xiv INTRODUCTION 



ing, "The outside of a horse is the best thing for the 

 inside of a man," has been indorsed too often to need 

 repeating. Here in America men and women are in- 

 clined to be old at sixty, but in England and Ireland, 

 where one sees hundreds of men and women with gray 

 hair riding hard and straight to hounds, one realizes 

 that this is one of the reasons for their vigorous, rosy- 

 cheeked old people. Because they have learned how 

 to play, they have also learned how to live, and live 

 long. After all, there is much truth in the old French 

 saying: "The gods made us all immortal; old age is a 

 voluntary thing." 



Moreover, it is not only physical fitness that is ac- 

 quired by a love of sport, but also mental and moral 

 qualities of greater importance. For the mind as well 

 as for the body, there is nothing quite so good as the 

 great out-of-doors. "Few evil things can live in the 

 sun." As long as we are obliged to five in human 

 bodies, a clean, wholesome, healthy body is far more 

 apt to house a clean wholesome mind. 



The "whole problem of life is not to make life easier, 

 but to make men stronger," and any study, action, 

 emotion, or sport that can lay claim to doing this, has 

 a right to be considered a moral factor for good. 

 Courage, cool, steady nerves, pluck and physical en- 

 durance are not only by-products of the health in- 

 duced by sport, but are particularly cultivated by such 

 sports as racing, hunting, and polo, in which the ele- 

 ment of danger plays a certain part. Nor is this all; 

 sport cultivates, in fact demands, the virtues of fair 

 play, educates the powers of observation and judgment, 

 insists on self-discipline, patience, calmness, and the 

 ability to control one's nerves and one's temper. The 

 sportsman must be open-handed and honorable, and 



