the case to find a strong athlete in football, basketball, and track, and playing in all these forms throughout the year, leading his class in school. If a leader in both athletics and classroom work is found-and there are illustrations of such individuals-the chances are that he is first of all a good student and then an athlete as well. In other words, to no great extent is athletics conducive or intended to be conducive to scholarship. One seldom hears a coach say, "Get out for football; it will help you in scholarship." It is probable that exercise could be prescribed for the child which would be more valuable to him physically and mentally than athleticsfootball, basketball and track-as now conducted.

But often boys are taught that the milder sports such as volleyball, tennis, soccer, and other games which could be played through life, or well into life at any rate, are for "sissies" and not for real men. This is one of the most damaging influences which can come into the lives of boys.

One writer has shown how even these milder sports are becoming highly specialized. This specialization is illustrated in the following quotation:

"Lawn tennis, too, has been altered out of recognition. Thirty years ago it was a game for young ladies and curates of the less muscular type of christianity, and the preliminary matches on the courts were afterwards solemnized at the altar; it was less a sport than a overture to a betrothal. But times have changed. At the recent tournament, the whole world fought out a series of championships; and one of the competitors, conscious of the international importance of the occasion, was fed on champagne and massaged between sets to get the last ounce out of his muscles. At no distant date we may expect the fledgling champions to bring a retinue of highly qualified medical specialists, and it may become necessary to provide a nursing home in the immediate neighborhood, with a variety of twilight sleep for exhausted sportsmen.”4

4 Nineteenth Century, Aug. 1921, p. 245.

Not only in the physical and in the mental realm, but in morals as well, athletics is something like a gun in the hands of a child. The child may learn to use the gun, but may become slightly disfigured in the process.

The athlete is given an entirely erroneous opinion of himself. The newspaper comment, praising his wonderful plays, causes him to exaggerate his own worth to the team and to the community. Small boys-yes, adults sometimes-stand along the way as he goes by to secure his recognition. Surely, the time is at hand, when the true worth of any student should be determined, and unless the individual has something other than mere athletics to contribute to the school, he should not be given a greater place than the individual who contributes scholarship and morals.

Athletics is characterized as being valuable in developing self-control, etc. and yet no where does one hear more unsatisfactory language than on the athletic field and in the locker rooms. There is little reason why language should be allowed on the field which is not allowed in the classroom. Furthermore, if athletics is so good for physical development, self-control, mental development and all the moral qualities, it seems unreasonable that the child should be required to wait until he reaches high school before this training is given, and even then he is one of the twenty who receive it, while five hundred other students go without such training.

In spite of the above criticisms, which even athletes will probably agree are more or less well-founded, a large majority of the people today think kindly toward athletics and athletes. Whereas, twenty years ago, athletics was endured by the parents and the school authorities alike as a necessary evil, today, parents, teachers, principals, and school authorities attend games, throw their hats in the air, and yell themselves so hoarse they are unable to participate in the singing at church the following Sabbath.

The junior high school is probably having a great deal to do with this change of attitude; for in the junior high school

more than in any other division of the public schools are physical education and athletics a part of the curriculum. In a recent study of 250 junior high schools, it was found that 62% of them have gymnasiums, 14% have swimming pools, and 82% have access to an equipped athletic field or playground. But even in the junior high school the tendency is toward too much specialization in athletics.

There are many changes which should be made in the administration of physical education and athletics, and many of these changes could be effected if made a part of the curriculum.

First of all, athletics should be organized for all and required of all, not the few. Some type of athletics should be required of faculty as well as-yes, even more particularly than of students. Instead of eighteen or twenty-two playing and one thousand or more watching from the side-lines, this should be reversed. Very little more time, if any, should be required of those on the teams than of other students. The time required of any one should be fixed at the time which is considered best for the health of those contesting. A minimum of three hours a week should be required of all.

A pupil is required by compulsory laws and truant officers to devote so many hours a week to mental work on the supposition that such requirements are best for the state; and yet he is allowed to form his own habits of physical exercise or to form no habits whatsoever. To be sure, several states now require some time each week given to physical education, but they set no standards of accomplishments.

If the work is required, then credit should be given foryes, required in physical education. The junior high school movement will probably affect credit in physical education.

We must have either fewer interscholastic contests with more inter-class work, or more inter-scholastic contests with second, third, and fourth teams contesting. Why not put on as a head-liner, "Freshmen against Freshmen"? Are not 5 J. F. Landis, Principal of Latimer Junior High School, Pittsburgh.

athletic contests as valuable physically, mentaly, and morally to the freshman as to the old sports who have served four years in athletics?

Competitors should be weighed and standards of accomplishment established so that schools may compete on reasonable bases. If one school has 500 boys from which to select a team of eleven men and can thus select a heavy team, why should it be allowed to compete with a small school of 40 boys, many of whom will be extremely light? There is no indication whatever that the school which puts out the greatest number of winning teams is doing most for the physical, intellectual, or moral development of its pupils. If weight were taken into consideration, there would be fewer serious injuries in football. It is a sin for any team to run up a score of 100 against a competing team in football. The weaker team, in this case is literally trampled on probably, yet the coach says the team must have practice and so the team is urged to do its best. Perhaps too, the school represented by the weak team has formerly beaten the school represented by the strong team or the coaches have an old grudge and so the grudge is taken out on this weak team. The weak team must fight to the limit of endurance or be called "yellow."

No special privileges should be allowed athletics or to athletes. Honesty, manliness, proper language, etc., should be required on the athletic field as well as in the schoolroom. There is no reason why one hundred times as much should be spent on the physical development of the already strong athlete as upon the average individual. How often do you see high schools and colleges giving the total budget to specialized athletics, and nothing for the physical development of the rank and file?

More playground space would be required than is now available if this plan were put into practice, but it would be worth the extra investment. Boards of education in towns and cities should early plan for additional space for physical

education and athletics. Yale University has recently added 750 acres to her athletic field.

Specialization in only one sport should not be required nor allowed until a broad general physical training is secured. It is much more valuable for a person to receive training in several sports than to be a specialist in only one. It is much more valuable from the physical point of view also for a person to learn to play many games and to enjoy them through life, than to have learned to play only one of the major sports. Training rules should be kept by the whole student body all the time, rather than by the athletes only during the training season. If the boys on the team can be required to forego the pleasures of midnight larks and the cigarette, why should not the same requirements be made of the weaker students of the school, the dude and the puny girl? Scholarship as well as athletics should have a place on the student's training schedule.

Athletics will never become a part of the curriculum until administered by the superintendent of the school and board of education, just as English, history or mathematics are at present administered. Rules and regulations concerning athletics should be made by high school men rather than by professional coaches. The physician or school nurse, rather than the coach, should determine when a certain form of athletics is needed for the child's physical development. When this sort of an arrangement is made, the coach will be selected because of his ability to develop and to maintain strong physical stamina and proper ideals in his pupils, rather than because he has been an athletic "star" in one or more college sports.

Herbert Spencer says, "Nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty and that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins." This point of view will not become general until

6 Herbert Spencer, Education, chapter on "Physical Education."