It included Cornell, Union, Syracuse, Hobart, Rochester, Hamilton, and Madison, and, like the New England Association, made possible a joint meet, in which the minor colleges might com pete with a keener sense of sentimental rivalry and with a fairer chance of doing themselves jus tice than they could at the big annual meet at Mott Haven.
What was true of New England and New York was true of the Middle West and the Pa cific Slope, although in the smaller colleges of the Middle West the new sport was slow in striking fire. And, for the matter of that, many of these little colleges gave scant attention to any sort of sport in those days, and what tentative interest the undergraduates themselves happened to take was likely to be frowned upon by the faculty. Most of these small colleges were either coeduca tional or strongly sectarian, or both. In the first there was likely to be a feeling that there was something incompatible between athletics and a decorous gentlemanliness, and in the latter sport was looked at askance as flippant and of the flesh fleshy. Those who had these institutions in charge were generally men who had come from good old New England stock, or who had been brought up in the stern school of the pioneer, and it was naturally very difficult for them to look upon mere games as anything but a waste of time. A letter which President Buckham of the University of Vermont wrote, in 1875, in reply to a newspaper query, " Why was Vermont not represented at Saratoga ? " illustrates forcibly the point of view of many wise and good men of that day toward the growing cult of athleticism — of many men of to-day, for that matter, who were brought up in the old school and whose opinion of outdoor sport, and what comes of it, is more a matter of personal prejudice than of knowledge at first hand and personal experience. Thus speaks President Buckham, and the " earnest of the north wind " of old New England is felt in every word : — " You ask why the University of Vermont was not represented at Saratoga. It certainly was not for lack of facilities for training, for we have, as you suggest, a beautiful lake on one side of us and a beautiful river on another side. Neither was it for lack of manliness in our men. The university was ' represented' in almost every great battle of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to Petersburg, having sent to the field a larger num ber in proportion to its total roll than any other New England college. But the fact is, that neither the character of our community nor the traditions of the college are such as to encourage sporting habits. A large proportion of its stu dents, large enough to determine the prevail ing tone of the institution, are sons of farmers— plain, industrious fellows, who are working their way through college, and who, at the time of the regatta, are swinging the scythe in the hay-fields or handling the compass and chain on the rail road. Besides, though they are poor, they are
proud, and would regard it as beneath the dignity of a free-born Vermonter to expose their muscle in public, like gladiators in the amphitheatre, for Mrs. Morrisey and other high-born dames to bet on. If you will get up a contest in some honest and useful work, and will insure us against the intrusion of gamblers and blacklegs, we will en gage to be represented.' Meanwhile, we must answer your petition as to why we were not repre sented at Saratoga by pleading that we are too busy, too poor, and too proud." Sentiments such as these would have found an echo, we venture to say, in many of the smaller colleges of the Middle West during the seventies and eighties ; but the new order of things had come to stay, and as the larger state universities grew in importance and popularity, and such institutions as Michigan and Wisconsin began to take on more of the frivoli ties and social complexities of the East, athletics — and track athletics along with football and baseball — began to play an aggressive role in college life. The Middle West was about twenty years behind the East in beginning intercolle giate track contests, but desultory " field days " had been held at the larger colleges all through the seventies and eighties. At Ann Arbor, long before intercollegiate contests were started, open games and interclass games were held ; and dur ing the eighties, crack athletes from the Detroit Athletic Club used to come out and run the un dergraduates off their feet. The races of those days were run on the clay track at the Ann Arbor fair grounds. It was not until 1890 that the University of Michigan had an athletic field of her own ; and it was several years later before she had a really good cinder path. Michi gan was the first Western college to enter the Intercollegiate Association, and in 1885 Bonine, the Michigan sprinter, won the hundred at Mott Haven. Dean Worcester, later to become a mem ber of the Philippine Commission and Secretary of the Interior for the Philippine Government, had done fast time in the mile walk on the old dirt track at Ann Arbor, and he was sent down East with Bonine. He was disqualified by the judge of walking, however. Considerable heart burning was aroused at Michigan, and it was not until 1895 that Ann Arbor cared to send any more men down to Mott Haven. Bonine's suc cess acted, however, as a decided stimulus to track athletics, and the Ann Arbor open field days became more and more interesting and important. It was at one of these field days that Harry Jewett, who won the national amateur championship in the hundred in ten flat in 1892, came up from Notre Dame as a raw schoolboy and first showed what was in him. Ducharme, the Detroit Athletic Club hurdler, was another club athlete who ran in the Ann Arbor open games.