Modern Athletics 1868

•i* MODERN ATHLETICS. behindhand; hut as they have now ceased to exist. I do not consider them withinmy sphere. At the twoUniversities there were no athletic snortosf any description until 1852, when Exeter College,^Oxford took the initiative and held a meeting, which has since been repeated annually. In 1856,and even in 1858, Bell's . J 6 ' 1 ^. lts reports of these sposrtys,les them "rural and interesting revels," and again "a revival of good old -bnghsh sports." 1he first athletics at Marlborough College were in 1851 when a mile race, and a shorter one for boysunder fifteen' were run on the turnpike road. In the following year the wS lr -T ^ a r lbo ™ u g h meetings, so well described by Teddmgton m Bell's Life of the period, were founded and continued downto 1862, since when they have been anmuil only. _ To Cheltenham, however, beyond a doubt, must be assigned the merit of founding Public School meetings on alarge scale, with a commodious grand stand tor ladies, printed programme, roped and staked course, an< l thoroughly organized in all other respects. The credit ot setting an examplenow so universally followed m all other large schools,must be ascribed to the Eev. T. kouthwood, then, asnow, the head-master otfhe Civil and Military Departmentat Cheltenham College, and to wnom the College, m this as well as in its studies, owesa debt which can never be repaid. On October 22, 1853, the hrst Cheltenham meetingwas held, and we read that the old nves courts, now in the quadrangle, were fitteudp as a grand stand forthe ladies, there being then no chapel to impede the view. Since the above date the meetings have been held every successive spring in regular order, and not as at other schools, where the races were occasional and unaccompanied by anypublic demonstration. Durham University held a meeting in 1852, but no 7"!f ce T T has . erL f otni dthat it was continued annuallv. rH Universities, Exeter College, Oxford, was all alone till 185o, whenmention was first made of any sports at Cambridge; St. John's College anEdmmanuel taking the lead. At Oxford, Balliol, Wadham, Pembroke, and Worcester foUowedthe example of Exeter in 1856; Oriel . in l86 7 ;Merton in 1858;Christ Church in 1859;and in TV separate College meetings had become general. At the close of 1860, the Oxford University Sports, opento all undergraduates, owed their foundatiotno theexertions