Here is the great contrast which the recreation congress is trying to bridge. We do not want that irresponsible play of the Bandarlog, nor the thoughtless work of the fathers. We are hunting for a balance rather. We want life which is rich and full of work, hard work, but not all work. I think it is beyond the imagination of this generation, possessed by the notion of machinery, to see how a great deal of the work can be anything but dull and monotonous. We should have such rich, abundant pleasure that there shall be opportunity for recreation in constructive ways to balance the dullness of the working life. Perhaps those generations that are coming will see some other way out. At the present time we must have leisure to make life worth living. THE WORK OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSO- George J. Fisher, M. D., M. P. E., Secretary Physical Department International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association, New York The story of the progress of play and recreation in foreign. lands reads like a romance. It is simply marvelous, the way some of the old world countries are taking hold of American games and sports. I shall speak only of China, Japan, the Philippines, of India and South America, and review a movement that is truly remarkable as it has been reported to me by those who have been engaged in the work there. I wish this congress might have been held late in the spring of 1917, so that right out of the experiences of a visit which I am to make to these countries I might have told you the story as an eye witness. American Games The first thing we have discovered is that. American games and athletics are world-wide in their adaptability. China welcomes them with open arms; the Philippines want them without any reservation; South America is adopting the American type of playgrounds. We have a big mission to these countries that are so great and so, much older than our own. Another thing that surprises one is that as nations they have*Address given at Recreation Congress, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 2-6, 1916. no national games unless you might call cock fighting and bull fighting and the jiu-jitsu national games. They are not recreative in the sense that baseball is in America or cricket in England. These people are ready to receive games, that they may put into their national life the things which our games have put into ours. They all like the American games and sports; they do not take quite so kindly to gymnastics. There are two really international games, and they are volley ball and indoor baseball. Around the world you can plant them anywhere and they immediately become interesting to the nations. I am glad this is true, because these are peculiarly games that anyone can play, the skilled or the unskilled, the old and the young, and they are equally popular with both sexes. I am told that more volley ball nets and balls are sold in the Philippines in a year than in the United States. The other day when the Far Eastern Games were celebrated in Shanghai, the Philippines sent two teams of girls to demonstrate volley ball. It stirred the old country from end to end, to think of girls playing strenuous games like that. YuanShi-Ki gave an audience to the girls and expressed to them the hope that the game would be adopted by the girls of China. He was nearly startled out of his wits when the Filipino girls at the close of his address gave a lusty American yell. Cues and Long Finger Take China, that most wonderful of counNails Make Way for tries. It was as late as 1908 when the first American Games trained physical director went to that country. There were college athletes working in government schools before that, but he was the first trained physical director to be sent out. He equipped the first gynmasium in Shanghai, made the first plea for playgrounds, and one day gave an exhibition of gymnastics by Chinese. The people were greatly stirred and requested that the exhibition be repeated. At this second exhibition many people of influence and high standing were present. Shortly after the physical director was asked to organize an athletic meet for the Province of Nanking and as a result American athletics became widespread in their influence. What have the games done for China? No longer do the young men of the literati let their nails grow three and four inches long, because if they do they cannot use them in football. No longer do those young men say, "We will not go in the games unless we can win." They have overcome that spirit and have learned that to go into the game and try hard and to lose is no disgrace. Further more, athletics has had a very vital effect in making changes in ancient customs. In an important athletic meet a young man was trying to break the record in the pole vault, but as he went over his cue caught and pulled down the bar. The next morning the young man appeared without any cue. A newspaper editorial, in commenting upon the games, said if Chinese young men were to take their places with American athletes, such customs as the wearing of cues must pass away. That was the first thing that brought about the doing away with the traditional custom of wearing the cue. The Chinese are skilled in the use of the feet. They play a game resembling shuttlecock with their heels, at which they have become very skilled. They take readily to all games in which running and the use of the feet are important factors. They will soon be the most skillful soccer football players in the world, and I should not be surprised if in a few years they excel the Americans in this game. We sent a man to the Philippines six years ago. He was Elwood S. Brown of Salt Lake City, a man of vision and of leadership. He interested Governor Forbes and Bishop Brent in his efforts to introduce play into the schools and into the islands and soon had everybody playing volley ball. Here practically savages play the American games. The authorities in the Philippines are now stampeded with appeals for play directors and are obliged to meet the problem of training workers. This man had a wonderful vision, the vision of the far eastern countries uniting in a great athletic congress. And that vision was realized when not long ago China and Japan sent their athletes to Manila for what was then called the Far Eastern Olympic Games. China sent forty men and to the surprise of all won first and second places in the Decathlon, an all-round event. China was enthusiastic over the results and invited the second of these great international games to Shanghai. One hundred and fifty thousand people witnessed these games, China winning most points. As a result of these games tremendous interest has been aroused in physical education throughout China. There are on the seas tonight three physical directors being sent out to supplement the seven that are there now. They are to have playgrounds in every city of one province by special order. They are calling for men from this country to take the leadership of the games of an empire. The greatest openings in the realm of physical education are out there where men think in terms of provinces and of whole countries. This is a great contribution for America to Japan Ready to Beat Japan has taken enthusiastically to tennis and baseball at which her people have become America at Her very expert. In fact the United States has had to struggle hard the past summer to keep the national championship in tennis from going to Japan. America will not be able to retain with customary ease her leadership in athletics as these countries develop. Jiu-jitsu is very strong in Japan and has held back the adoption of other games and sports. In 1917 the Far Eastern Games will be held in Tokio. This will very likely prove a great stimulus to the adoption of a more complete program of sports. Take India, that nation of caste, that ascetic nation that presents so many opportunities for the study of physical conditions, as many people there have never tasted meat. About six years ago we sent a man out as a combination Young Men's Christian Association and government physical director. King George, after his visit there at the time of the coronation, said that one of the things that must be done in India was to provide better physical education. Such a proclamation meant a good deal to this man and he capitalized it. He visited all the government schools and the government appropriated $300,000 for work along the lines of his recommendations, and now he has come back for seven other men, and we are asked to furnish these great governmental schools with men who are making possible the rejuvenation physically of these old civilizations and putting into their life power and activity which will help India to rise to a much larger place in international affairs. A normal school for native teachers of all castes has been established, so that the one thing that seems to be able to break down caste is play, just as caste breaks down in England through play. Play is the thing that will solve some of these most acute and apparently unsolvable problems of the relations of men and of nations to each other. What is happening in India is prophetic of what is happening in other nations. Wide-Spread Interest in South America Then there is South America. We have physical education established in Rio, in Buenos Ayers, and in Montevideo. You are going to hear at this Congress one of the young men among the play leaders of Montevideo, Mr. Samuel G. Ybargoyen, speak to you in his own tongue on the work there. A man was sent as a Young Men's Christian Association physical director to Montevideo but he did so well that the government later employed him, first on part time and then for all his time. Now he has induced the government to send one of its own young men to this country for training. A national commission is promoting playgrounds on a large scale another indication that American play is welcome in the countries of Latin America. Notwithstanding the fact that our immediate neighbor to the south of us has not been in agreement with us on some points, nevertheless in the city of Mexico the Young Men's Christian Association membership has actually increased in the physical department among the young men in the last year or two. The magic of play, the lure of athletics, the idea of fair play, prevail over national prejudices, and in my judgment play makes for international fellowship and understanding, as indicated in the facts Į have given you tonight. There was in this country this year Marquis de Polignac one of the founders of the college of athletics and physical education in France, who is planning a system of physical education based on play activities. He built a stadium at Rheims. It has been destroyed, but he says that makes no difference, "We shall have a new stadium, and France will have her national play." This indicates the growing interest in France. I had hoped to have with me here Mr. John Levteef, a gentleman from Russia, who, under the auspices of the government, is studying our playgrounds. He has just heard that in his country a commissioner of physical education has been appointed, an indication of the new emphasis that is being put on physical education in Russia. A Merciful Mission in the Detention Camps We have been interested in the great world conflict. In Canada last summer there were forty physical directors sent to our summer schools. This summer not one appeared. They were all in the concentration camps, or following the troops on the other side, directing the athletics of the men at the front. The reports of their work are inspiring, showing that play brings the soldiers new spirit, puts new heart into them even as they await the call to action. Again, athletics and play taking their place in the great affairs of life! A friend of mine has just returned from what I believe to be the darkest places in the world just now, namely the prison camps of Europe, where there are over five millions of men in sordid captivity, some of these camps containing as many as 65,000 men, one reaching 75,000. Imagine the dull, monotonous, nerve racking, mind-depressing effect of this captivity. I am told that in one of these camps as many as eighty English officers lost their minds |