Why? The Science of Athletics

ATHLETIC TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS OF ABILITY 153 general knowledge paper and essay type of test, to intelli– gence tests and tests in specialized subjects. With modern recognition of the importance of physical education the system of examination and testing is spread– ing to the fields of sport, and again we see the close alli– ance which is maintained by the mental and physical sides of our being. Mentally there is great variation between one person and another. One boy has a brilliant intellect, another simply cannot learn, no matter how he tries. The same state of things obtains in the physical field. Variation in Athletic Ability Men like H. H. Sievert, Germany, and Jim Bausch, U.S.A., the last two holders of the world's Decathlon record, and R.M. N. Tisdall, C.U.A.C., who won four events at the Oxford and Cambridge Sports in I 93 I and the Olympic 400 metres hurdles at Los Angeles in I932, must be regarded as athletic geniuses ; but at the other end of the scale you will find athletic incap– ables, and I use the word "incapables" deliberately to mark the distinction between "incapables" and "incom– petents". This distinction is important, because I have known cases of boys, whose athletic potentiality had never been tested, who looked like hopeless cases at first but who, i( they did not become champions, showed marked athletic ability when they became athletically educated. By "incapables", then, I mean those youths who simply do not possess the capacity for becoming good in any form of athletic activity. There is a small proportion of genius always, and there are lots of incompetents and incapables, but the research that has been made so far in this subject tends to show that the variation between the genius and the moron preserves much the same ratio in both mental and physical ability tests. Very important lectures upon this subject of measuring and testing athletic ability were delivered during the Wingate Memorial Lectures Session I93I-32 in New