25 MAY 1951, Page 4

That Merton should have gone Head of the River at

Oxford for the first time deserves special notice, if only because Merton's history is longer than that of any other college at Oxford or Cambridge. Merton was founded in 1264, and the Statutes of Peterhouse, the oldest Cambridge college (1284), provide that the scholars should live " secundum regulam Scolarium Oxonie qui de Merton cognominantur." Though a good deal larger today than it was twenty years ago, Merton is still a small college without any strong athletic tradition, so that its rowing revival is all the more creditable. No one will be better pleased about it than Dr. H. W. Garrod, who holds a unique place in the affections of the College—and who writes, I believe, on Cowper in this week's Spectator.