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 the object of repressing the excess of zeal which has been, perhaps, the rational outcome of the growth of the game and of the keen competition which has followed the rapid development of football during the last few years. The changes in the constitution of the Association, and the chief events which have marked the devolution of Association football, will form material for a special chapter.

CHAPTER III.

The withdrawal of the party which affected the Rugby game, following so closely as it did on the well-meant attempt of those who were chiefly responsible for the foundation of the Football Association to devise a code which should be acceptable to both parties, naturally retarded the advance of the Association. For some time the policy of those who guided its destinies in its infancy was mainly of a passive kind. The first object was to conciliate the different schools which had shown themselves averse to the adoption of Rugby rules. It was not an easy task to incorporate the many different varieties of the dribbling game then in vogue in one comprehensive scheme. The work was necessarily slow, and for several years the history of the Association was singularly uneventful. By degrees, though, the process of absorption took effect; and as year by year the influence of the Association extended, there was a corresponding willingness among those who had before adhered to their own particular variation of the game to recognize the importance, if not the necessity, of a uniform set of rules