their courts. Thus it is told of Henry V. that he “was so swift a runner that he and two of his lords, without bow or other engine, would take a wild buck in a large park.” Several romances of the middle ages, quoted by Strutt (Sports and Pastimes of the People of England), chronicle the fact that young men of good family were taught to run, leap, wrestle and joust. In spite of the general silence of the historians concerning the sports of the people, it is evident that they were indulged in very largely, since several English sovereigns found it necessary to curtail, and even prohibit, certain popular pastimes, on the ground that they seduced the people from the practice of archery. Thus Edward III. prohibited weight-putting by statute. Nevertheless a variety of this exercise, “casting of the barre,” continued to be a popular pastime, and was afterwards one of the favourite sports of Henry VIII., who attained great proficiency at it. The prowess of the same monarch at throwing the hammer is a matter of history, and his reign seems to have been at a time of general athletic revival. We even find his secretary, Richard Pace, advising the sons of noblemen to practise their sports and “leave study and learning to the children of meaner people,” and Sir William Forest, in his Poesye of Princeelye Practice, thus admonishes his high-born readers:—
| “In featis of maistries bestowe some diligence. |
| Too ryde, runne, lepe, or caste by violence |
| Stone, barre or plummett, or such other thinge, |
| It not refuseth any prince or kynge.” |
Mr Montague Shearman, to whose volume on Athletics in the Badminton series the reader is referred, notes that Sir Thomas Elyot, who wrote at about the same period, deprecated too much study and flogging for schoolboys, saying: “A discrete master may with as much or more ease both to himself and his scholler lead him to play at tennis or shoote.” Elyot recommends the perusal of Galen’s De sanitate tuenda, and suggests as suitable athletic exercises within doors “deambulations, labouryng with poyses made of ledde, lifting and throwing the heavy stone or barre, playing at tennis,” and dwells upon “rennyng” as a “good exercise and laudable solace.” It is probable that the disciples of the “new learning,” who had become prominent in Sir Thomas’s time, endeavoured to combat the influence of athletic exercises, their point of view being exemplified by the dictum of Roger Ascham, who, in his Toxophilus, declares that “running, leaping and quoiting be too vile for scholars.”
In the 16th century the great football match played annually at Chester was abolished in favour of a series of foot-races, which took place in the presence of the mayor. A list of the common sports of that time is contained in some verses by Randel Holme, a minstrel of the North country, and makes mention of throwing the sledge, jumping, “wrastling,” stool-ball (cricket), running, pitching the bar, shooting, playing loggets, “nine holes or ten pins,” “football by the shinnes,” leap-frog, morris, shove-groat, leaping the bonfire, stow-ball (golf), and many other outdoor and indoor sports, some of them now obsolete. Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan poets abound in allusions to sport, which formed an important feature in school life and at every fair. The Stuart kings were warm encouragers of sport, the Basilikon Doron of James I., written for his son, containing a recommendation to the young prince to practise “running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tennise, archerie, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field games.”
An extraordinary variety of sports has been popular in Great Britain with high and low for the past five centuries, no other country comparing with it in this respect. Nor have Ireland and Scotland lagged behind England in athletic prowess. Indeed, so far as history and legend record, Ireland boasts of by far the most ancient organized sports known, the Tailtin Games, or Lugnasad, traditionally established by Lugaid of the Long Arm, one of the gods of Dia and Ana, in honour of his foster-mother Tailti, some three thousand years ago. For many centuries these games, and others like them, were kept up in Ireland, and though the almost constant wars which harried the country finally destroyed their organization, yet the Irish have always been, and still are, a very important factor in British athletics, as well as in America and the colonies.
The Scottish people have, like the Irish, ever delighted in feats of strength and skill, especially the Celtic highlanders, the character of whose country and mode of life have, however, prevented organized athletics from attaining the same prominence as in England. Nevertheless, the celebrated Highland games held at Braemar, Bridge of Allan, Luss, Aboyne and other places have served to bring into prominence many athletes of the first class, although the records, on account of the roughness of the grounds, have not generally vied with those made farther south.
The Briton does not lose his love of sport upon leaving his native soil, and the development of athletics in the United States and the British colonies has kept step with that of the mother-land. Upon the continent of Europe sports have occupied a more or less prominent place in the life of the nations, but their development has been but an echo of that in Great Britain. A great advance, however, has been made since the institution of the modern Olympic games.
About the year 1812 the Royal Military College at Sandhurst inaugurated regular athletic sports, but the example was not followed until about 1840, when Rugby, Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury and the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich came to the front, the “Crick Run” at Rugby having been started in 1837. At the two great English universities there were no organized sports of any kind until 1850, when Exeter College, Oxford, held a meeting; this example has been followed, one after the other, by the other colleges of both institutions. The first contest between Oxford and Cambridge occurred at Oxford in 1864, the programme consisting of eight events, of which four were won by each side. The same year saw the first contest of the Civil Servants, still an annual event.
In 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club was formed in London for “gentlemen amateurs,” most of its members being old university men. Its first championship meeting, held in that year, was the beginning of a series afterwards continued to the present day by the Amateur Athletic Association, founded in 1880, which has jurisdiction over British athletic sports. The most important individual English athletic organization is the London Athletic Club, which antedated the Amateur Athletic Club, and whose meetings have always been the most important events except the championships.
In America a revival of interest in athletic sports took place about the year 1870. Ten years later was formed the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America, which, in 1888, became the Amateur Athletic Union. This body controls athletics throughout the United States, and is allied with the Canadian Amateur Athletic Association. It is supreme in matters of amateur status, records and licensing of meetings, and has control over the following branches of sport: basket-ball, billiards, boxing, fencing (in connexion with the Amateur Fencers’ League of America), gymnastics, hand-ball (fives), running, jumping, walking, weight-putting (hammer, shot, discus, weights), hurdle-racing, lacrosse, pole-vaulting, swimming, tugs-of-war and wrestling. The Amateur Athletic Union has eight sectional groups, and is allied with the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (founded 1876) and the Western Intercollegiate Association. The first American intercollegiate athletic meeting took place at Saratoga in 1873, only three universities competing, though the next year there were eight and in 1875 thirteen. Professional athletes in America are confined almost entirely to base-ball, boxing, bicycling, wrestling and physical training.
The Canadian athletic championships are held independently of the American. Annual championship meetings are also held in South Africa, New Zealand and the different states of Australia. For the Australasian championships New Zealand joins with Australia.
The organization of university sports in America differs from that at Oxford and Cambridge, where there is no official control on the part of the university authorities, and where a man is eligible to represent his college or university while in residence.
