The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-12-05
IS ANCIENT GAME
Football One of Oldest Sports
Known to Man.
As Played Toeay II Is Said 70 Be .
Mild and Tame Exercise Com
pared With the Strenuous
original Form.

Football is considered strenuous
I game, but the style Of play in this
generation is ulhld aud tame exercise
as COMPARED 10 the original forms OF
/ the sport. according TO bulletin from
the Naiaonal Geographic society.
The b story of the autumn classic
IS described by ]. L. Hildebrand in
communication TO the society, which
follows:
Running. throwing. hitting and
kicking are the fundamental muscu-
lar operations of Americas charac-
teristic sports. baseball. football. ten
mis- and golf. The peoples of antiquity
manifested all those instincts In cruder
form.
"Luzon hillmen. the Polynesians
and the Eskimo and Sumatra Islanders
ha0 games played by kicking Il ball.
Greeks played it. and the Roman
game, harpastum. derived Its name
from the Greek I seize which is evil
dence that carrying the ball was prac-
ticed by them. With shoes of hide, the
medieval Italians played u game which
seems the direct ancestor of the Anglo
Ssxon college sport. Gaelic scholars
point to a football game in Ireland be-
fore the time of Christ. and until COM
paratively recent times Shrove Tues
day was as distinctIvely an occasion
for football as is our Thanksgiving to-
day.
I'm old England football was even
70" CHER than most sports of those
har;iy times. James ! thought it was
for than roof-ipu n
theusers thereof" Henry VIII and
Elizabeth ruled against ii. Edward
II f,owned upon it for its interfer-
ence with archery and also because
of the connection it caused. In
those times it was played in the city
streets. \ writer of the sixteenth
century called it .deviish pastime'
and charged it with melting envy
aud sometimes brawling, murther and
homlcide'
Nevertheless. by the time of
Charles II football had become fairly
established at Cambridge. 1t was
ever held in high esteem in Ireland.
There, when all other sports were
prohibited for archerys sake, 'onely
the great footballe' was exempt.
Women joined with the men in play
lug /; on Shrove Tuesdays. So many
participated that few knew the
whel eabouts of the ball An expedi-
ent which not so long ago aroused
furore in the American sporting
world was adopted by a player who
shook out the shavings with which
the balls of those days were stuffed
End carried 1t under his shirt TO the
gCnl.
abandoned as a general pastime
because of its roughness. it was re-
tanned in colleges until. within the
past half century, 1t sprang into re-
newed popularity in greatly modified
form.
The British carried football into
Jerusalem, when they recovered the
sac1e ed city. Missionaries have taught
1t to heather tribes.
TIE reason why it has become a
of civilization and is so /
popular among college men of Amer /
lea was summarized by Howard S. +
Bliss. writing about the Syrian Protest.
ant college at Beirut, of which he
was president. in an article for the
National Geographic Magazine.
lyon will find the son of prince
piay.nS football under the captaincy
Of a peasant or the son of cook
We believe in football there and we
have II or IS different football teams
in college. The game develops the
ability TO receive hard blow
without showing the white feather or
craving a dagger. This means that
when the men get out of college they
will stand upon their feet as men,