a year must go by before that performance could be
bettered. This excellent showing is the natural result of the hard
training and constant energy of the hundreds of runners and jumpers in
the schools; and the ever-increasing number of contestants all over the
country proves that track and field sports have secured a firm foothold,
and now deserve to be recognized as equal in importance to both football
and baseball. In the vicinity of New York, at least, there are fully
twice as many who indulge in track athletics as there are baseball and
football players. In other regions I think the proportions are more
nearly equal. The growth of these sports has been very rapid. In almost
every centre there is an Interscholastic Association or League, and the
daily newspapers, not only of the East but of the West, have been
printing reports of scholastic meets for the past two months. The work
of the school athletes has decidedly become a factor in amateur sport.
In some of the school leagues there are better men than the colleges can
boast of.

The annual meeting of the Inter-collegiate Athletic Association at the
Berkeley Oval, usually characterized as the "Mott Haven games," because
they were first held at Mott Haven, brings together the best college
athletic talent from all parts of this broad country. This year a team
from the University of California travelled three thousand miles
overland to contest for the championship on that day. Besides them, an
unknown runner with a rapid gait and a queer cap came out of the West,
and left the crack sprinters of the East straining and striving behind
him, while he, with a broad smile, pocketed two gold medals, and carried
them back to Iowa. I don't believe there was ever any better sport at
Olympia, and if the colleges can be so successful in these things, and
can draw men to compete at these games from every point of the compass,
why should not the schools follow their example, and form one great
Interscholastic Association, and have a big meeting once a year? There
is no reason why they should not. I can think of hardly a single
obstacle in the way of the formation of such a league. All that is
needed is that some energetic individual or individuals, or some
enthusiastic and sporting spirited Athletic Association take the matter
in hand and put it through. Once started, the routine of organization
would roll along as if on wheels.

It is not necessary that every school in the count