Athletic Training

XXlV INTRODUCTION arts-arts of which the author of this book was a close student and a past master. No school or college in the United States of Amer– ica is now considered complete without its gymnasium, playgrounds, and instruction in physical exercise. Practical knowledge of track and field athletics is within the reach of all, and the very publicity of the great ath– letic games draws to physical exercise the at– tention of those who would otherwise be too dull or too preoccupied to see its value. Athletic sports have a peculiar value to the young. They are what remain of the natural and instinctive movements of sel£– preservation by fighting or flight that have been made part of our nature by constant practice from prehistoric times. The sur– vival of the cave man was determined by his ability to run fast, to leap far, and to throw straight, and we are apt to forget the value in modern life of the ·quick eye, the steady nerve, and the firm hand. By them the other– wise inevitable collision is avoided. Every man of forty can recall hundreds of experi– ences of his own in which a sprain, a fracture, or even death itself has been averted by pres-