Page:Coubertin - The Meeting of the Olympian Games, 1900.djvu/10

810 prices from being raised beyond reasonable limits. But I could not too strongly recommend the teams who wish to take part in the athletic competitions to intrust the care of preparing and engaging lodgings and making the necessary arrangements for food, etc., only to managers speaking French well, and accustomed to life in Paris or French life in general. Not only, by acting thus, will the team effect a great saving of expense, but they will have the chance of being more comfortably lodged and much better served. It is unnecessary to mention that the sporting societies, and especially the French Athletic Union, which has its offices in Paris, at 229 rue St. Honoré, will take pleasure in assisting foreigners who are coming in any way in their power.

They are coming, by all appearance, in very large numbers. In the course of last summer I visited several European towns, in order to make arrangements with the members of our International Olympian Committee, and I found everywhere a strong desire to send representatives of all kinds of sport to compete in Paris. What struck me during this journey was the astonishing progress made by sport in the last ten years. Anglo-Saxons have some trouble in getting used to the idea that other nations can devote themselves to athleticism, and that successfully. I can understand this, and the feeling is certainly excusable, for they are those who, especially for the last fifty years, have best understood and practiced bodily exercises; but if this honor is incontestably theirs, it does not follow that young men of other races, with blood and muscles like their own, should not be worthy of walking in their footsteps.

The countries that surprised me the most in this rapid advance are Germany and Sweden. Berlin is really on the way to becoming a great sporting centre. I visited with interest the rowing clubs which succeed each other along the banks of the Spree, at the gates of the capital; they are rich and prosperous. It is to be noted that the Emperor takes great interest in rowing; from his private purse he has built a club for the students at the Berlin colleges, and he has founded imperial regattas, for which he gives important prizes every year, and which he often presides over in person. I should be much surprised, after what I have seen, if Germany has not a very fine sporting future before her. She already builds and manufactures boats and all kinds of sporting articles, and this industry seems very prosperous, a proof that it finds a market in