The Olympic Games and the Duke of Westminster's Appeal

AIMS and OBJECTS of the OLYMPIC GAMES FUND. !.-HISTORY OF THE GAMES. The credit of having originated the modern Olympic Games belongs to Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He had been much attracted by the way in which games were played and taught in English public schools and by the general devotion to sport of the British people, as shown in the popularity and the high standard of such events as Henley Regatta and the inter-University Boat Race. He had for many years taken an active part in encouraging the practice of athletics in France and in arousing public attention to the need, of the better physical education of French youths. At what date he first conceived the idea of reviving the Olympic Games we do not 1.'llow ; but it wa.s in November, 1892, at a meeting of the "Union des SportsAthletiques "at the Sorbonne, that he first gave public utterance to his ambition and appealed to his hearers for support in the " splendid and beneficent" task of reconstituting on a larger international scale the old Hellenic festival. Two years later, in 1894, an International Con– gress of Sport was summoned to meet in Paris. Before the meeting of the congress M. de Couber– tin visited England, where the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edwaro. VII., gave his approval tQ the project. It also'received -support from the highest quarters in France, Belgium, Sweden, ·Greece, and other' countries. The proceedings of the congress were marked by great enthusiasm. The International Olympic Committee was organ– ized, and 1 Greece, as was fitting, unde.rtook to hold the first of the new Games in Athens in 1896. The Games of 1896, in Athens, were followed by those of 1900 in Paris o.nd of 1904 in the United Sta~, at St. Louis. At a meeting of the Inter– national Olympic Committee, held in London in ' the last-named year, it had been proposed that the Games of 1008 should be celebrated in Rome. In May, 1905, a meeting was held in the House of Commons at which a British Olympic Association was formed, and Mr. W. H. Grenfell, M.P. (now Lord Desborough), was elected chairman. In the following year the lt..1,lian Committee found that it would not be practicable to have the Ge.mes in Rome in l!l08 ; and at a meeting of the Interna– tional Committee in Athens Loro. Desborough wa.s asked whether it could be arr~nged to hold them in London. On his retul'Jl· L";i'rd Desborough con– sulted the various athletic" associations in this country. He found them entirely favourable to the idea. Time was short, but, the British Olympic Council was immediately organized, consisting of one representative from the governing body in each branch of sport, and by energy and with the happy collaboration of the management of the Franco-British EJ..l)Osition, arrangements for hold– ing which at Shepherd's-bush were already under way, the Games of l!lOS were successfully carried through in London on a much larger scale than had before been attempted. The Games of 1912 took place in Stockholm, and those of 1916 are destined for Berlin. Before closing this very brief historical sketc~h~ ------'---, (fornranyortlieffic m w ucht e wr1 er 1s in– debted to "The Fourth Olympiad," or the official report of the Olympic Games of 1908, prepared by Mr. Theodore A. Cook) it should be explained that an intermediate series of Ga.mes, also quadrennial, is held in Athens, the first of which took place in 1906 and the second .in 1910. The thW celebra– tion will occur in 1914. Owing to the great munificence of M. Averoff, of Alexandria, the old Athenian Stadium ha.s been sumptuously recon– structed in white marble. There was some sugges– tion that it should be used as the permanent home of the Olympic Games themselves. It was feared, however, that if that were done the Games would lose much of their international oh!lol'a.cter and tend to become merely local. So the series of Athenian Ga.mes was instituted, flJ,lling midway between the celebrations of e Olympic Games proper. I