| Show ie I e 0 0 0 lr V Z V 2 N I 1 4 X ill U 1 4 I Is Z air Z 41 4 W hawaiian fishermen need the trained muscle and sure eye of the athlete prepared by the national geographic society washington Washl n D C now that vacation das are bringing play to the fore for old and young it Is worth recalling that sports and games ever were magic touchstones to geography and to those allied sl sciences fences which provide the surest clues to how peoples live and work and think in countless ways science has learned about climates and products and customs and peoples of the past from toys games and sports an entire new field of investigation was opened by the discovery that backgammon as played in burma also was known to the pre columbian Mex mexicans leans A new light Is shell shed on an ancient civilization when we learn that there was a law amnot the persians by which all children were to be taught three things horsemanship shooting with the bow and telling the truth carthaginians and something of ther maritime glory to a love ione of swimming the sport by which they first mastered their fear of the sea equally significant in the history of nations Is the decline of their sports while the persians observed the rigid regimen of the chase chiase as prescribed by cyrus their armies were victorious while spartan youths followed the rigorous discipline of lycurgus their city was inviolate led by alexander the great in ways of abnegation and exercise the macedonians Macedon ians lans were were in 1 the romans extended their civilization so long as their gymn gymnasia asla prepared youths to endure long mar in arches clies and bear crushing burdens it is fairly obvious that coasting Is it a sport of the zone where here snow falls and reasonable that those peoples most generally proficient in swimming should be found in the equatorial islands where limpid waters invite surcease from the scorching sun but less well known perhaps that card and board games developed in southern asia where zest for play Is just as kai keen eai but temperature i acure dampens the ardor for exertion the reactions of 0 geography and sport are mutual to the netherlands are traced the stilt and the skate which even yet have their workaday work a day use in flooded and frozen areas but are playing for the rest of the world sometimes sports spread beyond national boundary lines and express the common ideals of an age thus the tournaments of the middle ages were the normal symptoms of the adventurous spirit reflected in the quests for the holy grail games and the individual games invariably adapt themselves to the need tor for a balanced life mental and physical this tact fact was illustrated by comments of civilian writers A in the fighting zones during the world war mho told how englishmen and americans sought diversion in active play while frenchmen relaxed in inora quiet fashion sin smoking oking reading or daa da dreaming by the side of a welcome fireplace many noted tilt this s RS as a contradiction in view of the temperament of our gallic colis his but as it 11 sporting pur lins writer in an article printed years before the world war put it the englishman pahleg manlic during his work seeks excitement as a relaxation while the more animated gaul needs quiet during his big leisure just us as the Ind individual vidual adopts games which bibi meet Ws lis bodily need so it seems that national pastimes are modified to foster and fortify the peoples who play them influence of En glands sports right up to 1014 it was almost bromidic bio to laugh at the alie ell englishman tor for putting his recreations recreation s in ills chos who alon alongside nide of matters more weighty and for publishing massive tome sand of sport snort now aba world knows that the derby at rp epsom tile cricket at rugby and the fox hunts of north ampton shire had everything to do will the bulldog bill dog debet determination min atlon with will which he carried onal on orle one heartbreaking summer after another niclous clous hun onslaughts in flanders but even the sport boning to ing balto are said to have admired aril wondered at the american dough bor bof whacking backing out three amid the lie booming of big berthas beathas Ber thas if issuing occasional cas ional lonal rain cli checks ecks in ald ann n when the downpour of bursting shell became too distracting some historians assert that the greek games formed the foundation for the lucid think thinking liag and the lofty art concepts that made her product classic yet the olympian and the pythian fythian games at their best afforded no such spontaneous and at the same time intricate interplay of muscle and mind as baseball throwing catching aud ald running are as old as man but it took the american genius for play no less distinctive than the american agins tor for science industry and commerce to weld these motifs into a game that puts a premium on skill yot admits of infinite variety that rawest youth or trained athlete may play and that presidents and office boys steal away to watch it if the greeks paved the way for classic art by teaching adults to play find and great britain followed in her footsteps with a more spontaneous and democratic fervor america now appears as the most forward looking nation in her attention to childrens playgrounds there Is nothing artificial about the games taught to children on american playgrounds they are products of a rich heritage of play tradition neither written history nor the faint traces of prehistoric times carry us back to a period when children did not play excavators Excava tors in central america found tiny rattles of bone and clay as old as tile the pyramids of egypt in graves alongside baby skeletons in atticas tombs were uncovered dolls of pre classic days made of ivory and terra cotta little Il ippodamia had a miniature bed with slats for his dolls for boys formerly played with dolls roman childrens toys were held in such high esteem by their elders ciders that when the children grew too old for them they were offered to patron gods games with the ball running throwing hitting and kicking are the fundamental mus muscular culat operations of americas sports baseball football tennis an and gelf the peoples of antiquity manifested all these instincts in caudet form luzon bellmen hlll bill men the polynesians and ani the eskimo and sumatra islanders Pd anders had hac same games played by kicking a ball greeks played it and the roman koman game harpa derived its name from tile lie greek 1 I seize Is evidence that carrying the ball was practiced then with shoes of hide hid the medieval italians played a game which seems the direct ancestor of the anglo saxon college sport gaelic scholars point to a football game in ii lieland eland before the lie time of christ and until comparatively recent times shrove tuesday was distinctively an occasion for football as Is our thanks ahing today in old england football was eien cea rougher than most sports of those hardy bardy times jame jamet t I 1 thought it was wag meeter neeter fi for larne lamelos friz than making able the users thereof henry VIII and elizabeth ruled against it edward 11 II frowned upon it for its it interference with nith archery and also because of the commotion it abou arou aroused ed licen h lie one trust must go back to the greeks and romans for the origin of tennis which descended to eng land by way to france in the twelfth century a game with ball and plaited gut bat was mas played on horseback then came la boude in which the horses were abandoned henry VIII ill ftc J england was a youthful devotee mille louis heavy expense at accounts account show salaries s paid to caretakers of liis courts if omnis luis hit a royal lineage golf gol which was as later re girded crded as a rich anians garie had be ginnings ginn contrary to a widespread bellef ellef li it seems lot to have originated in ind but in northern europe apparently it was first played on ice being oni one of the winter sports ports adapted lo in tile lie physical geo geography graPh iv of the low countries ry by tile the fifteenth cc century golf if liari had attained such vogue in scotland ill alin it threatened the cherished cherl shed archery chery fir and lt it Is classed with futo bill an nna other sport sp ortis ls by jame V v that monarch homeier lio ho weier seeing I 1 have disregarded ills his own edict 1 did enough other Scotch men to kei ke the game alie all e |
