Christianity and Amusements (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1916 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE BREAK-UP OF FRIENDLY ATHLETICS AND THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE Friendly Athletics: Their Place and Value The wide extent and deep significance of amateur athletics is not appreciated by those who identify them solely with college football, baseball, rowing, and track games. The comparative importance of college athletics has been greatly exaggerated, and the college man is prone to see them almost wholly from his own point of view. A far wider field opens when we consider all the ways in which the American people find recreation in manifold athletic exercises which return to those who participate no other pay than pleasure. These activities, instinctive and irrepressible as they are wherever young people come together, are to be recognized as a national asset of immense value, for they all minister to health and efficiency, to sociability and cooperation, and are often more profoundly educative than formal instruction. The meaning of loyalty and basic morality enters the very fiber of American youth through well conducted athletics. Both their moral and mental values are now recognized. Schools and colleges are awake to their broad educational significance, and instructors who are regular members of the instructional staff are usually in charge. In many institutions all students are required to take up some form of athletic exercise. Intercollegiate, interscholastic and interclub athletic leagues of many sorts cover the country like a network, bringing enormous numbers of young men into healthful competitive sport. Among the most important of these are the public school athletic leagues of the larger cities. These play interscholastic games in all the chief sports, and enroll thousands of boys in over 170 of the larger cities. Amateur athletics re...