Americans -- England -- Oxford; Education -- United States; Education, Higher -- England -- Oxford; University of Oxford
The crowning event of the season of tubbing is a wine, to which are
invited all boating-men in college, and the representative athletes in
other sports. In Balliol it is called the "Morrison wine," as the
races are called "Morrison fours," in honor of an old Balliol man, a
'varsity oar and coach, who established the fund for the prizes. The
most curious thing about this affair is that it is not given, as it
would be in America, at the expense of the college, or even of the men
who have been tubbed, but at the expense of those who are finally
chosen to row in the races.
To my untutored mind the hospitality of English boating seemed a pure
generosity. It made me uncomfortable at first, with the sense that I
could never repay it; but I soon got over this, and basked in it as
in the sun. The eightsmen devote their afternoons to coaching you
because there are seats to be filled in the torpid and in the eight;
they speak decently because they find that in the long run decency is
more effective; and they hold the wine because they wish to honor the
sport in which they have chosen to stake their reputations as
athletes. In a word, where in America we row by all that is
self-sacrificing and loyal, in England the welfare of boating is made
to depend upon its attractiveness as a recreation and a sport; if it
were not enjoyable to the normal man, nothing could force fellows into
it.
The relationship of the autumn tubbing and its incidental sociability
to the welfare of the sport in the college and in the university seems
remote enough to the American mind, for out of the score of fellows
who are tubbed only three or four, on an average, go farther in the
sport. Yet it is typical of the whole; and it will help us in
following the English boating season. Throughout the year there are
two converging currents of activity in boating. On the one hand, the
tubs in the autumn term develop men for the torpids, which come on
during the winter term; and the torpids develop men for the summer
eights. On the other hand, the 'varsity trials in the autumn term
develop men for the 'varsity eight, which trains and races in the
winter term; and the 'varsity oarsmen, like the men who have prospered
in tubs and torpids, end the season in the eights of their respective
colleges. The goal of both the novice and the veteran is thus the
college eight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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