IN CONCLUSION
lin, or Mr. George R. Read, or Colonel DeLancey Kane will drive you to-day from one end of the city almost the entire fifteen miles to the other, and beat any existing conveyance,—so far behind the age is she in this respect. But whenever at last you can go in or under the city nearly or quite a mile a minute—as you now do ride upon any first-class railroad out of the city—then the problem will be a simple one. But Chicago, with her typical go and genius for achievement—which gave us the grandest Fair the world has ever seen—could soon have such a track. So could Philadelphia or Boston. And it will not be many years till some city will have it. Then athletics—if kept pure, as the University races, for instance, are now— will leap to a place in public and national esteem not yet conceived of.
And, rightly managed, and showing the best men, and methods of development of men of the year; it will make for the welfare of the race. We are steadily, rapidly, substantially improving in almost every line. Why not also in the physique of all our men, women, and children—a far more important matter than the Greek statues and lyrics? The intense, ceaseless energy of commercial and all industrial life to-day demands unusual bodies, or we will burn out—as so many of us are burning out—long before our time. Everything that wise, intelligent direction can do for the athlete, and for the athletic; for the muscleless and for the weak, will be for the common weal. When we once realize how important an educated body is as an aid to sanity and mental power; to self-respect and high purpose; to sound health and vigorous, enduring strength; to genial, attractive good-nature, and to sunny, welcome cheerfulness;—we will spare no pains to insure that education to all. And when we reflect that a mind educated to
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