forced to register in them, very few of the athletes pass my courses with

March 31, 1939 |

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN THE LIGHT OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
By Samuel Haig Jameson
University of Oregon, Department of Sociology ie
_ Address to the Ninth Annual Convention of the ae
Northwest District, American Ass'n for Health, Physical Education, Recreation
| I. Introduction
It is rather humorous for me to be invited to speak to this
group. In the first plece, according to a placard and slogan in McArthur
Court basement, "Good athletes don't get hurt", I am a poor athlete. I
have broken my arm playing handball, cracked my ribs in boxing, smashed my
glesses on the tennis court, and recently, I have strained my tendons in
volleyball. Heaven knows what golfing and deck tennis will do to met In
the second place, I know nothing directly ebout physical education, x have
never sat at the feet of the twentieth century Gamaliels in physical edu-
cation; that is to say, I have not had a single course in your fields. Nor
can I boast of Spartan ancestry. In the third place, although some are é
satisfactory grades and some never forgive me the sin of flunking them. Thus
I am a persona non grata in the sight of the physical education majors.
Perhaps your program chairman invited me with malice aforethought. Possibly
knowing that I do not hesitate to appear where I am invited, end realizing
that someone on the program must be the goat, he picked me out in order to
display my rank ignorance. Since amusement-mindedness is one of our dominant
culture traits today, I hope you will have that desire satisfied this evening
at my expense.
As a layman I have questioned the physical education majors
during the past score of il on college teaching as to their anticipations

in their chosen field. Both men and women students have exhibited much hope