Impressions of Northern Athletes and Athletics

all, and, being comparatively abstemious and temperate his inherent but latent athletic abilities will be the more easily evolved, as “well begun is half done.” By the Way N.B. I have just received from the genial secretary of H----- Games a “bill” upon which appears in gallant letters the word “Athelite.” Our friend’s orthography must be a little defective when he spells this profound word in such an eccentric fashion! And, mind you, the secretary of a Caithness games committee, too! There is something else, however, far more inexplicable, in fact, it would almost do justice to the Insurance Bill! It is a “rule,” and reads as follows – “No one but officials and members of the Press will be allowed inside the course,” and what was stranger still, was the parenthesis - (“This rule will be strictly enforced.”) What about the competitors? We take nothing as granted in these days of literalism! 2 WHY WE SHOULD BE A RACE OF ATHLETES John O’ Groat Journal , Friday 6 September 1912 It is alleged by geologists that the few thousand years subsequent to the formation of man is but an atom of time when compared with the ocean of ages that intervened between the creation of the first simple vegetable and the appearance of the human race. But whether the world was gradually prepared for man or not, sure it is that we, after studying the physical constitution of man and external things cannot but admire how beautifully, how consummately, the one is adapted to the other. It is manifest that the strength and facility of every bodily organ is augmented by consistent exercise; and we all know with the student of mental philosophy that the moral and intellectual faculties are susceptible of infinite expansion. The mental and physical strength of the inhabitants of any nation is in direct ratio to their mental and moral training – in short to the purity of their moral code carried through a series of generations. The kingdoms of ancient Greece and Rome afford striking illustrations. As long as maintained their reputation unimpeachable they held the surrounding nations in subjection; so long did they improve in the arts and sciences, giving evidence of their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, and their art of war; their inhabitants were virtuous, their men intrepid, and their sons men of genius. But eventually immorality and vice overwhelmed the land: their rulers and soldiers became effeminate, their citizens dissolute, and ultimately their armies were practically annihilated by the dauntless barbarians of the north, whose moral discipline was more rigid, and to whom the short-lived and degrading pleasures of wine and other luxuries were unknown. Laxity of moral