The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1922-09-20

ID Muscle and Sure Eye Of the Athlete,
| when the downpour Of bursting shell
became too dstracting.
Some historians assert that the
Greek games formed the foundation
for the lucid thinking and the lofty
art concepts that made her product
classic. Yet the Olympian and the
Pythian games at their best afforded
no such spontaneous, and at the same
time intricate, interplay Of muscle and
mind as baseball.
Throwing. catching. and cunning are
as old as man; but it took the Ameri.
can genius for play, no less distinc-
tive than the American a,nius for
science, industry, and commerce, to
weld these motifs into game that
puts premium on skill, yet admits
of infinite variety; that rawest youth
or trained athlete may play; and that
Presidents and office boys steal away
to watch.
If the Greeks paved the way for
classic art by teaching adults to play
and Great Britain followed in her
footsteps with a more spontaneous
and democratic fervor, America now
appears as the most forward-looking
nation in her attention to children's
Fairgrounds. There Is nothing arti.
fetal about the games taught to chill
dren on American Fairgrounds. They
are products Of rich heritage of
play tradition. Neither written history
nor the faint traces of prehistoric
times carry us back to period when
children did not play.
Excavators in Central America
found tiny rattles of bone and clay.
as old as the pyramids of Egypt, In
graves alongside baby skeletons. In
Attica's tombs were uncovered dolls
of pre-classic days, made of ivory and
terra Gotta. Little Hippodamia had
miniature bed, with Stats for his
dolls, for boys formerly played with
dolls. Roman children's toys were
held in such high esteem by their
elders that when the children grew
too old for them they were offered to
patron gods.
Games With the Ball.
Running, throwing. hitting. and
kicking are the fundamental muscular
operations of Americas characteristic
sports-baseball, football. tennis, and
golf. The peoples of antiquity mani.
; tested all these instincts in crudel
form.
Luzon hillmen, the Polyneslans, and
the Eskimo and Sumatra islanders had
: games played by kicking a ball.
Greeks played 1t, and the Roman
game, harpastum. derived its name
. from the Greek II seize." which Is
evidence that carrying the ball was
placticed then. With shoes of hide,
the medieval Italians played a game
which seems the direct ancestor of the
Anglo-Saxon college sport. Gaelic
! scholars point to football game In
| Ireland before the time Of Christ. and
, until comparatively recent times
, Shrove Tuesday was distinctively an
. occasion for football as Is our Thanks
giving today.
: In old England football was even
rougher than most sports of those
, hardy times. James I thought 1t was
, "meeter for lameing than making able
> the users thereof" Henry VIII and
T Elizabeth ruled against 1t. Edward II
frowned upon 1t for Its interference
, with archery and also because Of the
! commotiOn 1t aroused.
!. likewise. one must 60 back to the
= Greeks and Romans for the origin
9 OF tennis. which descended to Eng
$ land by way to France. In the Twelfth
century game with ball and plated
3 gut bat was played on horseback
[ Then came LA boude," in which the
|. horses were abandoned. Henry VIII
s os England was youthful devotee
while Louis XIV's heavy expense nc
counts show salaries paid to care
4 takers of his courts.
n If tennis has royal lineage. golf
S which was later regarded as a rich
3 mans game. had NEST plebeian be
J. ginnlngs. Contrary to widespread
8 belief It seems lot to have originated
t in Scotland. but In northern Europe
It Apparently It was first played on Ice
l. being one of the winter sports adapted
h to the physical geography of the Low
h Countries.
z BY the Fifteenth century golf hat
IS attained such vogue in Scotland tina
It threatened the cherished archery
IS and It Is classed with "fute-bull" ant
n. other "unprofitabll SPORTS" by James
& ". That monarch, however seems I,
10 have dlsregarded his own edict. a.
C. did enough other Scotchmsn to keel
Ig the game alive.