The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-08-04

prepared by the National Geographic
Society, Washington, d. c.
Now that vacation days are bring
ing play to the fore for old and young,
it is worth recalling that sports and
games ever were magic touchstones to
geography and 70 those allied sciences
which provide the surest clues to how
peoples live, and work, and think.
In countess ways science has
learned about climates, and products,
and customs, and peoples of the past
from toys, games and sports. An en-.
tire new field Of investigation was
opened by the discovery that back
CANNON, as played in Burma, also was
known TO the pre-Columbian Mexicans.
A new light is shed on an ancient
civilization when we learn that there
was a law amnog the Persians by
which all children were to be taught
three things, Craftsmanship, shooting
with the bow and telling the truth.
Carthaginians and Phocnicians owed
something of Their maritime glory to a
love of swimming, the sport by which
they first mastered their fear of the
sea.
Equally significant in the history of
nations is the decline Of their sports.
While the Persians observed the rigid
regimen Of the chase, as prescribed by
Cyrus, their armies were victorious.
While Spartan youths followed the
rigorous discipline Of Lycurgus, their
city was inviolate. Led by Alexander
the Great In ways Of a%bnegation and
exercise, the Macedonians were in
vincible. The Romans extended their
civilization so long as their gymnasia
prepared youths to endure long
marches and bear crushing burdens.
1t Is fairly obvious that coasting Is
a sport Of the zone where snow falls,
and reasonable that those peoples
most generally proficient In swimming
should be found in the equatorial
islands, where limpid waters invite
surcease from the scorching sun, but
less well known, perhaps, that card
and board games developed in south
Nlh hoiut VIC ZCol Iol pay ID just
as keen but temperature dampens the
ardor for exertion-
The reactions Of geography and
sport are mutual. To the Netherlands
are traced the silt and the skate.
which even yet have their work-a-day
use in flooded 'and frozen areas, but
are playing for the rest of the
world.
Sometimes sports spread beyond ma
tiCnal boundary lines and express the
common ideals of an age. Thus the
tournaments of the middle ages were
the normal symptoms of the adyen-
turous spirit reflected in the quests
for the Holy Grail.
Games and the Individual.
Games invariably adapt themselves
to the individual need for a balanced
life, mental and physical. This fact
was illustrated by comments Of civilian
writer's in the fighting zones during
the World war, who told how English
men and Americans sought diversion
in active play, while Frenchmen re-
~ ~ hiN IoICt sil LII
reading, or day-dreaming by the side
of a welcome fireplace. Many noted
this as a contradiction, in view of the
supposed sprightly temperament of
our Gallo cousins.
But as Il sporting writer, In an
article printed years before the World
war, put it, "the Englishman, phleg-
matte during his work, seeks excite
ment as q relaxation, while the more
animated Gaul needs quiet during his
leisure"
Just as the individual adopts games
which meet his bodily need, so it
seems that national pastimes are modi-
fed to foster and fortify the peoples
who play them.
Influence Of E%ngland's Sports.
Right up to 1914 it was almost
bromide to laugh at the Englishman
for putting his recreations in his
"Who's Who" alongside of matters
considered more weighty, and for pub
fishing massive tones and cyclopedias
Of sport. Now the world knows that
the Derby at EPSON, the cricket al
Rugby, and the %foX-hunts Of North
a~mptonshire had everything to do with
the bulldog determination with which
he carried on" ONE heartbreaking
summer after another against vicious
Hun onslaughts In Flanders.
But even the sport-loving Brttons
are said to have admired and Won
dered at the American dough-boy,
whacking out three-baggers amid the
booming Of Big Berthas, issuing oc-
casional rain-checks In mid-inning