XIII. UPPINGHAM SCHOOL.
(Colours— White flannel cnp and blazer, trimmed with blue; blue sash.)
Uppingham has taught the cricket world one thing—the value of a really first-class coach and instructor. This is no place to discuss the character of the late H. H. Stephenson, who was as fine a man as he was a cricketer, but one may be allowed to say that his high character lent an efficiency and weight to his high cricketing abilities, practical and theoretical, which it would be hard to equal. At any rate, on his arrival Uppingham cricket, already of a high class, sprang at once to the highest class, and the school may well be grateful to the foresight of its first great cricketer, C. E. Green, who enabled it to secure the services of so valuable an instructor.
Uppingham is blessed in its grounds—two enclosures on which some fifteen games can be played simultaneously, with a little dovetailing. The Upper ground is reserved exclusively for cricket, and winter games are not allowed to desecrate the light soil, well drained and quickly drying, on which the Upper games and school-matches are played. As a matter of space, all the school can be playing cricket at once. On the Upper ground three games take place every half-holiday, when there is no foreign match, and the members of these games can also find excellent practice-wickets there. On the Lower ground the games are arranged strictly according to cricket merit, irrespective of houses or position in the school. There are house-games, as opposed to the regular house-matches, on whole-school days.
As to coaching, Stephenson's principle was that "net-practice gets rid of faults, but an innings in a game was the highroad to learning cricket," and he used to coach assiduously from his post as umpire during these games. Bowlers and possible wicket-keepers were trained at first without a batsman, and with excellent results. His system is still being pursued, and in addition to this there is plenty of house-practice, with coaching and inspection by masters, so that a promising "colt" can hardly evade observation. Cricket, by the way, is not compulsory by the school rules, but the keenness of house-competitions makes it practically obligatory. Two masters have a general superintendence of the cricket, and as all elevens—Upper, Middle, and Lower, six in each—are decided by sheer merit, competition is vigorous and the games full of life and reality. Add to this the
