An Old New England School; A History of Phillips Academy Andover (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIV THE LURE OF THE GAME Fresh faces in the Gym appear. New knives cut other names; Fresh sinners carry on, I fear, Our very same old games. Athletics in Phillips Academy mean far more than the yearly struggles with Exeter. The good old doctrine of "sport for sport's sake" has always been part of the academic gospel, and boys are led to stretch their muscles for sheer delight in physical exercise. It has been the ambition of the school to arouse in the undergraduates a love for games, not so much for the victory which may be won--although it would be hypocrisy to pretend that success is undesirable--as for the pleasure of matching skill against skill, brawn against brawn. To this end there should be games of every sort, for the strong, for the agile, for the swift--even for the feeble and the clumsy. Schools, within the last half-century, have learned that the care of the body is an essential part of education. After the "stone shell of a building " on Chapel Avenue was given to Professor Stowe as a home, the "theologues" and the "cads" had a gymnasium in common in a large wooden structure in the rear of the Seminary, which was scantily equipped with apparatus. Samuel W. Abbot in 1853 received a ticket entitling him to the privileges of the "Phillips Gymnasium." In presenting this card to the school many years later, Dr. Abbot wrote: --To the daily use of this Gymnasium in 1853-54 I have been wont to attribute improved health while at Andover and years afterward in a constitution not naturally robust. On July 24, 1865, the Trustees, after the burning of the Stone Academy, resolved that, when the new Main Building was finished, the old "Brick Academy" should be fitted out as a gymnasium. Within a year they appropriated $1000 for...