Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

ATHLETICS IN THE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES BY D. G. A. LOWE FoRTY years ago the late Lord Alverstone, then Sir Richard Webster, Attorney-General and former winner of the Three Miles race for Cam– bridge against Oxford, thus described the institution of athletics in the Schools and Universities of this country:- " It is certain that prior to I 8 50 athletics were not practised as a recog– nised system of muscular education, nor was there any authentic record of individual performances. . . . " Speaking of our Universities, I have seen the foundation of the present prosperous Clubs at both Cambridge and Oxford, and, with the exception of the crick-run at Rugby and the steeplechase at Eton, p-:-ior to I 8 50 no Public School had any established contest."* The year I 8 50 would therefore seem to mark the dawn of a new era in scholastic athletics, but a glance at the position of athletics in education prior to the middle of the last century may perhaps be permitted; for undoubtedly there were races at several of the Public Schools before this date, and the game of" hare and hounds," as" Tom Brown's Schooldays" shows, is quite as ancient as any other English schoolboy pastime. The educational value of athletics was recognised even in medi::eval England ; and the general athletic revival which took place under Henry VIII., himself no mean athlete, as his world records (other than those matrimonial) prove, was not without influence upon systems of education. Thus, Sir Thomas Elyot staunchly advocated a judicious mixture of athletics and learning for a boy. On the other hand, Roger Ascham, a leading disciple of the ew Learning who, as a student of Greek life and culture, might have been expected to approve of controlled athleticism, despised it. It seems probable that Ascham's opinion ultimately gained the day, despite James L's subsequent recommendation to his son to practise "running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, tennise, archerie, palle– malle, and suchlike other fair and pleasant field games" ; and it was not until about the middle of last century that there occurred a revival of interest in amateur athletics. * Quoted from the Introduction to the late Sir Montague Shearman's volume on "Athletics'' (Badminton Library, 1887), a classic to which the writer is indebted for most of the early historical matter presented here. 85