THE ATHLETIC PROBLEM IN EDUCATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5483, 23 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ATHLETIC PROBLEM IN EDUCATION.

. lv. some institutions of harning it appear? to have been noticed that athletic contests have acrved to diminish the interest of the student body in personal exorcises. It is supposed that the interest of the individual student in his own physical culture is in some way diminihhed by tho success of his comrades, who by virtue of their natural parts or long-continued training huve attained to perfection in the art. Thus, in tho report made by a committee of tho board of overseers of Harvard College, the ground was taken that competitive athletics had served to lower tho physical condition of tho students,' few taking part in such sports, for tho reason that thoy could not attain distinguished excellence in their work. My own experience as a student and teacher in Harvard College, which extends altogether over a period of thirty years, does not support this judgment. I note in tho first place that, a poor physical condition is at present a matter of reproach to an individual, and he feels that he has to justify his bad state to his comrades by. somo kind of plea in extenuation. I police furthermore that, iv teaching geology iv tho field, set walks which twenty years ago surpassed the pedestrian powers of quite "one half my students are now . entirely within their abilities. That the reader may not bo led to explain this difference by the fact of growing inJirmity on my own part. I may say that not only the distances, ,'biit the times involved in the journey, are the same how as of old. There can t bo,uo.,uueßtioti in my. miwi-fhf»t the physical condition of the average student at Harvard College is vastly better than it was».spore of years ago. Along with this improvement in'physical r-oiidition of youths has come a decided gain in certain moral qualities. Thus. between 1864 and 1870, it was not uncommon to find students in Harvard' College seriously the ivorso for habits of drinking- * cil » reoolleoi n those years a cases W which I felt mpelled to expostulate with young men on bo subject. At least as many persons were :nown to me to be what we may properly call Irunkardu; but from about 1870, when the thlotie motive began to develop, and parieularlv since the foundation of tl } e X vm * asium Jand tho ooiiseij vent widb dpyolopinent f field and house athletiest this vice has been ipidJy diminishing. At present Ido not now in my acquaintance with the students, hich extends to perhaps half tho members [ the university, a single cmo \n which the frung man can bo called ;i drunkard. Iboiieyo lat gain to bo due iv v largo nieanu.ro to the nso of prido in a physical stato which I'ectisb'y far the larger part,Of th'o students

Their experience in traihingj.which is undergone'in one way or another by a very/large part of, the young . men, - gives them'by experiment a clear understanding as to the influence of hygienic conditions. In a similar ,'way the use of tobacco, has diminished. " Between 18G0 aod 1880, it was no uncommon to find men so sodden with tobacco that they were unpleasant subjects iin a small lecture room. In this decade, I have found but two or three to this extent by tobacco. Lyen the use. of tea and coffee, on the whole undesirable with youth, but extremely common m former years, has remarkably diminished.. . I am informed that only about- one-half the students who take their meals in Memorial Hall indulge in these beverages. In fact, the ways of the trained men iv a college, like the customs of an army m a state:where the military man has great importance, are effective upon the body of the folK. Seasonable-living-is necessary to athletic success, and the habits of those men become in a way a pattern for the school life.— W. S. Shaler in Atlantic for January.