In 1899 Harvard, under the new system, easily beat Yale, and in 'goo again turned out a fast eight. A week before the race F. L. Higgin son, Jr., the stroke-oar, hurt his ankle and was forced to leave the boat. Harding, who had been rowing No. 2, went to stroke, and the crew seemed to be quite as fast as before. Yale also had an exceptionally good eight, and the race was the most dramatic ever seen on the Thames. Yale started away first, and at two and one half miles they had a length and a half, with Harvard pretty well blown, and it seemed as though they would only increase the distance between the shells as the race went on. Har vard was rowing thirty-two and Yale a stroke higher. In the half-mile to the next flag Hard ing started a great spurt that overcame the Yale lead and placed the Harvard shell a full length ahead at the three-mile point. Suddenly Hard ing was seen to fall over his stretcher and stop rowing; he had been without sleep for several nights thinking over his new duties as stroke, and the strain was too much. Sheafe kept on with the stroke from No. 7, and Harvard finished the course ; but Yale, after the collapse, had merely paddled on.
In the four years that bring the account of these races to the present moment, Yale has been successful in each University contest ; they have continued the same stroke, but have passed gradu ally from amateur to professional coaching. John Kennedy, the professional, had been engaged as a boat-rigger and assistant, but he was found to be so well fitted for coaching that a merely nominal head coach was appointed, usually the captain of the previous year, and the actual coaching de volved upon Kennedy.
Harvard has kept close to amateur coaching for the finishing of the University and the Fresh man crews ; the early work in the clubs, as men tioned, is in the charge of professionals, but the selection of the squads and the final modelling of the eight has been entirely amateur, and done by Harvard graduates until 1904, when the success of Cornell at Poughkeepsie led to the engage ment of Colson, a former Cornell coxswain, who endeavored to teach the stroke that was then being taught at Ithaca.