It is: reasonable to suppose that most of these educational institutions have
gymnasiae These gymnasia are built and maintained by public tax money.
The maintenance of a basketball court is small and the equipment is inex-
pensive. Due to the fact that no cancellations of basketball games occur
on account of weather conditions, the games can be played in all climes a
regular times. Basketball can be an individual game as well as a team game.
Children of practically all ages, therefore can play it without serious conse-
quences.

In the words of the great inventor who said, “Basketball is a game
easy to play but difficult to master." The ball is always out in the open.
It is not hidden from view as it is in football, when mass play is in the
order. Many midwestern university coaches have told me that they have checked
every able-bodied boy entering the university and have failed to find a single
active boy who has not played basketball in high schoole

(2) Perhaps by accident or by place of invention the game of basket-
ball has.a real missionary significance. At the International Y.M.C.A. College,
Springfield, Mas sachuetts, "the cradle of basketball", physical directors, medical
missionaries and general secretaries were trained. These emissaries of good
will planted the game early in our century in many foreign countries and islands
of the seae The United States soldiers, in 1900, introduced basketball in
the Philippine Islands. The American army of occupation taught it to the
German populace in 1919. During the Inter-Allied games: in Paris, June, 1919,
the United States, France, and Italy played for the championship, which the
United States won rather handily. After the Armistice was signed, two American
teams, by ivteedition from the British government, demonstrated basketball in
the British area of the war zone. The British took to it readily.

Proctically every foreign country has fashioned its basketball rules

after our American game. They look to us as the mother country of the sport,