interest of students in religion increased, and
religious organizations in a number of colleges were founded.
Practically all of these later gave way to the Young Men's Christian
Association, which has now over 50,000 members organized in almost all
the colleges of the country save the Roman Catholic. The religious
interests of Roman Catholic students are in many colleges served by
the Newman Clubs and similar organizations, and of Jewish students by
the Menorah Society. The religion of college students has become less
a matter of form and speech and more a matter of service--social
service of many kinds at home and missionary service abroad.

=Physical education=

The educational reformers of Europe in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries placed great emphasis upon a more complete
physical training. This interest was felt in the United States, and
simple gymnastic apparatus was set up at Harvard and Yale in 1826. The
movement spread very slowly, however, due probably to ignorance of its
real physiological import. Since the Civil War the development of the
gymnastic system has been rapid, and now practically every first-class
college has its gymnasium, attendance upon which is compulsory, and
some have their stadium and natatorium. Of independent origin but
hastened by the spread of the gymnasium is the vast athletic interest
of undergraduates. Its earliest form, conducted on a considerable
scale, was rowing. The first rowing club was formed at Yale in 1843,
and the first intercollegiate race was rowed on Lake Winnepesaukee in
1852, Harvard defeating Yale. Rowing is now a form of athletics at
every college where facilities permit. The first baseball nine was
formed at Princeton in 1859, and the game spread rapidly to all the
other colleges. Football in a desultory and unorganized way made its
appearance early in the nineteenth century. As early as 1840 an annual
game was played at Yale between the freshmen and the sophomores, but
the establishment of a regular football association dates from 1872,
also at Yale. In the following year an intercollegiate organization
was formed, and since then football has increased in popularity at the
colleges to such an extent that just as baseball has become the great
national game, so has football become the great American collegiate
game. Track athletics is the most recent form of athletic sports to be
introduced into the college, and most colleges now have their fiel