Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1884-07-31
AraLhrIo SPORTS.
Their Social Character spoken OF by
Julian Hawthorne.


Their Social Character Spoken OF by
Julian Hawthorne.
In Hdrpsr's Magazine for August Julian
Hawthorn says:
Bodily exercises imply society ard
social disposition for II solitary person,
like Robinson Cruaoe or Bnooh Arden,
we're to be found daily practicing with
the bars and rings, we should suspect
him, not OF social, but OF ominously sell
fish and morbid tendencies. The pleasure
OF being strong lies in the fact that others
are strong around us, thereby furnishing
us with oompanionship and competition,
which are the fuel Of life. Health ia, or
should be, incidental to this
pleasure; that is to say, l ques-
ton the propristy Of making health the
deliberate object OF exercise. Let IL
come II II will bat it will come none
the slower II you forbear TO be on the
watch for it. To make yourself strong
for the sake Of your private health is the
analogue Of obeyiDR the decalogua for
the sake Of your private crown there ia
something unpleassntly unsympathetic
about it. But be strong simply because
mankind at large will bs better II all
men become physically more efficient, and
the other blessings shall be added to you.
| Moreover, apart apart from the stimulus
OF example and fellowship, it is doubtful
whether one man In 20 will take the
trouble regularly to exert himself. Unless
| there be some motive outside himself
he will soon cease to think II worth while.
DR.. Winship used to say that he never
| would have made himself the man he
was but for the purpose he had formed to
thrash a certain offensive upper class
man in college; and Mr.. William Blaikie
began his athletic career an apparently
hopeless consumftive. DIR. WinshiI
lifted 5000 pounds, and Mr.. Blaikit
pulled stroke of the Harvard crew II
their great race With Yale but 1t would
be useless to tell me that the desire Il
thrash q man or to heal diseased lunI
had more than the minutest share II
bringing these results about. If 1t hal
not been for the gymnasium, with its jcll!
society of jealous and emulous young gym
nasts, Winship would never have lite
his own weight, and Blaikie would hav
been at best, vAletudinarian. The fam
! OF the Olympic and Isthmian games still
echoes in our ears but 1t was not tn
games that made Greece 60 to see them
It was Greece going to see them tina
made the games. In the same way hav
noticed that the university crews {
Oxford and Cambridge, for example, pre-
fess to be superbly indifferent as
whether the British public on the day {
the race lines the river bank from Putne
to Mortlake; indeed, they have latel
undertaken to intimate that the
would prefer to have the publ
keep away. But no one knows bette
!. than they themselves that, were the pull
a lilo some day to take them at their wore
1 not only would .he crews never find Il
energy to get themselves into condition
= but, were that difficulty overcome, til,
. would never find il in their hearts to pu
= further than Hammersmith Bridge, ne
which there is very good ale house.
:, do not wish, however, to run this theo
"a into the ground; only wish to indics
l that athletics are essentially popul
- pursuit, conducive to good citiz anshi
70 and the cultivation of which, therefor
good citizenship shout imply.