Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-05-02

The death of the Dean of Ripon,
Rev. w. X. tremantle-the first Win
ming coXsWain in the annals of uni
yerSity boat racing. and, to the best
of our belief, the last survivor of those
pioneers in athletics who performed
in the Henley match of 1S29-evokes
! recOllectiOns of what athletic pursuits
! were, in fact and in eStima ton, in
the days of his youth, as compared
to their modern development in the
years of his hOnOred old age. In his
undergraduate days a rowing man..
and black sheep were practically
convertible terms in the eyes of col
lege authorities. The youth who in
dulged in such pastime was charita-
bly, classed in the college common
room in the same category as those
who attended dog and cock fights. or
were. drunken disturbers of the qua
drangle at nlidnight; who INDUCED in
chicken hazard, or cajoled with bar
maids in beer-houses. That any one
of them could come to other than a
bad end for his predictions no "dOn"
thus doubted. Even eight years later
so strong was the feeling against row.
ing machines that we read in boat
club annals how and why Christ
Church, when head of the oxford
River, was forbidden by the dean of
that college to row a match against
the head boat lady Margaret of
Cambridge, at Henley, and gave up
their leadership and the honOrs of
representation of their river to Queens
Oxford, who thereupOn went to Hen
ley and beat st. Johns Cambridge.
Even as late as 1868 DR.. Symonds,
big Ben" of Wadham, kept the Ok
ford crew for a week longer than
was necessary on their home river
because he would not allow Mr. C.
r. Carr (NO. for Oxford to leave for
Putney-thOugh he had kept his
term'-until the last of the college
went down for Easter vacation. And
yet, if we refer to the subsequent his
tory of those two earliest university
crews, and of those which came soon
after them, we find a proportion Of
, hOnors won in public careers far in
excess of what could be anticipated
of any average eighteen youths
drawn at hazard from a university
calendar. Oxford evolved a bishop
(WOrdswOrth), two deans (Garnier and
Fremantle), prebendary, and a cOu-
pie OF country clergy out of her 1929
crew. Cambridge turned out another
bishop (Selwyn), a dean (Merivale),
and TayfOrd, Chancellor Of Manches
! ter Diocese, from her contingent. The
next decade gave US the present Mas
ter of Rolls in a Cantab crew, and
since those days the bench, episcO-
pal and legal, has been strongly re-
cruited from the ranks of old Blues.
Possibly much of the modern mOdi-
cation Of 'donnish" opinion as TO the
ethics Of athletic pursuits may be as
cribed to the evidences Of combina-
! ton of mind with matter which these
older oarsmen adduced by their sub
sequent careers in life. And in turn
the development Of university ath-
leticism gave a flip to similar ener
gies in the circle of metropolitan ath-
letics. Henley regatta might never
have been promoted but for the earli-
er selection of that water as a scene
for settling university aspirations: and
what Henley has done in promoting
| tideway clubs, such as the L. r. C.
and the Thames. and what they in
turn have accomplished in establish
| ing schools of scientific Craftsmanship
our readers must surely be aware. The
exposure of the fallacy that an aquatic
athlete must be a social and profess
sional failure no doubt had much to
do with the rapid rise and liberation
Of other branches of athletic cOmpe-
tition, which were unknown thirty