The differences in the English and the Ameri can strokes are due to the points from which they viewed the slide at its invention, and this is brought out in a controversy between a New York weekly and a London paper of the time. The Spirit of the Times (New York) said, in a history of the sliding seat : " Even when correctly rigged, few comprehended the real way to utilize the new invention. Some slid and did not row ; some rowed and did not slide ; some rowed first and slid afterwards ; some slid first and rowed afterwards. But all tried merely to engraft the new motion on to their old style, and none grasped the central idea that old things had passed away, and that the corner-stone of the new dispensation was the substitution of slide for swing." The sense of the remarks is apparent, and Land and Water (London) answered : " I fancy that the majority of our English oarsmen will hardly agree that the secret of good sliding is the substitution of slide for swing, but rather that the difficulty of the new departure is the art of adding the advan tage of the slide to the swing without entirely spoiling the effect of the latter valuable motive power." Thus it came about that our strokes had the slide as a basis and the English the swing, and we steadily cut down our swing, and at the same time increased the number of strokes until we had forgotten the swing altogether and made all the force of the stroke come from the legs, and the oar travelled only through the arc of greatest power. This stroke was the easiest to learn, and a crew might row fairly well with it after a short time, for it brought in only the muscles of the legs and did not require a special training of the ab dominal muscles as in the swing ; but the quickness with which the power had to be applied did not give the oarsman a chance to breathe, and he needed the best of condition to row. The re covery was not much thought of ; the prevailing idea was that the oar should be in the water as much as possible and out as little as possible.
Cook brought from England a longer swing which helped out the stroke, but his best importa tion was the theory of the recovery which he, for the first time, really appreciated. The early Cook stroke was not so effective in a boat of less size than an eight, because neither a four nor a cox swainless six are heavy enough to travel between strokes.
In 1876 Yale and Harvard went off to row in eights, and the others kept to the smaller boats ; the first race in eights taught Harvard the value of an easy recovery, and they, under Bancroft, took much of the Cook stroke and won while Yale was exaggerating the slowness of their stroke and hanging badly. Later Yale was carried away by the Davis ideas, and then came back to the older system, while Harvard started on the experi ments that have ever since continued at Cam bridge.
The rowing of Yale and Harvard in eights and of the other colleges in sixes and fours kept back the development of a stroke ; the stroke of an eight is not always best in a four, and Cornell, Columbia, and later Pennsylvania kept to the fast stroke. When these colleges started to row in eights they held their old stroke, and Cornell, es pecially, because the men were strong and Court ney taught perfect watermanship, made good records in the eights. Pennsylvania, like Cornell, had the advantage of a permanent system, and, though they departed for a few years from the coaching of Ellis Ward, they were under him most of the time, and gradually learned by defeat the proper way to row in eights. Columbia, after Mr. Goodwin's withdrawal, had no stability, and their rowing history is somewhat the same as Harvard's and about as checkered. Mutual jeal ousy prevented an exchange of ideas ; no crew cared to row quite like any other from the fear that they might be accused of imitation. It went on thus until our eights tried Henley and Mr. Lehmann came to Harvard ; then followed the English period of stroke which was not really the English stroke, but which aimed to be both the English and the American stroke at the same time. Cornell, Yale, and Harvard tossed their
heads away trying to catch hard, and exhausted themselves in their untrained swing. Cornell beat Yale and Harvard, and Pennsylvania, keep ing the long slide with little swing, beat Cornell. Another change in stroke came with time, and the foolish parts of the Anglo-American stroke were discarded ; the crews went gradually back to the stroke with the long slide as a basis, and, where they had been taking only sixteen and seventeen inches, they began to give each man as much slide as he could use, and now nearly every shell is fitted with a twenty-seven-inch slide.
The present stroke is briefly this : the reach is with the elbows at the knees, which are well apart ; the catch is made firmly but after the oar is in the water, — the oar does not strike the water with force as in many of the harder catches of old. As the body rises, the knees come to gether, and when the body reaches the perpen dicular, the legs are slammed down, and by the time that the slide has reached the limit, the body has swung just beyond the perpendicular, and the oar is brought in sharply, but without apparent effort — no jerk. Then the hands are shot down and away at once, the body swings forward, and as it passes the perpendicular the slide starts slowly forward. This stroke is rowed with variations by all the colleges at the present time. The movements are the same in all the strokes ; but some catch harder, others finish more strongly, while some crews will place more emphasis on the middle.
This is the stroke which one may now call the American stroke. It represents a greater unity of idea than at any time since college rowing began ; but that does not mean that the stroke is liable to continue, though it does seem that the era of sudden changes is over.
After all discussions of stroke, the question arises at once, " Is the American stroke better than the English ? " and one must go far to find an answer. Our crews have been beaten in com petition with the English with the exception of Columbia ; they won the Visitor's Cup at Henley in 1878, beating the Jesus College four ; and this is the only really equal competition that has ever occurred. Our college crews have gone to Henley, and usually rowed against Leander, which means an eight that can represent the best English oars men when called on to defend the Grand Chal lenge Cup from a foreign crew. The Leander Club elects each year the leaders of rowing, and at any time they can collect the men to form an eight which will be the fastest crew of all Eng land. The American crews have, on the other hand, all been undergraduate, and have never had a chance to meet a really good undergrad uate English boat with the exception of Cor nell, who were beaten by Trinity Hall ; but then Cornell collapsed. Columbia's strongest oppo nent was Jesus College, and in this equal match Columbia won, besides beating other college fours on their way to final victory. We, of course, cannot bring together an intercollegiate crew of any kind, because of the differences of stroke and the fact that few of our men row after graduation. Thus a comparison of stroke on the basis of per formances is impossible. Our club crews have also been beaten ; but they were not exponents of the college stroke and do not come into the dis cussion. The nearest rub for the Grand was that of Pennsylvania, and they, with a young under graduate crew, gave Leander a hard race and were beaten by less than a length. Leander was better in physique and greater in experience, so that one can say with equal strength that Lean der won because of a better stroke, or because of better men. That is how the whole matter stands, and it will never be settled until an American undergraduate crew rows an English undergraduate, or until some American university really tests the English stroke.