“The drift in France among young men of education was towards softness and overrefinement, and the vices that are somewhat dangerously akin to certain phases of aesthetic development. The ideals of youth in England seemed, as compared with those of France, to make for the clear eye, the steady hand, the firm will,—in short, for self-control and the conservation of energy. It was, therefore, with no mere boyish fondness for the excitement of athletic contest, considered as a thing desirable in itself, that M. de Coubertin devoted himself to the development or the revival of a high type of manhood among French students.... He was ready at length in 1888, at the age of twenty-five, to publish his book _L’Éducation en Angleterre_ (see p. 202), an account of school life in England, which, while valuable on any account, was of particular use in the advancement of the cause to which all his efforts were really devoted. The book attracted very favorable attention in France, and its success gave the young author and reformer prestige enough for the public launching of his practical movement, this taking the form of a ‘committee for the propagation of sports and physical exercises in education,’ with that eminent statesman, scholar, and educational authority, Jules Simon, as president of the committee.” In 1889, in connection with the Paris Exposition, he organized a congress on physical education, and that autumn visited the United States, under commission from the National Department of Public Instruction, to study the organization, work, and life of American colleges. “Meanwhile,” continues Shaw, “all this work for the encouragement of the athletic spirit in the French institutions had begun to tell strongly; and in the season of 1891-1892 it was possible under M. de Coubertin’s leadership to organize what is now the well-known _Union des Sociétés des Sports Athlétiques_. This central body is a confederation of about two hundred French athletic clubs and societies, half of which are in the universities and colleges. With a view to keeping the French student’s interest from flagging, M. de Coubertin endeavored to make some plans for English and American competitions. Thus, in 1892, international football matches were begun between French and English teams, Lord Dufferin himself presiding over the first one held at Paris. M. de Coubertin also succeeded in securing the recognition of the French Union by the Henley Regatta Committee, and the admission of French rowing crews to the university contests on the Thames. Again, in that same season, he secured the visit to Paris of a team of American university athletes, as the result of the efforts of an American committee which he had organized and in which his friend Professor Sloane, then of Princeton University, was especially active....