There have probably been few things which have had a more astonishingly rapid growth than interscholastic athletics. All the fever of interscholastic football games, base ball games, track athletics and the like has been the product of hardly more than the last five years. When in 1886 the first interscholastic meeting was held in Southboro' between three schools, such things as meetings on Holmes Field or base ball or foot ball games on Jarvis to which admission was charged and for accounts of which a great part of the newspaper reading public looked forward with interest, - in the early days of interscholastic athletics such a state of things was never dreamed of. In this short space of time the great change has come and we have the sports and games today second only to intercollegiate sports. It cannot be said that the change has been wholly for the better. It may well be doubted if the publicity to which the young school boys have been brought has been productive of unmitigated good.

On the other hand the athletic training which the schools now get is excellent. More interest is being shown in physical training and a much higher grade of athletics has taken the place of the rather childish sports of ten years ago. All this, as has been said so many times, has its effect on collegiate athletics; and this New England Interscholastic Association is the feeder of Harvard more than of any other college. It is in Harvard's interest for her to keep up the encouragement which she is giving to these school athletics.