True Sport and Sportsmanship 5 



Every English boy while at school is obliged to go out 

 and play. It is a part of his education. He carries the 

 love of outdoor sports taught him at the primary schools 

 on to college, and from there into the hunting-field. There 

 are three thousand students at the colleges in Oxford, and 

 I am informed on most reliable authority that over 

 two thousand of that number are daily engaged in some 

 form of field-sport. I have myself seen thirty crews of 

 eight men each rowing in a single race at Oxford. 

 These were the freshmen only, the pick of at least twice 

 that number of freshmen who were in daily practice. In 

 an English college at least ninety per cent, of the men go in 

 for field-sports. The percentage in an American college 

 must be considerably less. In England these field-sports 

 give place to cross-country riding to hounds when the boy 

 becomes a man. The transition is easy, for many of the 

 colleges and some of the large grammar-schools have packs 

 of foot beagles that once or twice a week hunt the hare. It 

 is a fine sight to see a hundred sturdy lads in the chase of 

 " puss " to a pack of twenty or thirty couples of beagles. 

 There is not a university in England, I believe, but has its 

 hunt club, and a goodly number of students keep hunters or 

 polo ponies that do double duty one or two days a week, 

 at polo, fox, or drag. Even if the English boy has missed 

 this training while at school or college, his healthy, sport- 

 hardened nerves never undergo a shock when he essays to 

 ride to hounds. 



There are in England and Scotland, in a territory little 

 larger than the State of New York, one hundred and thirty- 

 eight packs of hounds. Hunting is the national sport. It 



