Schwegler

Allen

Schwegler

~Oe

You raise a very difficult and tricky question. Perhans ange.
should fear to tread on this grovnd but since you ask me. 2 1413
widertake to tell you what is in my mind. Formal avhlotics, es
presented by the spectacular performance of carefully scl. ober
and trained teams, answer a deep psychological hunger rer rasvor;
on the part of those of us who do not playe The mediaevai mig,
jousting with his opponents in the presence of the assombled popue
lace, is merely another answer to this same eternal hunger cf the
human individual for mastery. The gladiatorial conbats in tie
Roman arena are another. There has always boon the desire on thc
part of the commonplace individual to have the psychic thrill of
superiority and mastorye. ‘Unable conveniently to devise ways and
means of achieving this fecling of mastery in connection with the
humdrua routine of ordinary life, we set un occasional situations
in connection with which we secure by a species of identification
with our team the thrill of contest and the ecstacy of victory.
Looked at from this anglo, athletics, whether intercollegiate or

-otherwise, possess a very definite psychic and social values

They bind otherwise loosely organized groups into coherent bodies.
They offer escape mechanisms for persons about to be overwhelmed
by the monotonous routine of daily servings

Their valuc is undeniably great cnough to outweigh the dangers

and disadvantages. If such wore not the case they would have
been abandoned ages agoe However, they do not constitute physical
educatione They are something wholly apart. It just happens that
in order to be an efficient publicly acceptable professional ath-
lete one has to be efficiont in physical skills and physical prowess.
One*s health has to be topnotch, one has to practice in daily life
the things that physical education teachese It is wfortunate,
however, to confuse physical education with athletics. Physical
excellence happens to be involved, but athlotics are not physical
educations They merely utilize its products.

Dean Schwegler, that is an interesting analysiss But would you not
say that the series of inhibitive activitics that the athlete in-
dulges in are cducational? Is there, or is there not, a transference
of training from the field of athletic strife, where the boy learns
to say "no" a thousand times to tenptation in order that he may say
"yes" once to victory, to other ficlds of endeavor?

Every study of the transfer of learning that has ccne to my attention
points in the direction of a negative answor to your question. The
facts of human experience as illustrated by the extraescholastic
life of athletes scoms to coincide fairly well with the theoretical
discoveries of the laboratorye It is almost a conmonplaco to learn
that the athlote off tho job is not characterized by any outstand-
ing degree of tomperance or continence; and there is in many, many
cases a painful record of physical and mental disastor resulting
from the obliteration of inhibitions, cither during or shortly after
the period of athletic preeminence, There is little reason to be-
lieve that, except under somewhat special conditions, tho habits of
continence and temperance which fumetion almost automatically when