SUGGESTIONS FOR THE HARVARD-YALE RACE.

LETTERS from a Yale graduate appear in the last Yale papers on the mode of managing the Harvard Yale eight-oar race. The writer appears to have given considerable thought to the subject, and his views may be of interest to our boating-men.

He thinks that a "right ideal" should be adopted at the beginning, and the new system should be as much contrasted with the old one as possible. "Instead of complexity, there should be simplicity; there should be one sole and simple 'event,' a University boat-race between representative crews of the only two colleges in America whose names have anything more than a local significance. There should be no Freshman race, no single-scull contest, no athletic sports, no base-ball match, no regatta promenade, no glee-club concert; 'side-shows' of every name and description should be absolutely prohibited. In abandoning the unwieldy National Rowing Association, Yale and Harvard should abandon with it the whole 'tournament' theory. In place of a long-drawn 'week of athletic sports,' they should offer the public a single short, sharp, and decisive University boat-race. Simply that and nothing more."

He advises, too, going back to turning races, fouling being made impossible by each boat having its own stake, and by having twenty feet fenced off by buoys between the two courses.

According to the writer's "ideal," no cups or flags should be given to the winners; the race should be rowed" in pure love of honor"; but if any prizes are to be given, they should be medals for all contestants.

There is little doubt but that if the "sideshows" were abolished, greater interest would be centred on the University race. All these auxiliaries, except the Freshman and single-scull races, are foreign to the real object, of little interest in themselves, and their connection with the University race might be very fitly broken.

There is more reason for retaining the Freshman race. It serves as a school for future University men, and creates usually a healthy interest in boating among the Freshmen. But, on the other hand, it is doubtful whether class races and class crews are not incongruous with the present boating-system at Harvard, and whether the same material for University oars could not be worked up by club races, while the money necessary for the support of the Freshman crew could be given to the 'Varsity.

If a Freshman crew is successful, there is enough encouragement given the strong men of the class to work for the University. But if the crew is unsuccessful, or if, through lack of interest or mismanagement, no crew is sent to the race, the enthusiasm of many men cools, and the class makes a poor show in after years. When the crew is unsuccessful the good men are often discouraged, and if the crew falls through, it is not generally until towards the end of Freshman year, and men who might have been good oars have not been tested in club crews, have lost their interest, and are disgusted with boating. In themselves Freshman races seem inexpedient,

and when this consideration is added to that of the desirability of centring all the interest on the one event, perhaps it would be as well to discontinue them.

The writer has been a little hasty in stating that five years' experience has shown the failure of "straight away" racing in America. There is hardly enough to be gained by the slight excitement of seeing the start to compensate for the artificiality of a buoyed course, which he thinks necessary for the safety of a "turning race." This mode of racing is inconsistent with the rest of the idea. On the same ground that the race should not be a show, but an honorable struggle for victory, the interest, being undisturbed by "side-shows," should also be concentrated on the final result. And, too, the steady, straightaway pull of four miles is a race in which chance is far less likely to enter than in a race where a stake-boat must be turned. In such a race, although the separate stakes and the buoying remove the possibility of two crews fouling one another, the danger of fouling the stake is not wanting.

As regards prizes, there is no reason why unostentatious mementos of victory should not be given to the victors. There is nothing ungentlemanly in receiving them, provided they are given by the colleges, not by hotel proprietors nor hack-drivers.