Professor Trowbridge's Letter on Rowing.

We have received the following letter from Professor John Trowbridge giving his views on the subject of rowing. The suggestions are interesting and may prove valuable in the solution of the problem of repeated defeats on the water which we have been studying here so long.

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Hearing that I hold decided views in regard to rowing, you have kindly asked me to write a short article on the training of the crew. I approach this subject with diffidence, for I am well aware that one has pet superstitions in regard to the best way of applying strength to an oar; but when one reflects that distinguished physicians recommend certain remedies and other equally renowned doctors denounce the same remedies one is forced to confess that the only scientific way to decide upon the truth of various theories is to resort to scientific study and experiment.

I believe in the first place that no permanent success can be obtained by a system of graduate coaching. No graduate can afford to give his time to coaching a crew and there is not always strength in a multitude of counsellors. An enthusiastic coach cannot have permanent success with a crew unless he trains the crew systematically. I am firmly of the opinion that the crew should be constantly under the training of a man who makes it his profession in the sense that Mr. Lathrop makes it his profession to train the candidates for the Mott Haven team. The success of this team forms an instructive contrast to the failure of our crews. Moreover, the trainer of the crew need not necessarily be an oarsman himself any more than Mr. Lathrop is a sprinter. An intelligent trainer can make himself master of the art of applying ones muscles to an oar without himself actually excelling in the art. Such a trainer might be sent to England to study the art of rowing in an eight oar; for it is reasonable to suppose that something can be learned in the country where eight oar rowing has been studied and practised so long.

I believe it is fundamentally important that the crew should have a trainer who is not a graduate; a man who should give his whole time to the crews year after year just as Mr. Lathrop gives his time each year to the Mott Haven team. This, as I have said, I believe to be at the foundation of permanent success, but I regard it of equal importance that scientific experiments should be conducted on the best methods of applying strength to the oar. There are those who believe in straight back rowing and there are those who are advocates of the curved back. One man thinks that the body should not swing far from the upright position on the return stroke, and another advocates an incline to an almost comical extent. Rowing apparatus could be devised which might determine experimentally whether the straight back or the curved back constitute the best form. Instantaneous photographs of men in different positions might also be of use. I do not find anything approaching quantitative measurements in the methods of training the crew; and there is no body of collected material which the members of the crew can study year by year. Every thing is traditional, and the torch of knowledge is handed down from one coach to another frequently badly trimmed and in a sputtering condition. I am mindful of the fact that one important consideration is to get the crew to row together; but a crew may row together a very ineffective and unscientific stroke.

The true foundation for permanent success is, I believe, in the employment of a trainer like Mr. Lathrop, and in the careful scientific study with chronographs and scales and instantaneous photographs of the best methods of applying the muscular strength to an oar.

JOHN TROWBRIDGE.