WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO
serious objection. The Charles at Boston is straight; and would hold three Henleys side by side. And would so need fewer heats; while New York has, upon the Passaic and the Hackensack, within a few minutes' ride of the Metropolis, ample straight reaches, ready for precisely the Henley test—leaving out the inconsiderable element of the current—undisturbed by navigation; and always ready for shell-work. If, in early May each year, and why should not our 'Varsity race be in May? instead of having it come at the end of the year when interfering with examinations and interfered with by them—and by many other things? we had the Diamond Sculls for singles; a race for fours; and another for eights, always rowed upon the one track; and a little care taken to get there the best men of the year; it would at once be seen that the winners could rightly represent us in England. Care should be had to meet every requirement of the Henley Stewards as to what is an amateur; for as we would go largely as their guests, we surely should regard the rules which our hosts applied to their own men. The winners here by May 10th could be rowing on the Thames at Henley by May 20th; ample time before the great battle of July 7th and 8th to get acclimated, and in all ways fit. We have not yet had any such satisfactory contest as that would be, from disregard of these few and simple conditions. And Henley is all we are likely to ever try much in England; for the long-distance Putney-to-Mortlake inter-university race is rowed so early, in middle or late March, that its winners will not stay together till our men get over, in July or August, to meet them. Besides, that is a private match—not an open meeting. But Henley suits them; and, by a little arrangement, could suit as as well. And the cordial treatment Yale met at their hands
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