THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11843, 21 December 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1901.

The Australasian Amateur Athletic Championship Meeting now being held at the Auckland Domain may not arouse the delirium of excitement caused by great gambling events, but is nevertheless of the keenest interest to all lovers of wholesome and manly physical exercises. In athletics it is the event of the year and a famous instance of that national passion for muscular development which may often have been unwisely overdone but upon the whole has been productive of unqualified good. For we must always keep in mind the gulf which divides the contests of amateurs for supremacy and the sordid level to which the gambling element too often reduces the : matching of professionals. It is not too much to say that so long as it is kept within well-defined and clearly understood • limits there is no material influence

Iso potential for public' health and national energy as the almost ifiver- j sal desire of, our colonial you& to t excel in athletic sports.'' Nor jithis ; | now confined vto boys and jffimg I men.. . The girls * themselves (five ' caught the athletic spirit of feeir brothers, and in many bracing g||es, are able to hold their own. It dies not need a savant to foresee we effects of this upon future generations. We may expect great thixjrs from those who inherit tfie athllc stamina of our race. y It has been urged against athlete by high authorities that it absom too much of our colonial attentica and diverts our youth from serious , application to the industrial li|j upon which our community depends! But we think that if the position it' analysed it will be found iipmedjf ately that not the use of tin>;e in ac-; tual games and sports, but the abusi of time in meaningless ap,d_frivoloi| gossipping about sport is the evil The encouragement • afforded ll many energetic films to the athlete organisations 151 which their youijj men take , pavfc shows that ■it has n| been founri that a sound and healtls body, kept in continual training lj? exciting and pleasurable exercise a man for the work of life, ft does the very reverse. This h § been the week of school prize-go-ings, of summing up the intellect# results of the year's mental training as a few weeks since the varioiß school-sports summed up the physical results of the year's physical ■ training.' It has been very notice- ; able that so far from the ' respectitf? rising champions of mental and physical excellence being drawn froti two opposing camps they are vejp commonly one and the same. $ !one of the leading local schools this has just been demonstrated, in & ( manner which would attract wide attention were it in any way exceptional. Again, it does not , need a- . savant to explain that where tl| 'body is strong and vigorous and under the discipline of athletic trail! ing the brain can work with an intensity which, would break down a fragile or ill-trained physique. It was not the Olympian games whicli brought Greece to the feet of Latirf conquerors and Ostrogoth invaders ! and Turkish hordes. Greecfe fellwhen 'her sons no longer : prided) themselves upon their; individual strength and were content to si? betting upon the driving of hired charioteers. | The healthy mind in the healths body is an' ideal still as worthy of striving for as when Greek cities tore down their walls to give' a conqueror'sl passage-way to sons who brought home the Olympian wreath! The belief that it is so, if not as concrete and rounded among ,us as ia , the magnificent Greek conception, is •nevertheless decided among is as far as the youthful worship of muscle goes. Even the elderly believe that Waterloo was won on the cricketfield of Eton, that the world has been overrun by the footballer!, by the strong to wrestle and the fleet of foot. If wo do not tear down our walls to give proud entry to our athletic champions it is, not beciuse the smaller boys have not the will to do so. .We were always a nation . devoted to manly games, to quaiter-i staff, and football, ; to : archery and hockey, with a multitude of others' that came and went as is the fashion of things mundane. But ,we have probably never before had- such i diversity, of invigorating land fascinating sports as we possess now when our colonial democracies not only, enjoy in their thousands games once | . found only among the leisured classes, but have free acress -to j games not long since wholly . unknown, of which the strangely named " ping-pong" is • the latest, out not ; the least., The underlying ; purpose i and real use of all these games, new and old, being to keep men and j women sound as long as possible;* the common ground between them all being such contests as these great Australasian championship matches fittingly crown, when the devotees of every game come together to try whose muscles are strongest and toughest to run, to jump, to lift, to throw and to endure. There , cannot ' be too many athletes in a country, nor can we grudge the time and energy honestly devoted to physical training when we realise what it means. But we may well frown upon those whose "sport" consists of the interchange of an idle jargon and may fairly claim of all true athletes that they never forget that the healthy and vigorous body should be the casket of a healthy and vigorous mind. ' ( '