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570 vicious habits of youth. They rejoice that "muscular Christianity," "a sound, practical, sensible, worldly basis of life has taken the place of the morbid asceticism and unreal superstitions and transcendentalism of former generations, which considered the flesh a burden, a clog, a snare." – Thirdly, because excess in athletics leads to serious damage, moral as well as intellectual.

The physical culture of the pupils forms a most important feature in a good system of education: sit mens sana in corpore sano. Athletics, out-door sports and gymnastics do much for the physical health of the students. Besides, they demand, and consequently help to develop, quickness of apprehension, steadiness and coolness, self-reliance, self-control, readiness to subordinate individual impulses to a command. This is all valuable for education. Still, "in the reaction from the asceticism of our early college life there is little doubt our athletics have gone too far; so far as to direct in a noticeable degree the student's attention from his studies." Indeed, it has come to pass that among students base-ball, foot-ball, boat-races and other sports form almost the exclusive topic of conversation. The favorite reading is the sporting sheet of the newspaper. Some college periodicals give almost more space to athletics than to literature. "Pray," said an Oxford Don to President McCosh, after reading several numbers of the Princetonian, "are you the president of a gymnastic institution?"