There is indeed not only a physical basis of being good, but, what is not less important, a physical basis of doing good.  Many people avoid blame and disgrace who fail utterly in making a positive contribution to the welfare of the community.  They do not market their mental goods.  Thousands of men remain in mediocrity, to the great loss of society, simply because they have not the requisite physical outfit to force their good ideas, impulses, and visions into the current of the world’s life.  For the most part they lack the great play qualities, “enthusiasm, spontaneity, creative ability, and the ability to co-operate.”  Whenever we build up a strong human organism we lay the physical foundations of efficiency, and one is inclined to go farther and think with Dr. Fisher, that muscular energy itself is capable of transformation into energy of mind and will.  That is to say that play not only helps greatly in building the necessary vehicle, but that it creates a fund upon which the owner may draw for the accomplishment of every task.

There is ground also for the contention that grace of physical development easily passes over into manner and mind.  The proper development of the instrument, the right adjustment and co-ordination of the muscular outfit through which the emotions assemble and diffuse themselves, is, when other things are equal, a guaranty of inner beauty and the grace of true gentility.  A poor instrument is always vexatious, a good instrument is an abiding joy.  The good body helps to make the gracious self.  Other things being equal the strong body obeys, but the weak body rules.

One should not overlook the heartiness that is engendered in games, the total engagement of mind and body that insures for the future the ability “to be a whole man to one thing at a time.”  Much of the moral confusion of life arises from divided personality, and the miserable application of something less than the entire self to the problem in hand.  Do not the great religious leaders of the world agree with the men of practical efficiency in demonstrating and requiring this hearty release of the total self in the proposed line of action?  The demand of Jesus, touching love of God and neighbor, or regarding enlistment in His cause, is a demand for prompt action of the total self.  Possibly no other single virtue has a more varied field of application than the ability for decisive and whole-souled action, which is constantly cultivated in all physical training, and especially in competitive athletic games.

It should be noted also that the hearty release of energy is, in every good game, required to keep within the rules.  This is particularly true in basket-ball, which takes high rank as an indoor game for boys.  While the game is intense and fatiguing, anything like a muscular rampage brings certain penalty to the player and loss to his team.  So that, while the boy who does not play “snappy” and hard cannot rank high, neither can the boy who plays “rough-house.”  Forcefulness under control is the desideratum.