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Fact and Comment

Yale Weekly Supports English Stroke.

In the current issue of the Yale Alum- ni Weekly, the decision of the Yale rowing authorities to stick to the English stroke for another year is discussed as follows. The Alumni Weekly seems more fervent in its support of this policy than the Yale News.

"We believe and feel that a great majority of the graduates will believe with us that this was the only possible and right decision for the new captain to make. It was the only decision that could be made--consistent with anything but that vacillating policy in college athletics which has for its slogan 'anything to win.'

"It was the only decision that squares with the ultimate values in Yale rowing that the great majority of graduates of Yale desire to see recognized. Technical matters aside, and speaking only from the layman graduate point of view, Yale University rowing has now for two years been conducted on a thoroughly thought-out policy which reverts to old Yale standards for its technique and spirit.

"Two defeats have been the immediate result. But it must not be lost sight of that during these two years the upperclassmen on the crews had to un- learn what they learned in their first two year at Yale under the old system, and that the squad is being recruited more and more from underclassmen who have been taught the new style and who in two successive freshman races, ac- quitted themselves splendidly against opponents who had to row themselves out to win.

"In fact, Captain Denegre, a junior, is the only veteran from last year who is on the 1914 varsity squad; the next crow will be drawn from material that has learned the new stroke only and that rowed, if at all, in freshman shells. In the head coach Yale has a young man who in the words of Bob Cook, 'has the flair and the keenness of the born coach.

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"A strong appeal will be made to every man in the university who has the stemmas and the physique to put Yale back where she formerly was on the water. We submit to the careful thought of all Yale men who are interested in the fortunes of Yale rowing, that Yale should be entering upon a period where the fruits of the two last years should begin to show themselves, and that at this time it would be pure opportunism and panic to do anything but remain true to the principles adopted."

Our Most Antiquated Building.

Speaking of the University's need of a new gymnasium, the Transcript said recently:

"There is an argument for a new gymnasium at Harvard which is peculiar to the place and to the case. In many colleges the gymnasium even of a gilt- edged variety, is used perfunctorily it will do when the weather is too foul to play out-of-doors. In Cambridge there is a large group of men, earnest busy stu- dents, who cannot spare the two or three hours an afternoon for a major or minor sport, but who can dash into a centrally located gymnasium for forty-five minutes to keep bodies tuned up to intellectual tasks. This is precisely the group of men who most need regular daily exercise, who derive the most direct stimulus from it, and to whom the college most owes an accommodation which indirectly redounds to its own advantage in their increased efficiency in later years. The institution at Cambridge is a large one a 'university' more truly than we are apt to remember, and the misconception of Harvard athletics which is most common arises from ignorance of the custom whereby nearly every undergraduate 'does something' in the way of regular exercise. This places a premium on the use of a gymnasium that is more than ordinary. Almost alone of the big universities of the country, Harvard's gymnasium is inadequate. Syracuse, Princeton, and Dartmouth men enjoy the newest apparatus, ventilation and sanitary machinery. The undergraduates of Harvard have given the $25,000 pledge of their zeal. It remains for the graduates to give theirs.

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