Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

A.A.A. JUBILEE SOUVENIR College, Dublin. London has been the most conspicuously successful. As in the American Inter-Collegiate Championships, and in contrast with the Oxford-Cambridge Meeting, these Championships are decided on points; the programme contested includes all the Olympic events. The U.A.U. also holds meetings with other bodies, and at least one of the Universities enumerated-Leeds-has laid out a superb ground. In 1925 the Scottish Universities followed the lead, and the Atalanta Club was established on lines similar to the Achilles. The Atalanta is open to past and present members of the four Scottish Universities-St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow-its primary object being to foster lnter-'Varsity athletics. In pursuit of this aim it has held matches with the Achilles Club, the U.A.U. and the Irish Universities, and it has undoubtedly stimulated Scottish athletics. One of the chief spheres of influence of the Universities since the War had been the international. The American matches of Oxford and Cam– bridge have been mentioned already; in addition, either the Universities themselves, or more often the Achilles Club, in pursuit of one of its main objects, have toured South Africa (192 3 and 1929) and the greater part of Europe, including Italy (1920), Hungary (1922 and 1928), Czecho– Slovakia (1922), Ireland (1926, 1927 and 1929), Greece (1927), Austria (1928), and Germany (1927-the first post-war visit-and 1928), whilst small relay teams and individual members have frequently competed in France and Scandinavia. Moreover, in 1928 a team from Waseda University, Tokio, which was on its way to the Olympic Games, com– peted against the Achilles Club in London; and in the following year the Club entertained in London a team drawn from two of the leading Berlin Clubs, several of the members being undergraduates of the University of Berlin. ' In 1928 the other Universities, both English and Scottish, launched forth into international competition, and entered a team, strengthened by the inclusion of some of the Oxford and Cambridge men, for the Inter– national University Games in Paris. These biennial games form part of the work of the International Confederation of Students (C.l.E.), and are restricted to students and certain ex-students up to the age of twenty– seven. The next celebration will be in Darmstadt in 1930, when it is expected that all the British Universities will be represented. And, in any event, foreign tours are intended to be a feature of the future pro– gramme of the U.A.U. if financial stability-a big problem-can be secured. During this period also the University men have taken their rightful place in national athletics. In lnter-Club competitions, the growth ofwhich has been so remarkable, the Achilles Club has been consistently successful, partly, of course, because of its superiority in the field events. In the Championships the University men, past and present, have achieved a fair measure of success. It is true that outside Oxford and Cambridge only E. H. Liddell, of Edinburgh, and G. T. Mitchell and J. E. London, 92