Physical Education

It has become conventional to trace the most worthwhile features of civilization to classical times, but in the case of physical education, it is essential. The Greeks placed physical culture high on the list of noble virtues; to gain the victor’s laurel wreath at the Olympics was a high honor. The Romans were no less enthusiastic, it is said that even Nero competed for Olympic honors.

The idea of physical prowess was to impart the stoic virtues of physical courage and indifference to pain necessary both in warfare and in the battle of life. The modern theory of physical education is very different. it all began with a revival of the Olympics in the early part of the present century, after a time lag of almost 2,000 years in which games and athletics had been either local and spasmodic, and non-existent.

The new idea was based on the idea of physical education for its own sake, and healthy international competition, as a means of raising standards. The effect of an unbroken series of Olympiad has been that today, in almost every country in the world, almost every child, young man, and woman has a built-in aspiration to excel in some physical activity or another. This is fostered by parents, but more particularly in schools, where, all over the world, physical education forms an important part of the curriculum.

In earlier days, women and girls took a relatively small part, as they were hampered by social and dress conventions. Today, women quarter-milers are as fast as the men quarter-milers were in the ’30s. Again nowadays, the emphasis is not on body bulk and brute force, but on speed, suppleness, and ‘wiriness,’ and coaching is designed to produce this kind of physique — so is the diet plan for athletes.

The love of sport and physical education actually originate in Britain, where for centuries all classes had followed their own athletic pursuits — football and rugby, cricket, swimming, and boxing. It was the British who introduced winter sports to Switzerland! But the Olympiads caused the spread of sports and games to all corners of the globe, so that today, the finest exponents of many sports and games are to be found in the Far East. These are such as suit the Far Eastern physique, with its light build and suppleness — hockey, football, judo, table tennis, acrobatics and tumbling, netball (basketball), and ice-skating.

Nowadays, the importance of correct, balanced feeding is recognized on all sides as the essential basis for the athletic physique. Fats and starch are avoided, while food containing protein and vitamins is encouraged. Adequate sleep is important and so is personal hygiene, including abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. These are merely the basis on which advanced coaching can be built.

But competition and kudos are not the only motives for an interest in physical education. Nowadays, the competent amateur in almost any sport is tempted to become the paid professional, and rich prizes are available to those who succeed in the world of boxing, football, and tennis, to quote but a few. Apart from money, the professional athlete enjoys world travel and sometimes world-fame; he can do much for his country’s image in the eyes of foreign nations.

But there is more even than this. The athlete, whether amateur or professional, plays his or her game primarily, because it brings pleasure because it sustains health because it builds resistance to constitutional weakness and disease. Neither must sport be given up in youth; Stanley Mathews plays first division soccer at 50.

Even the lesser man can go on playing golf as long as he can still walk and perhaps this identifies the most important argument in favor of physical education — the provision of an absorbing leisure activity which refreshes, in that it is a complete contrast with the normally paid occupation. Further merits, applicable more to team games, are the ability to show self-control of body and mind — merits learned in the process of playing with one’s fellows.

Excess in physical exertion, as in anything else, has its dangers. Athletics should be avoided by those with any weakness such as heart disease or blood pressure, but common sense and the doctor’s advice are the guiding principles here. Neither should physical education be allowed to become a fetish.

However competent an athlete maybe, the world will require brains rather than brawn — an active mind is worth more than an active body! There is also the danger that mass — hysteria may put the athlete on a higher pedestal than the doctor, the teacher, or even the statesman. Let us be quite clear that their true place is lower in the scheme of things. Physical education is an excellent thing — in its place!