CLASS vs. CLUB RACES.

WHATEVER may be the respective merits of the Oxford and Harvard strokes, and whatever advantages Captain Cook's "adaptation of the English stroke" may possess, there is another question outside of these matters, - the question as to how an active interest in boating can be revived. The results of the races last May were not flattering to the much-extolled club system; the boats were filled with hastily collected, imperfectly trained oarsmen, that varied as much in ability and knowledge of rowing as a crew possibly could. The boating-men who were not in training for the "Varsity" or the Freshman crew were few in number, and they were not enough interested in their respective clubs to work for them. As the men who were in training were debarred from the club crews, the consequence was only natural.

The system of class races was abandoned, because there was not class feeling enough to keep it up. Is it possible that the indifference about backing up one's own class crew can exceed the present unconcern about club races? The serious opinion among boating-men is that the present system has proved a failure, and that a return to the former custom of matching class-crews will keep up the attention of men who pulled in their Freshman crew, and will awaken in others an interest in boating. The class system has this advantage over the clubs; a man will take more trouble to sustain the good reputation of his class crew, - a crew with whom he has associated and trained, - than to row in a boat with men he has never pulled with before, and work for a club that can barely fill a six-oar.

X.