Foot Beayles 223 



simply this: in America our men are old at forty and at fifty 

 most of them have shot their bolt, made a pot of money or 

 lost it, or both, and tumble into graves or sanitariums with 

 half their allotted days unnumbered; while in England, tiie 

 men who played at school and college as much or more than 

 they studied are li\ing on for twenty or thirty years after 

 we are dead and forgotten. 



It must not be inferred from the unstinted praise of the 

 ■writer for English methods of school and college field sports 

 and the natural indulgence in the chase, that he is an Anglo- 

 maniac. He is not. He hopes he is sportsman enough, how- 

 ever, to take off his hat to any system better than our own 

 wherever found. 



From all the talk that one hears about games at college, 

 one unfamiliar with the number of stucUes prescribed for each 

 undergraduate would think boys did little else except play. 

 They tell of a farmer who wrote the dean of one university, 

 to say that the boys there seemed to have a good time playing 

 games but he would like to inquire how much the adtlitional 

 tuition would be if it included writing and spelling. 



Nevertlieless, it is nothing short of a calamity that this lack 

 of play at our schools and colleges is the case. As specimens 

 of the free school and college book-crammed, the American 

 youths win, but as examples of finely developed manhood and 

 womanhood, they are far below what they should be. As 

 models of professional athletic training a few out of many 

 shine supreme, but as animals, as a rule the majority are 

 deficient. In these days of so-called advancement, we claim 

 America leads the world. In mere money-getting, in mere 

 book-learning and professional coaching, she does. It is a 

 lamentable fact, however, that too many of our children are 

 growing up book-wise, body foolish and money mad. 



Let us look about us. Are we not developing a nerv^ous, 

 highly strung race of people, which shine and go like rockets 



