A large part of the morality which is most obviously desirable for human welfare consists in bringing the body into habitual obedience to the will.  The amount of individual suffering and of loss and expense to society due to failure in this struggle is nothing less than appalling.  The victims of emotional hurricanes, “brainstorms,” neurotic excess, and intemperate desire are legion.  A nation that is overfed, under-exercised, and notably neurasthenic should neglect nothing that makes for prompt and reliable self-control.  Lycurgus said, “The citizens of Sparta must be her walls,” and in building up a defense for the modern state against forces more disastrous than Persian armies we must turn to the ancient device of the playground and athletic games.

The moral value of play in this respect arises from the instant muscular response to volition.  Delay, half-hearted response, inattention, preoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish performance of the order of the will, disqualifies the player so that when we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact that 80 per cent of the games of this period are characterized by intense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation on play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the body, although having to do with affairs of no permanent importance, has great and abiding value for every future transaction in life.

Indeed, the physical competency attained in athletic games has its reaction upon every mental condition.  Many boys who are hampered by unreasonable diffidence, a lack of normal self-confidence and self-assertion, find unexpected ability and positiveness through this avenue alone and, on the other hand, the physical test and encounter of the game serves to bring a proper self-rating to the overconfident.

Dr. George J. Fisher, international secretary of the Physical Department of the Young Men’s Christian Association, says, “An unfortunately large number of our population haven’t the physical basis for being good.”  No one with even the slightest knowledge of sociology and criminology will be disposed to deny such a statement.  One might as well expect a one-legged man to win the international Marathon as to expect certain physical delinquents to “go right.”  Thousands of boys and girls sit in our public schools today who are the unhappy candidates for this delinquency, and we are monotonously striving to get something into their minds, which would largely take care of their own development, if only we had the wisdom to address ourselves to their bodies.