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Winter Sports 



But, jovial and ruddy as winter sports are, they have a side which is more or less lacking 

 in the sports of summer . . . They have a lonely side, a still reflective side, which, for 

 some of us, adds immeasurably to their charm. 



Walter Prichard Eaton, Winter Sports Verse, 1919. 



A WORLD-WIDE DRIVE to get out and play in the snow first became 

 evident, social historians may note, in troubled Europe following the shock 

 and dissolutions of the World War, 1914-1918. 



Children, of course, have always made snow men and coasted, and so 

 have a few of their elders. But adult winter sports in the past had prin- 

 cipally to do with going places — sleighing, snowshoeing, climbing moun- 

 tains, mushing along behind a dog team. The pleasure derived was inci- 

 dental, a byproduct of the journey, for grown-up people, as a rule. 



It becomes almost tiresome now, by spring, the square mileage of 

 winter-sports pictures that city-pent people see in the papers, and the 

 acreage of bare skin, of both sexes, displayed in the news pictures, still and 

 moving, all winter long. Actually not much skiing is done naked, or nearly 

 naked, except by ardent health fans or for publicity "shots." But the lighter, 

 less burdensome garments worn now by winter sportsmen and sports- 

 women, and the way in which they get wind and sun burned in winter, do 

 suggest an important and healthy advance in civilized living habits. 



All this has played a part in the amazing burst of publicity that has 

 pushed winter sports along so fast, both here and abroad. In some coun- 

 tries the publicity has been dictatorial in origin, put out by the Strong 

 Man to advance the general health, ruggedness, and spirit. Here with us 

 growth in popularity of winter sports has resulted from years of effort by 



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