This may be fanciful, but the part played by open-air sports in the
life of Oxford is a great reality. Yet, in their present organized
form, they are a feature of quite, modern times. Fifty years ago,
football as a college sport in Oxford was only beginning; the men are
still living, and not octogenarians, who introduced their "school
games"--"Rugby," "Eton Wall game," etc.--at Oxford. Golf was left to
Scotchmen, hockey to small boys, La Crosse had not yet come from
beyond the Atlantic. Cricket and rowing were the only organized
games, and even in these the inter-University contests are
comparative novelties; the first boat race against Cambridge was
rowed in 1829, and it has only been an annual fixture since 1856.
Several results followed from this. In the first place, the very
sense of the word "sportsman" was different. Now it means a man who
can play well some, one at least, of the games that all men play;
then, it had its old meaning of a man who could shoot, or ride, or
fish, or do all these.
Again, as cricket is always a game for the few, and as the rowing
authorities, by the time the summer term begins, had selected their
chosen followers and left the rest of the world free, there was far
more walking, and consequently more knowledge of the country round
the city, than is the rule now.
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