You Gentiles
church, you would be happier, cleaner, stronger.
For, the premise once granted that life itself is but a joyous adventure, a combat, a passage-at-arms, you cannot do better than symbolize this premise in your athletic contests, in Olympiads, with local worship conducted on the village green and in the athletic halls and academies of the cities. The rigor of the rules (or sacred rites) which attended the open association of sport with religion testifies to the profound inner compulsion which makes the two identical. Indeed, even when religion and sport have been sundered, there is more moral odium attached to bad sportsmanship (cheating in the game, cowardice, selling out, striking foul and so on) than to the contravention of a moral injunction bearing no sporting character. You cannot, therefore, do better, from your point of view, than instil into your young a keen love and admiration of right sportsmanship, and encourage their participation in sports governed by severe regulations. Trained with
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