"'I must be King of this land!'
"But Sir Ector was cautious, so he questioned Kaye closely as to how he had come by the weapon, and he made him go with him and Arthur back to the church and swear to what he said; and Sir Kaye told him the whole story—how he had left his own sword at home and had sent Arthur back for it; how Arthur had gone there, and not finding any one, had bethought him of the sword in the anvil, and had taken it, though no one had witnessed the act."
THE RIGHTFUL KING OF ENGLAND.
"Whereupon Sir Ector made Arthur return the sword to the anvil, and himself tried to pull it out, but it would not come; and then he made Sir Kaye try it, and still it would not come; and then bidding Arthur make an effort, the boy did so, and it came out easily, at which both Sir Kaye and his father knelt before Arthur, and hailed him as the man who should be rightful King of England."
With the New England Interscholastic games next Saturday the season of track and field athletics—as far as school leagues are concerned—will practically come to a close. The season has been a most successful one. Records have been broken on every hand, even in events where it was supposed that many a year must go by before that performance could be bettered. This excellent showing is the natural result of the hard training and constant energy of the hundreds of runners and jumpers in the schools; and the ever-increasing number of contestants all over the country proves that track and field sports have secured a firm foothold, and now deserve to be recognized as equal in importance to both football and baseball. In the vicinity of New York, at least, there are fully twice as many who indulge in track athletics as there are baseball and football players. In other regions I think the proportions are more nearly equal. The growth of these sports has been very rapid. In almost every centre there is an Interscholastic Association or League, and the daily newspapers, not only of the East but of the West, have been printing reports of scholastic meets for the past two months. The work of the school athletes has decidedly become a factor in amateur sport. In some of the school leagues there are better men than the colleges can boast of.
The annual meeting of the Inter-collegiate Athletic Association at the Berkeley Oval, usually characterized as the "Mott Haven games," because they were first held at Mott Haven, brings together the best college athletic talent from all parts of this broad country. This year a team from the University of California travelled three thousand miles overland to contest for the championship on that day. Besides them, an unknown runner with a rapid gait and a queer cap came out of the West, and left the crack sprinters of the East straining and striving behind him, while he, with a broad smile, pocketed two gold medals, and carried them back to Iowa. I don't believe there was ever any better sport at Olympia, and if the colleges can be so successful in these things, and can draw men to compete at these games from every point of the compass, why should not the schools follow their example, and form one great Interscholastic Association, and have a big meeting once a year? There is no reason why they should not. I can think of hardly a single obstacle in the way of the formation of such a league. All that is needed is that some energetic individual or individuals, or some enthusiastic and sporting spirited Athletic Association take the matter in hand and put it through. Once started, the routine of organization would roll along as if on wheels.