hand, these periodicals would probably retort by saying, “What is the use of being able merely to hit a golf ball two hundred yards, make a totally untakeable stroke at racquets, hit over the pavilion at Lord’s, or put in a hot shot at Association?” To this we readily answer, “There is no use in it at all _in itself_.” But what is useful is to be possessed of the quickness, not only of muscle and eye, which is necessary to such a performance, but the quickness of seeing an opportunity, and the having the body in such perfect poise, in such perfect obedience to the will, that as soon as the opportunity occurs it instantly and correctly takes advantage of it. The acquisition of mere muscular force cannot produce this, and the professional strong man who could lift a wiry golf player from the ground with one hand will, unless he is something more than a professional strong man, be easily outdriven by the other. This borders on the vital question--namely, What is the use of athletics? And the answer is that _they are a help towards training_, by which is meant not the cultivation of a particular set of muscles in order to attain excellence at a particular game, still less the cultivation of slow moving muscles of ponderous size adapted only for the moving of heavy bodies, but the fitness of the entire body to execute the orders of the will rapidly and correctly, the health necessary and incidental to this, the endurance and strength which will result from it. Nor is this fitness, which we desire to see the birthright of the entire race, at all confined to the body only, for to have the body in subjection in this manner necessarily contributes to the mental and moral health of a man. That his mind and morals may be extremely healthy, though he does not know a cricket-bat from a golf-club, goes without saying; but that athletics, from their engrossing nature to (we believe) the average person, from the healthy fatigue which they produce, from their insistence that a man should abstain from excess of food and drink and other habits more injurious, contribute to the health of mind and morals, is, we believe, beyond question. Training, in other words, in the bigger sense in which we wish to apply the term, has for its object not only fitness for any or for every athletic exercise, but fitness for all work mental as well as bodily. Yet it is nearly as much a mistake to devote all one’s time to keeping perfectly well, as it is to disregard health altogether. We believe, in fact, that certain rules of life, certain habits and certain daily exercises produce the state of body which we denote by the phrase _being in Training_, and that this adapts its owner, in so far as he is adaptable, for any work he has to do. Not that there is any one fixed mode of life, any one diet, or any one exercise which will suit everybody, but there are certain general lines of health, broad paths which should be approximately followed, or at any rate given a trial.