BOOK ON ATHLETICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 19

BOOK ON ATHLETICS.

AUTHORS ARE WELL KNOWN. ENGLISH REVIEWERS' PRAISE. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON, April 5. Mr. Percy I'udd refers to "Athletics" as a classic work on the subject. Tito authors are Messrs. D. G. A. Lowe and A. E. Porritt. Mr. Rudd observes, in tho Daily Chronicle:— "No one could be more competent than these famous runners, presidents respectively, during their university days, of the Cambridge and Oxford Athletic Clubs, to produce a book on such a subject, and the way in which they have done it is a complete refutation of tho idea that undergraduates who become proficient at spoils do so only at the expense of their studies. " One must, indeed, accept this book as a classic. It is something a great deal more than a treatise on the technical sido of athletics—though that is fully and competently dealt with; it traces the historical development of athletics throughout the world, and includes an appendix of records and statistics, which is the most complete thing of its kind I have yet seen. The chapter on the Olympic Games of ancient Greece is particularly well done, and the whole book shows cvidenco of deep research and serious thought." The reviewer in the Daily Telegraph, too, is most complimentary. He says "It may safely bo assumed that boys of this and following generations will be as familiar with ' Porritt and Lowe as they are now with ' Liddell and Scott, for in no branch of physical activity has there been wrought so vast a change since tho war as in athletics, and right nobly have these two famous athletes risen to a great occasion. Not only schoolboys, but even ' Blues,' ran twenty years ago almost entirely by the light of nature. To-day the vastly improved standard of and increased popularity in running argues advantages taken of scientific knowledge of which pre-war athletics knew nothing. . " Messrs. Lowe and Porritt are nottiincr if not thorough. They trace the whole history of athletics, they tell us to drink unlimited supplies of water, to cat much meat, to banish alcohol and tobacco, and then with the aid of many invaluable line drawings they show us»how to stride, how to hold our arms, how to breathe, how to begin, and how to finish every event from a hundred yards to Marathon, from low hurdles to pole jump, from javelin to hammer. In a particularly moving chapter they implore women athletes to exercise moderation and boys to avoid 'pot-hunting.' Theirs is undoubtedly destined to be the classic text-book on the subject." _____