Evening star., 1915-02-07

less we are prepared for it we may be
in danger of combined movement
| being some day made to crush us out
Now, scarcely twenty years after the
war. we seem to have forgotten the
lessons 1t taught, and are going on as
il In the greatest security, without the
power to resist an invasion by the
| fleets of fourth-rate European powers
for a time until we. could prepare for
them
George Washington in his speech to
both houses of Congress January s,
1890. said:
ITO be prepared for war is one OF
the most effectual ways of preserving
peace.
In Henry we read:
Defences. musters. preparations
Should be maintained, assembled and collected,
As were q war In expectation.
Five hundred students of Princeton
propose to devote themselves to GER
tain forms of military drill and thus
set an example that will surely be
followed by thousands of young men
in this country who believe that the
lessons of history can no more be
CLOSED over today.
BY the time this is in print Guy Nick
alls, the Oxford and Leander rowing
coach. whose work last spring enabled
the Yale crew to turn the tables on
Harvard at New London in their an
back in New Haven at work on the
Yale eight of 1915.
Guy Nickalls began rowing for OK
ford in 1887 and rowed in the varsity
boat for five years. His first experience
was when MacLean. No. :, broke his
oar at Barnes bridge and Cambridge
was leading by three-Quarters of a
length, but Oxford gaining. Cambridge
won by two and one-quarter lengths.
To those who know him now it will
be of interest to know that. at that
time Nickalls weighed 1863 pounds and
rowed No. > in that boat. In addition
to this he repeatedly won the Diamond
sculls at Henley, rowing for Magdalen.
Oxford, and also the silver goblets.
rowing with Lord Ampthill, and later
with his brother Vivian.
The great characteristic of this most
successful oarsman is his dogged de-
termination. He breathes it, lives it
and enforces it upon his pupils. 1t is
like an atmosphere surrounding him.
Last year. although his pupils were
badly beaten in preliminary trial races,
and the rowing world on this side of
the water expected firmly that Yale
would suffer another humiliating de-
feat at New London. Nickalls never
wavered in his confidence, and a few
days before the race wrote calmly to
an intimate that his crew would win.
and the more they spread that atmos-
phere of determination the better are
the boys wrought up in our boats not
only for the college, but for their life
outside later on.
When one considers that there are
only eighty-two men in Harvard Uni
versity who won their H. and that
these HIS include five major sports, a
letter to single man in tennis and to
a single man in golf. and that two of
them are men who have received their
HIS in three sports and nine of them
men who received their HIS in two
sports, it seems to open a large argu-
ment for those who contend that our
college sports today are only for the
few. But this combination, while it
makes a good argument, is in reality
not as strong as it would appear, for,
as stated by Mr.. Wilmington of Har-
ward at the meeting of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association in Chi
cago. there are more than 1900 men in
active work in athletics at Cambridge,
and while not entirely true, 1t Is in the
main a fact that were it not for the
stimulus of intercollegiate sports and
this possibility of letter. the number
might be quite materially reduced.
Theoretically, the youth of today should
| contend for the pleasure of the sport.
| but practically the instinct of competi-
| ton is SO keen and SO overshadows the
simple play spirit, that 1t Is difficult
| to measure what would be the result
| intercollegiate contests. He would be
| venturesome man who endeavored to
| predict. Nor is it possible to gauge
results in college from results in
schools, for in the school there is a
stronger compulsion. either from
sources OF authority or from the school
| body itself. to drive boy into sport
| willy-nilly. than there is when he has
the greater free dom of choice of other
anusements or interests in the uniyer-
sity.
| Cornell has 625 men registering for
varsity teams and 425 for freshman
| teams divided into: Track, $50; row
| ing, 1876; foot ball, 100; base ball, 10;
| cross country. 50: basket ball, SIS: SOC
| GER, 80; hockey, A; swimming, ~;
| wrestling. 95; fencing, 35; lacrosse, 80;
tennis, 20; golf. 80.
Intramural athletics have nearly 700
more men, while there are 95 men in
| boxing and 200 in tennis Besides this
there is military drill for freshmen
| three times a week. At all our large
universities like tale could be told
| Davis of Princeton has figured that in
| the country at large $4,000 youth play
| ed foot ball last year and there were
| "a 900 games. and that $50 colleges,
| 5000 secondary schools and 1,50O teams
| not connected with educational insti.
| tutions indulged in the sport.
Copyright, 1915 Otis F. WOod.)
| Joe Birmingham has one rookie who