So far as games themselves were concerned, their cost was far less.  College matches away from Oxford were almost unknown; college grounds, which were still quite a new thing in the middle of last century, were nearly all concentrated on Cowley Marsh, and the somewhat heavy contribution from all undergraduates, now generally collected by the college authorities in “battels” and become semi-official, was not dreamed of.  Those who played paid, and the rest of the college got off easily.  And games were much more games than they are now, and less of institutions; the “professional amateur,” who comes up with a public school reputation to get his “blue,” was almost unknown, and certainly, so far as rowing was concerned, any powerful man with broad shoulders and a sound heart was a likely candidate for the University Boat.  The days were not dreamed of when the fortunes of Oxford and Cambridge on the river depended largely on the choice of a University by members of the Eton Eight.

But there is of course another side to the development of Oxford athletics.  Perhaps the most important point is that play is the greatest social leveller.  It is easy to attend the same lectures as a man, and even to sit at the same table with him in hall, and not to know him well, because his clothes and his accent are not quite correct.  But in these days when so many games are played, and when competition is so keen, any man who can do anything gets his chance; and many are the instances every year of men who would never have made friends in their colleges outside a small circle, had not their quickness as half-backs, or their ability as slow bowlers, brought their contemporaries to recognize their merits.  You cannot play with a man without knowing him, and young Oxford is democratic at heart, and when once it knows a man, it does not trouble about the non-essentials of wealth and fashion.

And again, though it may seem a paradox to say it, the amount of play in Oxford has increased the amount of work.  Organized games mean physical fitness, and physical fitness means ability to get intellectual work done.  Perhaps it may be argued that the absorption in athletics deadens all intellectual life, and that many Oxford men read only and discuss only the sporting news in the papers; this no doubt has a strange fascination, even for men who do not play; one of the most distinguished of Oxford statesmen of the last generation, himself so blind that he could not hit a ball, confessed to me that he always, in the summer, read the cricket news in The Times before he read anything else.  But he and many other Oxford men read something else, too.  And it may be maintained without question that the hard exercise, which is the fashion in Oxford, tends to keep men’s bodies healthy and to raise the moral tone of the place.  Oxford and Cambridge may not be what they should be in morals, but they compare very favourably in this respect with other towns.