The story of the modern Olympic Games, and the events which led up to them may best be told in the words of Dr. Albert Shaw[181] and Professor William Milligan Sloane.[182] Its central figure in the early years is Baron Pierre de Coubertin, scion of an old French family, born January 1, 1863, and educated in the schools of Paris. “It was in 1884, when only twenty-one years of age,” says Dr. Shaw, “that M. de Coubertin began his visits to England, with the prime object of acquainting himself intimately with the life of the great public schools,—Rugby, Eton, Harrow, and the others of that type. He had become strongly convinced that there was an element in English education that was sadly lacking in the French schools. Obviously and conspicuously, the English training in athletics, and the English devotion to outdoor sports and exercises, were almost totally unknown in the French lyceums and collegiate institutes. But Coubertin clearly perceived that something even more serious was concerned than the mere question of physical culture. He understood that in the rowing, football, and cricket of the English schools, and all their other games, contests, and field-day exercises, there was involved an element of moral discipline and strength that supplied in some sense a key to the secret of England’s power. Not merely a manliness expressed in muscular force and physical bearing was developed in the English arena of school sports or neighborhood contests and pastimes, but also a fine spirit of fair play, a hatred of meanness, lying, and all forms of deceit, and that fundamental kind of honor and integrity of character that causes Englishmen to be trusted and respected, even if not greatly beloved, by all races, in all lands. Furthermore, this love of hardy games and contests seemed to Coubertin the best sort of protection to the young men of our times from the temptation to unworthy indulgences that tend to undermine personal vigor and thereby to diminish the vitality of the nation.