Mr. Lees Knowles on Athletics.

Mr. Lees Knowles, M.P., who accompanied the Oxford and Cambridge athletes to America last fall, gives in the "Empire Review" an account of their visit and makes these interesting observations:

"I do not propose to contrast minutely the British with the American athletes or to discuss at length their different modes of training. The Americans certainly take great pains in this respect, and work out their methods with mechanical precision, rather too mechanical, perhaps, if it be true as I am told that some men avoid being selected to represent their university in athletic competition on account of the many pleasures which they would have to give up and the laborious training which they would have to undergo. Possibly we train too little, they train too much. The climate no doubt has an effect upon both. It may be that the nerves and nervous nature of the American enable him to get a better start in short distance races; it may be that the stamina and endurance of the Briton enable him to last better in long distances. No doubt each has something to learn from the other. But we Oxford and Cambridge University men, like our athletic brethren with whom we have competed on the other side of the water, have taken up athletics not for a career or a profession but for exercise and sport. Nothing showed this better than the characteristic remark made by Garnier when he was told that he had been beaten on the tape in the hurdles: "Well, I'm sorry," he said, "but after all it was a good race." Our duty as university athletes is, to adapt the words of George Washington, to raise an athletic standard to which the wise and honest can repair.

"I do not know when the next contest between Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Cambridge will take place, but I think the challenge or invitation should come from alternate countries and not necessarily from a defeated team. In may opinion it would be a pity to hold these sports annually, and I believe this view is supported by the athletes of the universities concerned. If the sports were held at short intervals there would be a tendency for the interest to wane, there would also be a difficulty regarding university arrangements, and it might not always be easy to meet the expenses. Moreover it is desirable in the return matches that the teams should be mainly composed of new blood. But return matches there should be, and inter-university contests ought certainly to be encouraged, not only for the good of the athletes themselves, but also for the good of the Empire of which they form no unimportant factor."