studies.
If the dangers of long and hard rowing were
better understood and those likely to be in
jured by it were peremptorily excluded from
racing crews, we hardly know of branch of
college education (for rowing, whatever it
may be in name, is fast becoming that) which
we would more gladly encourage. For, as
long as we Americans will keep our children
at school so many hours day, and find for
them when out of it no better exercise than
we do, and as long as the young men Of our
land will step too early into close, combining
business before their bodies are well grown
and their backs made tit for the burden, SO
long it seems to US the bounden duty of the
press to use its influence towards change
in all this matter of physical education, and
such one as will produce to us better men.
As long, then, as we lack this physical vigor
all such meetings as that of month from
now should be encouraged, and, were the
place selected for the struggle as convenient
to this city as far-famed Putney or the Derby
is to London, we little doubt that such host
Olympian plain, in sunny land, four thou
sand miles away, when, not in one sort Of
strife alone, but five, the chosen and we'll
trained sons of Greece struggled for
the leafy crown. However, as the course
chosen is not thus near, but several hours
ride away, though very central for the sixty
six who compete, we would here suggest that
at the first preliminary meeting of those hav-
ing in hand the management of the races, the
hour, not for the class races alone, but for the
great race of the day. "the University" be
set, not, as usual, late in the afternoon,
but at time of day as early as three
o'clock, SO that the people who 60 from New
York and all over New England that morning
to see the sport may get home reasonably early
that night If this point can be gained it will
go for toward establishing Springfield as the
permanent place for the annual intercollegiate
athletic gatherings; and really, after cropping
about for more than twenty years from Winni-
piseogee to Springfield, Worcester Ingleside,
and back again to Springfield, it is high time
some place were made at last fixed and per-
manent
Again, great care should be taken to have
the crews uniformed, that the rowers should not
only look their best, tina. they may be quickly
and certainly distinguished as far as the eye can
distinguish color at all. To do this they need
not content themselves, as do Cambridge
and Oxford, with two shades of but one color
but the rainbow will help them out; while as
the race is to be not around halfway stake
and home, but straightaway, and as the river is
IA &ho nolorc ahna1ld ho