Introduction

At a time when the first man to run a mile within four minutes is called upon to broadcast as the spokesman of his generation, when cricketers, climbers and a jockey receive knighthoods, when college football is big business in the United States and when, throughout the world, the Olympic Games have their diplomatic as well as their athletic importance, it may well seem that the study of physical culture as an aspect of culture in general has not received the serious attention which it deserves. The fact that the phrase ‘physical culture’ is usually associated with body building and muscular development and seldom bears the wider meaning given to it here is an indication of the narrow limits within which the subject has most often been studied. The chapters which follow are based on a broader conception of ‘physical culture’ ; they postulate that physical culture is part and parcel of general culture and they try to show how several systems of physical education have developed, not in vacuo, but in different environments, moulded and shaped by those environments.