{"id":755,"count":14,"description":"The beginning of each October brings with it the anticipation of one of the more popular traditions at St. Paul\u2019s School, Cricket Holiday. More than one hundred years after the last formal cricket games were played on the Lower Grounds, this holiday remains a vivid and memorable part of the experience of today\u2019s students.\r\n  \r\nCricket was played with great dedication and enthusiasm from the earliest days of St. Paul\u2019s School.  The first recorded game was played in 1857, and it remained an essential sport at the School until 1903 when the growing popularity of baseball finally eclipsed cricket. During the height of the sport, in the 1880s and 1890s, the School Cricket Eleven went on tour and played tournaments against professional teams in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and its most celebrated victory, the tour of Canada in 1889.  The game of cricket is embedded in the foundation of the School, and the fact that Cricket Holiday survives even the game itself reflects the sport\u2019s importance in the history of St. Paul\u2019s School.\r\n\r\nThe announcement of Cricket Holiday is as indirect as it is anticipated.  The Rector recites a special prayer, \u201cFor Use on Holidays\u201d reserved only for this day. It begins with:\r\n\r\n\t\u201cO, Lord, who hast promised that thy holy city Jerusalem shall be full of boys and girls playing . . .\u201d\r\n\r\nIt is likely that very few students, past or present, know much more than that of the prayer due to the response that those few words elicit from those in attendance.  Samuel Smith Drury, in his letter published in the Autumn 1922 edition of the <i>Alumni Horae<\/i>, credits Dr. James DeKoven as the author of the prayer. Drury\u2019s letter describes the Cricket Holiday outing on October 13th of that year which included a long walk through the grounds followed by a picnic at the Shattuck boathouse. He says:\r\n\r\n\t\u201cIn a way, Cricket Holiday marks the fact that the new year is really begun. That we are beginning it happily and wholesomely together seems to be the case.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe continues with a section directed specifically to alumni of the School:\r\n\r\n     \u201cMany of you, perhaps confined to cities, would like to hear the rustle of Autumn leaves beneath your feet, and see the glistening ponds, and even attend a picnic on the shores of that lake of many a rowing contest and memory.  But the next best thing will be to know that the good old life here goes freshly on, and that youth as ever hopeth all things.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn celebration of the sport that gave birth to Cricket Holiday, photographs from the St. Paul\u2019s School archives have been digitized and displayed online. Selected photographs have been gathered into this exhibit to provide an introduction to the history of the sport of cricket at St. Paul\u2019s School as well as a context for the enduring tradition of Cricket Holiday.\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n","link":"http:\/\/www.ohrstromblog.com\/spsarchives\/archives\/category\/celebration_of_cricket_05","name":"In Celebration of Cricket","slug":"celebration_of_cricket_05","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ohrstromblog.com\/spsarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/755"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ohrstromblog.com\/spsarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ohrstromblog.com\/spsarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taxonomies\/category"}],"wp:post_type":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ohrstromblog.com\/spsarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts?categories=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}