The Ethical Value of Sports for Women.—First come the benefits to the individual and second the benefits to the community, and it is a self-evident fact that that which promotes the highest development of the individual raises the standard of the community.

The benefits accruing to the individual are physical, esthetic, and psychologic; and as the result of the development of the individual along these lines will result the fourth benefit, the social or the “community good.”

Municipal governments are beginning to recognize the fact that the maintenance of public playgrounds not merely promote the good of the individual, but lessen the death-rate, the poverty rate, the criminal rate, and it has been found that the working capacity of the people depend in some way upon the recreation afforded them.

Sports for women are essential, not only to better fit the individual for her place in life, but as an offset to the deadly monotony of her work. The predominating note of sports should be joy, exhilaration, and the social features of games.

Women’s sports, like women’s clubs, are and should be run along different lines from men’s. The object of women’s games are for their development and individual good, and should, therefore, never be played before indiscriminate audiences who pay an admission fee.

Women have the same necessity as children and men for a wholesome physical outlet for the exuberance of animal spirits and energy.

The esthetic value of games has been found to be expressed in the improvement of the personal habits and appearance, which indicates a higher standard of living.

And the psychologic value has been found to be a development of the mental and the moral qualities, and so the individual is the better enabled to direct her efforts wisely and so more successfully in life’s activities.

All of this is not a matter of theory, but it is the universal testimony of the directors of the various athletic associations for women all over the country.

Among other developments along the physical line are endurance, skill, precision, and coördination. To be able to do physical things well has an ethical value in the individual’s attitude toward life in all its phases.

The esthetic value lays stress upon the beauty and good form of games. It is essential in playing games that women should stand well, walk well, run well, throw well, and have a neat appearance. The manners and habits of the players on the field are also part of the esthetic training.

It has also been noted that for reasons largely beyond her control the primitive occupations of women have been taken out of her hands, and have forced her, in order to secure a maintenance for herself, or those depending on her for support, out of the home into the industries and occupations of the world, together with a fierce competition which this necessitates. In other words, success is based upon competition, and competition is the keynote of organized games. So that one of the values of games is to maintain fair, economic, and coöperative rules of competition. Other things being equal, the athletic man or woman who has played according to the rules of the games is likely to be fairer than he who knows nothing of clean sport.

Some of the mental qualities developed are observation, attention, concentration, memory, imagination, initiative, reason, and will power. These qualities are most highly developed in the various ball games, from its simplest forms to team work, as baseball and basket-ball.

The moral qualities developed are self-control, unselfishness, a sense of honor, self-sacrifice, self-confidence, fairness, democracy of spirit, modesty, and decision. One of the qualities which characterizes a good player is that she will do the things which are assigned her. Promptness and obedience to order are the first laws in any game. Throughout the game self-confidence is taught. Each player has her own responsibilities, decisions must be quickly and accurately made, while overconfidence brings a sure defeat.

If competition underlies all games, it is equally true that unselfishness is the basis of all team work. The ability to work together requires at every point unselfish adjustment. One of the first things learned is to appreciate another’s ability, and the individual egotism, so marked in the beginning of the work, is rapidly toned down.

Closely allied with unselfishness is the spirit of fair play, and closely linked with fairness is loyalty and a sense of honor, the lack of which makes girls the contempt of boys and women the despair of men. It has been averred that the social position of woman and her dependence upon her lord and master have lead her to become indirect and devious, hence her lack of perfect truthfulness and sense of honor, so that when put upon her honor she does not realize her responsibility.

Another great advantage that games possess for women is that many of them, from their weak physical condition, are abnormally sensitive and introspective; they live too much on the subjective side of life. While sports are primarily objective, they afford no opportunity for analysis of feeling; the thought must be riveted on the thing to be done. Every girl’s school and woman’s club which provides opportunities for games and sports erect barriers against nervousness, morbidity, and too much introspection. These qualities which games develop are not masculine, but human; qualities needed for human fellowship.

The Forms of Athletic Games Best Suited to Women.—Dr. Sargent’s conclusions as to the form of athletic games best suited to women, coming from a man of his wide observation and great experience, should be more generally known, and he says, without hesitation, that there is no athletic sport practised in which some women cannot enter, not only without fear of injury, but with great prospect of success. But the feminine type of build, whether found in men or women, is a handicap in many athletic contests. But these limitations do not apply to girls between ten and fourteen years of age. During this period girls, if properly trained, will often surpass boys of the same age in any kind of athletic performance. Moreover, if girls were given the same kind of physical training as boys receive all through their growing and developing period, they would be able to make a much more creditable showing as athletes when they became adult women. In the early history of mankind the men and women lead lives more nearly alike, and were consequently more alike physically and mentally than they have become subsequently in the history of highly civilized people.

From a physiologic standpoint, woman needs exercise just as much as man does, but, in taking up athletics, these must be regulated on a different basis. Women, as a class, cannot stand prolonged physical or mental strain as well as men do, but give them frequent intervals of rest and relaxation, and they will often accomplish as much in the twenty-four hours as men do.

From her physical configuration and her inability to bear prolonged physical and mental strain, there are certain athletic sports and games that would be likely to prove injurious to most women if played in the form in which they are played by men. In this group are foot-ball, ice hockey, polo, basket-ball, boxing, fencing, pole vaulting, and heavy gymnastics. If these sports and games should be so modified as to meet the peculiar characteristics of women, there are none of them that could not be played with reasonable hopes of physical, mental, and moral improvement.

The athletic exercises and games to which women are best adapted, and in which they are most likely to excel, are all forms of dancing, calisthenics and light gymnastics, archery, lawn-tennis, swimming, field hockey, lacrosse, sprint running, bicycling, rowing, canoeing, golf, skating, fencing, basket-ball, and all gymnastic plays and games.

In all athletic exercises in which women engage, good form, rather than great records, should be striven for. Women may be excused for not being as strong and enduring as men, but they cannot be excused for not being more finished and graceful. Good carriage, perfect poise, self-command, and exquisite grace and refinement should enter into women’s athletic performances, and these qualities should be taken into consideration by the judges in making their awards.