Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1895-08-22
Improve Upon,

!: !: !: :: :: :: !:
young and for old.
They are melancholy sight, for not
one of them will ever take the place of
the old stand-bys Of infancy and boy
hood. Even the names Of most Of them
will never be heard Of by the majority
Of American boys and girls This Is
the logic of history. 1t seems an easy
matter to invent game; the best
games are so simple--yst a popular
game was never yet invented. Every
one of them has grown, and the best Of
them have been growing for hundreds
Of years. Scientific men tell us that
all sorts of queer creatures once lived
on this earth--great lizards, with
wings; sea monsters half whale, half
seal, and rhinoceroses larger than ele-
plants. All these have died away be-
cause they were not fitted to live, while
those animals that were fit to live have
gone on growing better and better, till
some-the horse, for instance-we
could not do without, 1t is just so with
games, those live that are fit to live,
and the rest die. Our best games form
a sort Of aristocracy; their pedigrees
run back to very ancient times and no
modern upstaTt can compete with them.
probably the most popular outdoor
games Of modern times-the one in our
own country, the other in England.
| They are first cousins, and their hold
on American and English boys Is in
all probability due to the fact that they
each unite two strong lines Of descent
that of the bat and ball games-to
which tennis, lacrosse, hockey, GRO
quet and, more distantly, billiards also
belong, and that Of the goal games,
such as tag, puss-in-the-corner, l spy
and dozens Of others. All the nations
we know anything about had bat and
ball games ages ago. Nobody invented
the bat and ball; they grew up with
our civilization from the time when
little savages used to knock about
pebble or fruit with a stick. So with
the goal games-they have always been
popular. Their name is still legion.
The goal part Chat is the running from
base to base) is a much more important
part of the game in baseball than 1t is
in cricket and for this reason we Amer
leans are justified in looking upon base
ball as the better game, all other things
being equal. To be sure, neither base
ball nor cricket is the game it was 800
years ago, but both have grown, not
changed. Any one who chooses may
trace the growth of cricket from the
year 1900. 1t is not so easy to trace
the pedigree of baseball, for, just as
with a great many American families,
there is a break in the record back in
colonial times. 1t is known to have
been played by the Indians. 1t is
thoroughly American game, and no one
loves it less because some people claim
FOUNDERS as it's ancestor and others re-
ject the claim with scorn.
AS for indoor games, we may prove
their nobility in just the same way.
Chess comes down to us from the an
cient Hindoos, by way of Persia. Check
ers were played in Egypt, and then in
Greece and Rome. Cards made their
appearance in Europe in Y350, and the
Chinese say that they Wed them two
centuries earlier than 1nis. Ten pins
was certainly played in the thirteenth
century, and probably much earlier.
All these have grown, but they have
not changed their natnre. Lawn tennis
is only an offshoot Of the old game Of
court tennis, said to have been brought
into Gaul by Roman soldiers and still
played. Again only growth, not a
new device. There is halma-only a
variation of the old pyramid game Of
checkers How about parchesi? The
pompous title "a Royal Game Of India"
inscribed on the old parcheSi board is
often thought to have been only an adj
vertising dodge, but it was quite true.
Parchesi called by the Hindoos pachisi,
is widely played in Asiatic countries,
and the Spanish explorers even found
the Aztecs playing it under the name
of patolli, in Mexico, whittier 1t may
have been carried across the Pacific.
These and many other instances are
worth thinking over deeply, for they
teach a lesson If any one is tired of
the old games and wants something a
little different, let him alter the old in
the direction of growth rather than try
to invent something quite different.
The most successful inventors of games
Lave followed this rule. Indeed, it is
more than a rule-it is law of nature.
You might as we'll try to please the hui
man palate with food made out of sand
and sawdust as to force boy or man
to get enjoyment out of a game that
does not contain the old, well-ried
game element.