The afternoon is given up to sport. Oxford students probably give more time to athletics than any other body of students in the world. At Heidelberg, aside from a few sporadic efforts on the river, the most strenuous exercise indulged in seems to be on the blood-stained floor of the duelling-room in the ‘Hirschgasse’, but less than half the students indulge in this energetic crossing of swords. The French students scarcely understand the term ‘athletics’ at all. America and England lead, and although the American College has a good deal of athletics, and sometimes too much, it is athletics for the minority, whereas at Oxford almost everybody ‘goes in for something’. The students come from that class which can and does take the greatest interest in all manner of sports and athletic games. In the ‘Public Schools’ the boys learn the rules and requirements of their games, and get about all the coaching they ever get. Men do not often _learn_ games at the ’Varsity; they play them. ‘Practice’ is a word little heard on a College field; only in rowing is a systematic and an evolutionary coaching-system in practice. Each College has its own boats, its own football and cricket and hockey teams, with its own playing-fields. There is a constant programme of inter-college contests. The Oxford idea is ‘exercise for every one’, a thing of vital importance for keeping in condition in the climate of Oxford. Exercise is taught the English boy with his A, B, C. Of the 2,800 students who keep Term at Oxford, fully two-thirds are out engaging in some vigorous exercise every afternoon. For games, it is not requisite that one be a ‘star’—every one may find room at something or other. The men who show up best in their College teams or in College crews are ‘tried’ for the ’Varsity. Thus the ’Varsity teams and crews are chosen from a _very large number_ of men who are actually engaged in and practising the sports for which ’Varsity men are needed, and under this system athletic ability is often discovered which, under systems where only ‘promising candidates’ ever ‘try’, would never even be suspected. The game more than the victory is the objective in College contests,[47] and although this may rob the play of a certain intense strenuousness, it at the same time eliminates roughness and foul play. With the exception of rowing, systematic coaching and serious training are little applied. At times, this causes a decided lack of that efficiency which results from precise ‘team-work’, and may be criticized as leaving too much to the brilliancy of individual playing; but it eliminates professionalism and trickery.