CHAPTER XXIV
SOME HINTS ON GENERAL ATHLETICS, INCLUDING WALKING, RUNNING AND JUMPING
I do not think the advice I have given, as to the games appropriate for each season would be at all complete, if I did not give some advice that will be useful for all seasons and every day in the year.
To the boy the enjoyment of the sport is the first thing to be considered, but it is not the only thing. Our lives are often affected for good or ill by very little things. Injuries have been received by boys in sport that marred all their after lives.
It is natural for the young to delight in exercise. It is by taking it that they develop, but the development, to be of value, must be along sensible lines.
Every healthy boy wants to be an athlete; wants to excel in some line, and as this ambition is reasonable, it should not be discouraged. The youth eager to win in his sports is not apt to be found lagging when he takes up the more serious business of life.
Competition is said to be the life of trade, and it certainly adds greatly to our interest in sports, but the boy who starts in to learn by trying to compete is doomed to failure. There would be more success in the end if we learned to go slower and so became more thorough in the beginning.
There are certain exercises that every athlete must take to have a good physique, and the very first, and by far the most useful of these, is walking.
WALKING
Can you walk? I hear you laughing at the question; but let me change it slightly and ask, "Can you walk properly?"