It is a curious fact that, although the ideal aimed at by each college is the same, different colleges seem to adhere, to a very considerable extent, year after year to the same merits and the same faults. One college gets the reputation of not being able to row a fast-enough stroke; another, of being ready to race a week before the races and of getting worse as the races proceed, and, try as hard as they like, they do not seem to be able to shake off the effect of the reputation of their predecessors. So, again, one college gets the reputation of rowing better in the races than could possibly be expected from their form in practice, or of always improving during the races. The most notable case of late years, perhaps, was the traditional pluck of Brasenose. For eleven years in the Torpids and for three years in the Eights their certain downfall was predicted, but year after year, sometimes by the skin of their teeth and sometimes with ease, they managed to get home. The best performances in the Eights, as a matter of mere paper record, are those of Trinity and Magdalen, who have each rowed head of the river for four years in succession, the former in 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, and the latter in
1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895. Magdalen can also boast of not having finished lower than third in the Eights for some fifteen years. Brasenose have finished head of the river fourteen times since the races were started in 1836; University nine times, and Magdalen seven times. The best performance in any one year is that of New College in the season 1895-96, when they completely swept the board, being head of the river in Eights and Torpids, and winning the University Fours, Pairs, and Sculls. The only other college race besides those I have described is the Fours. This race is rowed in coxswainless racing-ships during the fourth week of the October Term. It is a "time" race, the crews, which row two in a heat, starting eighty yards apart, the finishing-posts being, of course, divided by the same distance. A time race is a very unsatisfactory affair compared with an ordinary "breast" race, but it is rendered necessary by the narrow winding river, for there is not room between Iffley and Oxford for two boats to row abreast. Oxford College crews, undoubtedly excellent though they often are, have been singularly unsuccessful at Henley. The Grand Challenge Cup has only
been won by a college crew from Oxford twice within the memory of the present generation (i.e. by Exeter, in 1882, and by New College in the present year). Wadham, it is true, won it in almost prehistoric times (1849), and the tradition is handed down that they took the light blue in their colours from those of the crew which they defeated—a tradition which I need hardly say the members of the sister University always meet with a most emphatic denial.
It may, perhaps, seem that so far I have described college rowing as if its organization were so perfect that there is little or no difficulty in managing a college boat club successfully. This is by no means the case. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, even though it be merely that of the captaincy of a college boat club.
In the first place, it is not always as easy as might be imagined to get men to row. Men who cannot be induced to row when they come up to the University may be divided into two classes—those who refuse because they do not wish to take up any branch of athletics, and those
who will not row because they wish to do something else. The former class (i.e. those of them who, after a moderate amount of persuasion, will not come down to the river) are not, as a rule, worth bothering about. They are generally weak, soft creatures, whose highest ambition is to walk overdressed about the "High," and, if possible, to be considered "horsey" without riding—the class, in fact, generally known as "bloods." Or else they belong to that worthy class of beings who come up to the University to read and only to read, and imagine that it is therefore impossible for them to row. The "blood" is, or should be, beneath the contempt of the rowing authorities, and the "bookworm" is generally impervious to argument, in spite of the fact that he would be able to read much harder if he took regular exercise.
With regard, however, to those men who refuse to row because they want to go in for something else, a little diplomacy and a little personal trouble on the part of the college captain, such as coaching men at odd hours, once or twice a week, when it suits their convenience, will often work wonders. Instances of this may be seen in the fact that many colleges have of late years
been materially assisted by a sturdy football player in the Torpid or Eight, and in the fact that Rugby football blues have rowed in the University Eight during the last three years. Another great difficulty which the captains of the smaller college boat clubs have to face is that of procuring good boats with very limited finances. The usual practice is to save up money for several years to buy a new eight, and to continue to row in her long after she has become practically useless, and, indeed, positively incompatible with good rowing. This is a difficulty which can to a great extent be got over by getting second-hand boats. These can be bought for about half price when they have only been used one or two seasons by the University, or by one of the larger (and therefore richer) college boat clubs, which can afford to get a new boat as often as they want one. By this means a college boat club, however poor, can always have a boat which, if not quite new, is at least comparatively modern, instead of being a water-logged hulk some eight or ten years old, such as one often sees wriggling along at the tail end of the Eights.
Yet another obstacle is there which it is not