Athletic games, or competitive trials of in dividual strength, speed or skill under fixed rules, are probably prehistoric. The mention of them takes one's thought at once to °the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.* The Greek games have been im mortalized in literature and art; prominent ex amples of which are the Iliad and Odyssey, Pindar's 'Odes of Victory' and, in sculpture, the discobolus or discus thrower and the wrestlers. These Greek games were played at four stated festivals, the greatest being the Olympic, which became a national festival about 776 Lc., and recurred every four years at Olympia in Elis. The importance of the Olympic festival in Greek national life may be judged from the fact that time came to be reckoned in Olympiads. The Pythian games were celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad, the Nemean games in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, and the Isthmian games in the first and third years of each Olympiad. All were held in honor of somegod. In Homeric times the events in athletic games were chariot racing, boxing, wrestling, foot racing and javelin throwing. The Olympic contests, which came later, were probably confined at first to foot racing; to this other events were gradually added until the pentathlon came into existence, about the 18th Olympiad, and boxing and chariot racing were added in the 23d Olympiad. The pentathlon consisted of leaping, spear throwing, discus pitch ing, running and wrestling. It thus called for "all-over° work, thereby preventing inharmoni ous development by over-specialization. A competing athlete was obliged to enter for all five contests and was considered a victor only upon winning at least three of the five events. The best modern athletic games embody these principles in what are called group contests. For instance, in the pentathlon of the Young Men's Christian Association, the 100-yard dash is equivalent to- the Greek foot race; throwing the 12-pound hammer is equivalent to discus throwing, the running high jump to leaping; pole vaulting for height is a substitute for hurling the spear and the one-mile run for wrestling. The prizes for the Greek games had no intrinsic value and were merely symbols of honor, as wreaths or palm branches. The prestige and indirect advantages accruing to a victor, however, became in time so great that contestants spent all of their time training for the games. The entrance of this professional and commercial spirit led to the decadence of the games. A similar degeneration occurred much more quickly in Rome. In these latter days we have had the dramatic spectacle of the revival of the Greek games as international con tests, the first of these occurring in Athens in 1896. The countries represented by the con testants in these international games included Germany, England, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Hungary, Denmark, Greece, Australia and the United States. See OLYMPIC GAMES.
No mention of the Greek games would be adequate that did not include the balanced rela tion which they held to the intellectual, artistic and ethical interests of the time. The contest ants were examples of balanced culture, and the festivals drew together the greatest poets, philosophers, orators and artists whose achieve ments were there displayed. The tournaments or jousting bouts of the age of chivalry may be cited as a further example of athletic contests of great popularity in which the concern for physical prowess was blended with higher in terests. It is notable that the modern organiza tions which have made physical training most popular, the German Turnverein, the Young Men's Christian Association and the colleges, also combine these varied elements.
Ranking higher as games than individual contests, because more complicated in their or ganization and demands, are team games in which opposing groups contest, each as a unit against the other. Each player on such a team has his assigned part or duties, differing from many of the others, but as an individual he is subordinate to the interests of his team. Games of this class are an expression of the fighting in stinct and undoubtedly are a development from the simpler fighting games played by young boys, such as stealing sticks (Scots and Eng lish), and prisoner's base, which in turn are supposed to have originated in border warfare. Between these simpler games and the highly developed team . games there exists the same differences of organization as between prim itive and modern warfare. The former was merely a series of individual combats, the parts enacted by the various contestants being hom ogeneous, and, the fight, once on, very largely a matter of individual initiative. In modern warfare there is greater differentation of duties. and the individual is subordinated to the organized whole. The team games most popular in the United States are baseball, foot ball, basket ball, cricket and hockey. Baseball has been called the national game of the United States, as cricket and Rugby football are dis tinctive of England, golf of Scotland and hand ball of Ireland. Basket ball bears the unique distinction of being the only game of wide and enduring popularity which was deliberately invented. Dr. James Naismith devised the game about 1892, as a result of studying the principles involved in successful games. Though invented for and played by men, it is the only team game that has become popular with women. Competitive adult games largely in vogue, which depend upon skill, rather than upon a combination of skill and organization, are tennis, golf and croquet.
The anthropological tenet, that in his de velopment the child passes through the stages which the race has gone through before him, finds strong confirmation in children's plays and games. work of adults in one age of human history becomes the play of children in another.° While the play of civilized children, as of savage, shows imitations of current adult activities, nearly all of the games of civilized children would seem to take their players through the primitive culture epochs. Just what this, or the lack of it, may mean for indi vidual development we cannot say; but it may be inferred from the direct training of power which games provide.
Intellectual pastime are quite as educative as the more active physical games. In the proc ess of the evolutional development of the aver age child there comes a time when mental play is a real necessity, and in later life games that employ the mind are usually preferred to those that call for physical exertion. Grandmother is often as fond of her backgammon as the college youth of his chess or the clerk of his proficiency at checkers. Backgammon, like most board games, is partly a game of chance, but there is considerable opportunity for the exercise of skill and experience. These same conditions make most of the fascination in volved in games of cards. Chance determines what cards each player shall hold but he usually has choice as to what he shall play, and this affords opportunity for skill, judgment and application of the law of averages. Some games of cards, like whist, call for really scientific play to excel; others, like draw-poker, call for quick judgment of human nature, cour age and bluff. Card games in which there is bidding, like auction bridge, develop the trading qualities useful to the merchant.