Courser

“ When the instructor finds that his pupil is quite at her ease, riding her horse with one hand only, that she can do this, giving due freedom of action to the arm at the shoulder joint, has perfect command of him, and plenty of liberty and confidence in her own deportment on his back, he should take her out and ride with her in the park or road, and subsequently prepare her to extend her horse at a gallop, and commence her leaping lessons. ”

“ As the races are to be held this afternoon at the Course, a mile beyond the Kursaal, and just off the promenade, we wend our way thither. The race-course is similar to those in England and France. As the appointed hour approaches, a throng of fashionable people seat themselves upon the grand stand, until every place is filled, and even the aisles are crowded with the élite of Ostend. ”

“ Riding-school work forms the chief portion of his training as a recruit, when he is taught to ride both with and without stirrups, to take jumps with folded arms, to vault on to a horse’s back, and, in brief, to do all that can be done with a horse. ”

“ The instructor should then quit the lady's side and place himself near the brook in such a position that he has a fair view of the horse as he takes off. The pupil should turn her horse quietly about, and ride to the left into the corner of the school, and as soon as the horse's head is square to the jump, and himself square to the boards, the master should give the word smartly, "Canter." With plenty of vivacity, the pupil should immediately strike her horse into a striding pace, keeping her hands well back and hitting him smartly once with the spur. ”

“ To the true slacker, the college barges that line the Isis are an object of aversion, for into them sooner or later every fellow who loves the water finds his way, and then there is an end of slacking. Each of the barges is a grammar school of oarsmanship, where all available men are taught everything, from what thickness of leather to wear on the heels of their boating-shoes to the rhythm in rowing by which alone an eight can realize its full speed; and from the barges issues a navy of boats and boating-men more than ten times as large as that of an American university. ”

“ But, because one has a goal, must one be torn by poisoned spurs? We see on the Corso, in the days of the Carnival, what speed can be made by horses under torture. Shall we try those methods and that pace on our journeys? ”

“ A description of the cour would be incomplete without an enumeration of the manifold duties of the planton in charge, which were as follows: to prevent the men from using the horizontal bar, except for chinning, since if you swung yourself upon it you could look over the wall into the women's cour; to see that no one threw anything over the wall into said cour; to dodge the cannon-ball which had a mysterious habit of taking advantage of the slope of the ground and bounding along at a prodigious rate of speed straight for the sentry-box ”

“ From time to time the sport has been pursued by various nations against various animals, but the recognized method has generally been the coursing of the hare by greyhounds. Such sport is of great antiquity, and is fully described by Arrian in his Cynegeticus about A.D. 150, when the leading features appear to have been much the same as in the present day. Other Greek and Latin authors refer to the sport; but during the middle ages it was but little heard of. Apart from private coursing for the sake of filling the pot with game, public coursing has become an exhilarating sport. ”

“ Alston.
You take Richmond Hill; bring no horse nor carriage. I have got a nice, new, beautiful little chariot, made purposely to please you. I have also a new coachee, very light, on an entire new construction, invented by the vice-president. Now these two machines are severally adapted to two horses, and you may take your choice of them. Of horses I have five; three always and wholly at your devotion, and the whole five occasionally. Harry and Sam are both good coachmen, either at your orders. Of servants there are enough for family purposes. ”

“ One suddenly flings out his hand with one, two, or more fingers extended, at the same moment the other must guess the number. Curling has been called the roaring game, but no curler ever made a greater racket than two excited chi-mooe players. ”

“ In some fifteen strokes he accomplished his task of holing out; and now, weary and desponding (for he had fancied Golf to be an easy game) , he would have desisted for the day. But the Head of the Faculty pressed on him the necessity of "The daily round, the common task." So his ball was tee'd, and he lammed it into the Scholar's Bunker, at a distance of nearly thirty yards. A niblick was now placed in his grasp, and he was exhorted to "Take plenty sand." ”

“ The class being formed into a single column, close together, each rider should make an individual turn to the right on the long side of the school opposite where the hurdle is to be placed, as she can thus see for herself any faults which may be committed by her companions. ”

“ They have, in the first place, the priceless gift of youth. Those who have laid them out have been able to study both the merits and the faults of the older courses, and then, with the advantage of all this accumulated mass of knowledge, have set themselves to the work of creation. This science, for so it may now be fairly called, of the laying out of courses on carefully discussed and thought-out principles, is itself comparatively modern; the very expression ‘a good length hole,’ which is now upon all golfers’ lips, is of no great antiquity. ”

“ Proctor is reported as standing high in the university among the "wranglers." We have wranglers in this country, and keep a whole Congress of them for public exhibition, as gladiators were exhibited at the Roman shows. But in the English universities this term is applied to a limited group of first-class students or honor-men who go in on the final scramble for the highest places in a numerical gradation. He who beats all the rest is called "senior wrangler." ”

“ To several of these I have alluded elsewhere; but one should be especially mentioned to whom every member of the faculty must feel a debt of gratitude—Professor Hiram Corson. No one has done more to redress the balance between the technical side and the humanities. His writings, lectures, and readings have been a solace and an inspiration to many of us, both in the faculty and among the students. ”

“ A medical student would have told [him] that a "Grind" meant the reading up for an examination [under] the tuition of one who was familiarly termed "a Grinder" - a process which Mr. Verdant Green's friends would phrase as "Coaching" under "a Coach;" but the conversation that followed upon Mr. Smalls' introduction of the subject, made our hero aware, that, to a University man, a Grind did not possess any reading signification, but a riding one. In fact, it was a steeple-chase, slightly varying in its details according to the college that patronized the pastime. ”

“ Then a certain amount of generalship must be used by one side to so distribute its stones that the opponents may not be able to dislodge those nearest to the centre of the tee circle. It will be seen that curling is a sort of giant game of shuffle-board, but much more susceptible to scientific work than the latter. A close finish in curling frequently arouses both parties to the highest excitement, and many funny stories have been written about staid Scottish squires and dignified dominies who have found themselves hotly disputing with one another on a curling-rink. ”

“ You can play golf without having to go into training for it."
"Nevertheless, West," replied the head coach, "if a fellow can play golf without being in training, doesn't it stand to reason that the same fellow can play a better game if he is in training? That is, won't he play a better game if he is in better trim?" ”

“ It should be the duty of the instructor carefully to warn his pupil against any such effort, and in the first attempt to attend only to her true equilibrium, while she presses the horse well up to his bridle, keeping her hands perfectly steady, well back, and well down. ”

“ By this time both he and the pupil will have gone through a tolerably severe lesson, because the collected pace necessary to execute it, and especially the circles, necessitates a great deal of cantering before a beginner can ascertain the true cadence—without which, and a considerable amount of support from her hand and leg, it is unsafe and useless for her to attempt her turns and circles; frequently, too, a horse will have to go several times round the school before the instructor can see the opportunity to give the word. ”

“ The Bald-faced Kid chuckled.
"A smart owner can do anything," said he, "and Weaver's smart. At these other tracks, stealing weight off a horse is the king of indoor sports, and they mostly work it through a stand-in with the clerk of the scales; but you're right about this fellow Parker. He's on the level, and they can't get at him. A jock has got to weigh in and weigh out on the dot when Parker is [Pg 56] on the job. He won't let 'em get by with the difference of an ounce."
"Then how——" began Old Man Curry.
"There you go, busting through the barrier! ”

“ The instructor hooks a rope into a ring in the back of my belt, and runs it through a pulley in the ceiling. It would be a beautiful system if one had perfect confidence in the probity of one's instructor. ”

“ Curling is a Scotch game. For centuries past everybody who has been anybody in the Land o' Cakes has played golf in the spring, summer, and autumn, and curling in the winter; and wherever Scotchmen have gone to live they have introduced their national games.
For a good game of curling a sheet of clear ice and a number of curling-stones are necessary. But what is a curling stone, or "channel stane," as it is sometimes called, from the fact that stones found in the channels of rivers were formerly used in the game? ”

“ They seem to think that the noble foundations of our old universities are hardly fulfilling their functions in their present posture of half-clerical seminaries, half racecourses, where men are trained to win a senior wranglership,51 or a double-first,52 as horses are trained to win a cup, with as little reference to the needs of after-life in the case of a man as in that of the racer. ”

“ The clergyman's face showed a golfer's satisfaction at having tripped a fellow player. "The Worthing course is the most difficult course in England, all up hill and down dale, and full of pitfalls for those who don't know its peculiarities. ”

“ The Lent Term at Oxford is rather a dull one for men who do not row, run, or play soccer. In my time golfers were thought dull whether they played golf or only talked about it. I did run in our college sports because Collier said I wouldn't, and Collier ran because I said he couldn't, the result was that we competed in a half-mile handicap in which he received the munificent start of eighty-five yards, while I had to worry through the whole distance with the exception of twenty yards. ”

“ When the horse has so far advanced in its education as to understand well the attack of spurs of the first degree, the work is exactly repeated with spurs of the second degree. Following these, spurs of the the third degree will still further augment the effects of the legs, without affecting the pupil's equanimity. ”

“ The canter for the Row, conventionally and wisely, should be almost as collected as that of the riding school. It is an understood thing, in fact, that no lady or gentleman (properly so called) "sets a horse going" there; and trotting when practised should also be done very collectedly, both paces admitting of the display of talent and proficiency in equitation of the rider. ”

“ Still there occasionally comes a time when we grow sick to death of the crowding and waiting on the old course, and then we are glad enough to steal away on to the new course and have a round, which will probably be at any rate a comparatively quick one. ”

“ And by Millstead is meant, in the first instance, the School. The Masters, for once, discarded their gowns and mortar-boards and appeared in resplendent evening-suits which, in some cases, were not used at all during the rest of the year. Masters, retired and of immense age, rumbled up to the main gateway in funereal four-wheelers and tottered to their seats beneath the curious eyes of an age that knew them not. ”

“ Rumour has it that a movement is on foot amongst a certain section of the golfing public to ensure that for the future all caddies on English links shall be compelled to furnish satisfactory proof that they are physically and morally qualified for the porterage and cleaning of clubs, and acquainted with the more rudimentary principles of the game. ”

“ Baseballs and bats made their appearance and swept through the school like an epidemic. The campus became the center of Academy life, and the golf links was dotted with enthusiastic players. As soon as the cinder track had dried sufficiently Professor Beck and his charges took possession, and outdoor training began with spirit. ”

“ The progress of the animal's education to the effects of the spurs is, therefore, the same, in general, as its training to the effects of the legs, except that it needs even more patience and kindness. In case the horse has previously been maltreated with the spurs, the training is the same, but still more kind and patient. ”

“ The strength of the boating spirit gives rise to no end of casual and incidental races. Chief among these are the coxswainless fours, which take place about the middle of the autumn term, while the trials are on the river. The crews are from the four or five chief boating colleges, and are made up largely from the men in the 'varsity trials. The races have no relation that I could discover to the 'varsity race; the only point is to find which college has 112 the best four, and it is characteristic that merely for the sport of it the training of the 'varsity trials is interrupted. ”

“ A hurler should be able to run like a hare, hide like a rabbit, leap like a kangaroo, and climb like a monkey. Then he should be able to box like a pugilist, wrestle like a champion, and sky a ball like an All-England cricketer. ”