LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
HEALTH AND ATHLETICS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Dr. Saleeby is right when he urges that this subject is one for inquiry and study. In the present-day physical training of our youth we go forward in all the valour of ignorance. We gaily drill our youngsters in gymnastics and " physical jerks " on the same lines as in the Army, but without regarding any distinction between immature growing boys and formed adults. Our instructors arc in many cases. selected for their splendid muscle and activity, but with no inquiry as to their knowledge of physiology or anatomy. More harm than good is done in the world of athletics through this blindness.
A man wrote to me once reporting that he and his son of twelve had cycled some extraordinary distance in record quick time, and he wanted me to publish the fact flr the inspiration of other boys. I only published the fact that the man was too big a fool to be a father. Endurance is not -gained in the immature youth by putting it to, the strain but,
by building a good foundation of health and strength to begin with. This fact is too often forgotten in promoting rowing, long-distance running, tugs-of-war, marching order field days, &c., among growing lads.
An education authority once asked me whether I did not agree that the provision of gymnasia in every school would change the physique and stamina of our manhood for the better ? I said it might, but that the finest national physique I had come across was among the Zulus and the best stamina among the Gurkhas ; but in neither country had I ever noticed a gymnasium. Plain, wholesome food, constant open air, proper clothing, regular habits, and natural exercise had more to do with health and development than all that gymnasia could do. By natural exercises I mean such games and activities as are natural to the young animal. For example, climbing is the natural attribute of the ape-shaped creature from babyhood. Where it is indulged in it develops every part of the body, it so interests the boy or girl that it is carried out wherever opportunity occurs, it is a useful accomplish- ment and, moreover, it has moral value as well in giving courage, caution, self-confidence, &c.
The same is the case with swimming. Games like tennis, cricket, baseball, &c., have also their moral as well as their physical value (at the least they teach people to be quick rather than dead in this motor-driving age). But more especially they have this value where, like football, they are team games, involving individual discipline, fair play, un- selfishness, " playing the game," and playing it for side and not for self. So in the Boy Scout and Girl Guide training we encourage as far as possible those team games and activities which appeal to the enthusiasm of the young people and tend to develop them morally as well as physically by natural and net artificial methods, acceptable to all and without undue strain—activities where proficiency comes by desire from within and is not a task imposed by order from without. The Scoutmaster or Guider who is not a trained physical instructor can thus carry out physical development without danger to the child, since he has merely to encourage the necessary enthusiasm rather than to give orders and correc- tions. The boy thus trains himself in the attributes desired almost without knowing it. The various methods by which this is accomplished will be shown at the Boy Scout Empire Jamboree at Wembley every day between August 1st to 8th inclusive. This will be the largest pageant of the boyhood of the Empire that has so far been brought together, but, apart from its interest in that direction, it will give many displays of physical and moral training through athletics which should have their suggestion as well as their appeal to all parents and educationists.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ROBERT BADEN POWELL.
25 Buckingham Palace Road, London, S.W. 1.
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