In 1888, a committee of four graduates, only one of whom had rowed in recent years, was appointed to take charge of boating matters. Naturally enough they strove to inculcate in the crew those principles with which they were most familiar, viz., those which pertained to the English or Bancroft system of rowing. Despite the fact that the method introduced by Storrow had brought about the overwhelming defeat of the Yale giants in ’85, despite the manifest adoption by Yale of the essential features of this method, and her consequent successes, and despite the marked improvement in the speed of the boat since ’85, the crew of ’88, we are told, endeavored to “unlearn the radically wrong principles” of the three previous years. The endeavor was pre-eminently successful, and what was the result? A crushing defeat, such as had never been seen upon the Thames. At one time in the race there was almost half a mile between the two crews. Yale, naturally enough, retained the principles, the efficacy of which she had tested, and gave even a better exhibition of rowing than the Harvard crew of ’85.
My standpoint is well illustrated by a letter to the New York Spirit of the Times of September 29th, upon “Why Yale beats Harvard.” The letter is written by a man “who has done for Harvard good work with the oar.” Among other good things he says (the italics are my own): “The Yale and Columbia crews of 1886 beat Harvard after close races because they adopted to a considerable extent the same system and ideas that Storrow had taught Harvard the year before. Yale beat Harvard again last year because she still believed in and practiced the same system, while Harvard seemed to have endeavored to forget as much of it as possible. The contrast between the styles of rowing of the Harvard and Yale crews in the race was most striking. The Yale crew carefully covered their oars at the beginning of the stroke, and kept them covered to the end, maintaining a firm pressure throughout, the appearance of their oars in the water reminding the observer of the Harvard crew of ’85, but otherwise their work was far superior to the Storrow crew. The Harvard crew seemed to have forgotten the accepted principles that govern the management of the oar in the water; their blades made a complete circle, and but a small arc of its circumference entered the water, the oar being fully covered but an instant of time. In their body work they followed the principles taught by Bancroft, but did not attain the smoothness which Bancroft himself, and his more skillful pupils acquired. In this respect they tried to follow the English system, and seemed to have adopted the English style of rigging, for their slides were noticeably shorter than those of the Yale crew. The whole course of the committee clearly showed their incompetency to direct the crew.” And again: “It is reported that before coming to New London they rowed a series of races with a scratch crew, composed of substitutes and old rowing-men about Boston, and were beaten again and again, although the men in the scratch crew had never before sat together in a boat.”
Rather a striking coincidence with the feat of the ’78 crew who rowed the same stroke, is it not?
So much for what the history of college boating during the past five years can show. The supporters of the English system of rowing are welcome to any solace they may derive from a perusal of it.
It seems incredible that any doubt as to the superiority of one system of rowing over the other should still linger in the minds of Harvard men.
But the result of last year’s race leaves them, no doubt, “more troubled than the Egyptians in a fog.”
To be continued.
[6] The average age of the Harvard crew was about 21, the stroke being 18; while Yale’s average was about 24, her stroke being 29.