The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-05

of athletic sports are all innovations o1
 the last few years.
 It is not so much cause for surprise,
 then that rules and regulations are still
 imperfect, and that the ethics of ath-
 letic sports are still under discusslon--
 discussion frequently of an irritating kind. Trained athletics became a pro- fessional class in Greece as long ago as $50 B. C., and for centuries their rules, their methods, and their manners were practically the only criteria by which such contest might be Judged.
 There are certain circumstances which may well comfort those who are often dishaartened at the apparently slow progress made in busting both the fact and the spirit of professionalism from our modern athletic sports At any rate we have arrived at point where professional methods are frowned upon by all who are sincerely interested in amateur athletics at point too where unmanly behavior, either in defeat or In victory, is gene rally considered cause for shame and repentance, It may be doubted, indeed whether physical contests between | yOullS lll6l nave ever DtGll COiiQdGtCu on so high a plane as now, or whether sport has ever before been made to minister so directly to the moral and mental, as well as the physical, devel- opment of our young barbarians all at play" The laudator temporis acti, | however, is Gs much at home in athlet- ics as in morals and manners. All Harvard men have heard the Greek athlete lauded and the expense of his modern antitype, and the vulgarity of modern athletic contests dwelt upon at length and doubtless in other classic shades are men of profound learning who deplore our degeneracy as ath- letes. All this rather superficial com mentary on comparative athletics has it's effect in inducing many people to believe that we have made little or no progress in our endeavors to make sport contribute, and that notably to the education of our youth.
 No doubt Greek sculptor has had more to do with the sentiment about the superiority of the ancient athlete over the modern than any real knowl- edge of the subject. The few relics we possess of the Periclean age of Greek art have been used as typical of the physical development of that time. As q matter of fact, they were probably no more typical than MT. French's Minute-M Man is typical of the sculpture of an age which rejo!ces in such amor phous artistic callositles as are to be faund in New York, and even in Bos. ton.
 But whether or not the physical de- velopment of the ancients was more symmetrical, their ethical standards in such matters we should now consider beneath contempt. Every schoolboy in these days is taught, not only by his masters, but by the overwhelming in- fuence of his schoolfellows, that he may succeed by fair means only, and that he must not lose heart when he falls Or, as 1t has been said by one of our greatest literary athletes: Tt Is not our business in this life to succeed, but to continue our failures in good spirits" Golden words these are, in days of commercial and social scram- bling, when the Ten Commandments are mere rungs on the ladder of finan- cial and social success. At any rate, in our school and college athletics no such cynicism exists, and commercial meth ods are strictly debarred But whether this was true of the athletics of two thousand years ago one may well doubt-Price Collier In the Forum.