OUR BOATING PROSPECTS.

THE aquatic successes of last June make us all more kindly disposed toward rowing, more hopeful for victory, and more ready to support the boat-clubs and the crew, than we have had reason to be for a number of years. By the excellent management of the treasury, the crew's finances have been left in a much better condition than before; but the tottering boat-clubs, with difficulty kept on their legs through last year, are now feebly supplicating support for another season. Boating is standing before us, like a stout and swift but rather ill-cared-for horse, ready to be fed, driven, and enjoyed.

There has been of late years, about rowing here at Harvard, a great deal to pay, a great deal of work, and precious little fun. Somehow things were so managed that it was all paying out with nothing coming in. Expensive boats were bought, used for one race, and then laid on the rests to rot. The University Boat-House was kept, at the expense of all, for the use of a few patient fellows, who were trained and scolded and worked, and then beaten. To afford cheap rowing for all another boat-house was built, and another lot of boats bought (or rather taken, for I believe they are not yet paid for), and the club system inaugurated. The club members had to pay, in addition to their subscriptions to the crew, a good deal of money for the privilege of rowing in very poorly kept boats; and in these hard times few could afford to join. Now, what all would like is, of course, some plan by which they could get an adequate return for what they pay for boating.

Up to last year there has been, for a long time, no return at all to the money subscribed for the crew; but the recent victories have done much to encourage subscriptions in that quarter. The clubs, however, which have been gradually going from bad to worse, are in a more hopeless condition than before. Since the future of the crew depends largely on these clubs, something must be done to connect the crew with them, so that the subscriber to the crew shall receive in return, not only the uncertain promise of victory, but the definite personal enjoyment of rowing in the clubs and in well-kept boats. Boating must be arranged on the business-like basis of pay and receive.

The best way to accomplish this seems to be that marked out in an article called "A University Boat-Club," which was written by an officer of the H. U. B. C., and published in the Crimson of April 20, 1877 (Vol. IX. No. 5). It is there proposed that the four subordinate clubs consolidate with the H. U. B. C., still preserving, for the sake of races, the divisions according to residence; that the membership fee be ten dollars, and that every member of the University who subscribes ten dollars or more to the crew be made a member of the new H. U. B. C., and that the crew give up to the club their shells and barges as they are through with them. The writer shows with a few figures that, by his plan, the expenses of the crew, the rent of both boat-houses, and the salary of a janitor could be paid, and leave a balance of over one thousand dollars to spend annually on repairs and new boats. These are the main features of his plan, though his whole article deserves a careful perusal.

If this plan can be carried out, either at once or in the spring, there is every reason to believe that we can place boating on a firm footing, put an end to its hand-to-mouth struggle for existence, and arouse for it some such steady interest and genuine liking as that which makes the formation of good crews so easy a matter in the English universities; and maybe we can have as good a time with rowing as they do.

The success of the plan will depend upon the hearty co-operation of every student. If all will take right hold of boating now, this fall, and put it through vigorously, we can soon find ourselves enjoying a healthier, manlier, and cheaper pastime than smoking cigarettes in the doorway of Holyoke or playing billiards at Parker's.