Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ' THE TIN GOD OP ATHLETICISM ' " It is God that girdeth me with strength of war, and maketh my ways perfect. He maketh my feet like harts' feet, and setteth me up on high. He teacheth my hands to fight, and mine arms shall break even a bow of steel."—Psalms. The greatest accusation brought against the Public Schools is one of " Philistinism," and the worship of "the Tin God of Athleticism." This is not groundless, but exaggerated. The average boy in a prep, school likes games above anything else. That is Nature again. Lambs, pups, kittens, all young, love games as do children. They play instinctively, moreover they are taught to play before they learn to read and write. The average fag, a boy about thirteen or fourteen say, puts pleasure first; he loves games more than work. That is theage when he is growing most, and only naturally seeks to find outlet for his energies in things physical. At that age, more than at any other, he ehould be allowed plenty of freedom for games and for developing his strength. Let him be prouder of winning a race than of beating a rival in form if he so wishes. Athletics will probably keep him straighter than too much book-worming and indoor work.1 Let him admire the members of the team if worthy of it. Strength is one of the greatest gifts that Nature gives to Youth. Loose Ends tries to prove that every boy strives to be normal and to talk of nothing but games—to read only the sporting columns of the daily papers; and that he ranks a poetry reader as a " madder." The Loom of Youth makes a boy care for nothing but House Matches. The book ends a tragedy. AsGordon Carruthers looks on his old school, from the window of the train, he seems to feel the same of school life as the unknown preacher did of life as a whole: " Vanity of vani...