Athletics of To-Day 1929

20 Athletics of To-day hold independent championship meetings. Unlike the English governing body, which confined its attention to its own branch of sport, the A.A.U. holds jurisdiction over the associations governing basket-ball, billiards, boxing, fencing, fives, gym– nastics, lacrosse, swimming, and wrestling, this system of central control and decentralised administration being favoured, as will appear, with equal success in Europe. There is a vast difference between the organisation of University sport in England and America. In England there is no official control on the part of the University author– ities, whereas in the United States the undergraduate athletic committees are subordinate to the general control of faculty committees, which have the power to prohibit the participation in sport of any undergraduate who has not attained a certain degree of scholarship. In 1902 the second American athletic revival took place. The enthusiasm rose as suddenly as before and certainly led to many abuses. lay in the team games becam unduly rough, there was an all too vident desire to win at all costs in individual contests, and the mon y which poured in from gate receipts led to an extraordinary luxury in training quarters and quipment. For example, in cember, 1905, the Yale Athletic Association had in hand a surplus of no 1 ss than £zo,ooo, after deducting the most colossal sums for exp nses. In 1906 many of the most important institutions, including the Univ rsities of Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania and Princeton, entered into a new agreement whereby an undergraduate should not be allowed to represent his University until he had been in residence for one year, nor continu to compete for his side for more than thr e y ars. The main bject of this agreement was to discourage the practice of off ring to promis– ing boys, generally at preparatory schools, mat rial advantages as an inducement to b come students at certain univ rsities. In fairness to the American nation it must be said that they have u ed every endeavour to keep their sport clean and healthy, and they have so well succ eded that m rica is to-day undoubtedly the first athletic nation in the world.