Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Popular Science Monthly

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wisely, may under new form become a valuable possession of the adult. There is a great big man, in fact, several possible men, inside every boy. Through his running, jumping, fighting, swimming, through impulse, instincts and emotions he is seeking the man that is in him, and it is by this turbulent and experimental course that he finally comes to the order of maturity. Every boy is a vitally coiled up set of springs pressing to be released. Race-old energies are struggling in him for expression, and play is the normal way to satisfy the great demand. The child may miss some important things and yet get on, but it can not, without severe and lasting harm miss the instinctive activities of play. In play and games the young are re-enacting these old muscular coordinations and developing mind and body on the old foundation. The boy's love of outdoor sports and the adventures of hunting are significant. Those ancestors of ours who hunted and fished and shaped with care their arrow heads were developing a manual skill and thinking power that we inherit. We use our muscles for more varied and possibly more finished purposes, but it is through the patience and practise of their rude lives that we possess the delicate uses of the hands and the finer dexterities of the mind. The boy who goes whistling to the fields, or hunts, or fishes, or swims, is unconsciously reaching out toward later life and is preparing for serious and bigger things. The growing formative period of life is the time for good physical development. Whatever is gained and fixed then is permanent, as it becomes a part of the physiological habits of the individual. The years before twenty decide the future energy stores, and the capacity to endure. Every function enlarged, every gain of power, is additional storage room for energy, to be drawn upon in the coming days of adult stress. Good physical development not only gives strength and skill in the use of the body, but develops a physiological habit of surplus power that may be called quantity of energy. Life is not alone in quality, in delicacy of adjustment, in accuracy, in fineness of feeling; it is also in quantity. The poet who, with frail physique and feeble pulse, sits in his quiet retreat and puts his fine fancies into the rhythms of verse has quality. But in the stress and rivalry of life that awaits the majority of men, there is a need for quantity of energy, such as enabled a Washington or a Caesar or a Napoleon or a Wellington to shoulder his way through difficulties. These men combined quality with quantity and this combination may make, and often does make, the life of masterful achievement. The quantity of energy in us average men may make the difference between success and failure. Many men fail in life for lack of staying power, for lack of that kind of endurance that is furnished by having power in reserve. The strong, confident person who has strength to spare, reserves of energy, does his work easily and without friction. Half the timidities and indecisions of men are chargeable less to lack of ability than to lack of the physical vigor, the QUANTITY of energy, which is the driving power of character. In all the contests of life an important element in success is the ability to endure prolonged stress, to have the reserve energy that can be drawn upon and utilized as a driving force. This power is not alone necessary in the emergencies, the "short hauls" of life, but also in the long hauls that spread the strain through greater periods. Many of the failures of life are due as much to lack of ability to meet prolonged stress as to lack of experience or intelligence. men of moderate ability but with great powers of endurance often succeed, while men of greater talent fail for lack of the ability to endure strain. The man with a weak body and without the self-confidence that surplus energy gives is liable to be of uncertain judgment. Such a man in the presence of a problem requiring quick decision, doubts and hesitates and stands shivering on the brink of action while hastening opportunities pass him by. Much of the loose thinking of our time is undoubtedly due to poor educational drill. In fact the failure of the schools to teach pupils how to apply the mind and how to think is one of their common reproaches. Inability to use the mind effectively is also frequently due to a lack of vigor and physical stamina. A person with poor digestion, or under-developed body, or weak circulation has of necessity a badly nourished brain. Such a brain, unless it belongs to a genius, will do poor thinking. The mentally trained person who is also physically strong has the combination that puts his powers at easy command. He can be joyously busy doing the impossible because the doing of it has been made easy by training. How much native power there is in all of us that for want of proper training or sympathetic encouragement never comes to maturity! How many of the finer qualities of character that, for want of a kindlier climate of cheerful companionship and wise direction, failed to mature and now lie dead in us! Very many people are only partly alive. A large part, and in some, the best part, is dead. The capacity they show is probably only a small share of a fine inheritance which, not knowing how to use, they allowed to die. We have an instinctive liking for people who are strong and healthy. They appeal to us by their robustness and their confident display of energy. We do not now need the big muscles that were once necessary in wielding spear and battle-axe. We need, however, as much as the race ever needed well-developed bodies and habits of health. It is not difficult for us to see that sports and games and play help to physical development, but it is not so plain that they may be made to develop the best qualities of character. It is a fact, however, that all the important elements of character are tried out in games and sports. Enthusiasm, self-confidence, the adventurous spirit, alertness, promptness, unselfishness, cooperation, quick judgment--all these have their training and discipline on the game field. They comprise those fundamental native qualities that have gone to make humanity what it is. The young should have this training, and, if of the right kind, it may be made to contribute to the

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