Athletics of To-Day 1929

PREFACE THIS book is the epitome of a quarter of a century of active participation in athletics, combined with per onal experience of five lympiads and the clos tudy of athletic technique and conditions in a good many part of the globe, from cross– c untry running an th King's African Rifles hampionships in tropical Africa to indoor winter training in the Arctic fr ez -up of a Scandinavian winter. I hope it will prove that a rolling tone doe sometimes gather a littl f the moss of knov ledge. My wanderings hav certainly provided me with a wealth of memori s of spl ndid sportsmen of many nations and n ver-to-be-forgotten recoil ctions of the records I have se n broken. I believe entir ly in the supreme value of athletics to the individual and th nati n, and I believe that times are changing. I have watched the athletic growth of such countries as Finland and Japan and the r vival of rmany after the War through the medium of sport in general and athletics in particular, and, sine athletics afford a common meeting– ground in univ rsal pastime of all peoples, I believe that th y may prove a m dium for the wiping out of so many of those misunder tanding which made the Great War possible. In Engl nd w ar upon th threshold of an athletic expansion such as the pre-War generation nev r dreamed of. In the past many schools have looked askance at athletics as being too in ividualistic, but now is the d y of individual endeavour, and the team gam s, admirable though they be in every aspect, do not ntirely achieve the purpose which sport should s rv in our school . The boys themselv s, sub-consciously p rhaps, appreciate this more fully than th ir elders. This can be prov d by statistics. In 1900 the entries for the Public vii