CHAPTER XXI
REMSEN’S PLEDGE
The tiny hall in Society House was crowded when Wayne and Don enteredat a little before eight. All the candidates for the track team, thecrew, the football team, and the baseball nine were there, and a groupof five graduates were talking together by the stage. At the latterWayne looked with some curiosity. Gardiner topped them all by halfa head. Kirk, the old baseball player, looked like a pygmy besidehim. Don pointed out the others: Barret, the renowned hurdler; Burns,once a famous sprinter; and Kenyon, holder of the intercollegiatetwo-hundred-and-twenty-yard record. Paddy joined them and the threefound seats near the front. Then Dave entered and squeezed into athree-inch space between Wayne and Paddy.
“How’d they go, Dave?” asked Don.
“Rotten; I can’t throw a hammer. I used to think I could, but----” Heshook his head sadly.
“Go on wid yer,” said Paddy. “Yez kin bate thim all if yez ’ud onlythink so.--But what in the name of goodness was the matter with youto-day?” he asked, turning to Wayne. Wayne smiled cheerfully and shookhis head.
“Blest if I know, Paddy. I guess I’m like Dave; I used to think Icould run, but----” He shook his head in mimicry of Dave and wiped animaginary tear from his eye.
“Well, you’re all a sorry lot,” said Paddy in disgust. “All exceptDon, and he can’t help winning, hang him!” Further compliments wereinterrupted by the appearance of Professor Beck and the former footballcoach, Stephen Remsen. Paddy jumped to his feet.
“Now then, fellows,” he cried, facing the hall, “three times three forRemsen!” The cheers were given with a will and the recipient bowed histhanks smilingly. Then Professor Beck took the platform, and, after afew words of criticism on the day’s events, read the training tablelist. Sixteen fellows were selected to go to “Mother” Burke’s in thevillage, and twelve were named for a table in the school dining room.Wayne’s name was on neither list and he shot an inquiring glance atDon. The latter whispered:
“It’s all right. You’ll go to table later.”
Two of the graduates, fine, healthy-looking men, took their turnsafter the professor and pointed out some defects in the afternoon’sperformances, spoke encouragingly to the fellows, and were cheered asthey took their seats. Then Remsen arose and the little audience becameon the instant as quiet as though made up of so many wax figures.Remsen was more than a Hillton graduate, more than a successfulcoach; he was a sort of school deity whom successive classes had longworshiped. In his school days he had been stroke in a winning crew, hadexcelled with the weights, and had been captain of the football elevenwhen it had devastated the surrounding country of laurels. These thingsare enough to place a man’s name high on the roster of fame and to earnhim gratitude. But besides this Remsen had been football coach forthree years, during which time the team had won two victories from andplayed a tie with St. Eustace; and always, ever since his graduation,he had labored unceasingly for the school and had done more than anyother individual toward establishing its athletics on a firm, stable,and honest basis.
In appearance he was about thirty years of age, and “football man”was stamped all over his well-built frame. He was the kind of man forwhom one would have predicted success in whatever undertaking he hadentered. His face was handsome and manly; his eyes gray and clear; andhis smile worth seeing. Hillton was proud of him, from its principal toits smallest junior, and he was proud of Hillton. When the fellows hadstopped clapping he began to speak.
“I’ve been asked by your principal to say a few words to you thisevening. I make this statement before I begin, so that if I bore you,you will know where to lay the blame. Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Barret havetold you some things that it will be worth your while to remember andto profit by; because they know just what they are talking about.But if I undertook to criticise what I saw this afternoon--aside fromthe work of the fellows who scattered the hammers and shots around--Ishould be out of my depth; I wouldn’t know a hurdle from a stop-watchif I met them together. What little I know about weights I am willingto talk about. But I’ll do that to-morrow, when I hope to meet theweight men on the campus. And as to football, why, if there is anythingthat Mr. Gardiner has forgotten to say I’ll be glad to say it before Ileave.
“To-night I should like to say a few words about training and athleticsin general. I am glad to see so much interest displayed in theapproaching interscholastic meeting. I hope we’ll win it. We’ve lostit with good grace for two years past; I think we could win it witheven better grace. But if we don’t come out on top this spring, why,I’m sure that we can give the other schools some points in the art oflosing. It’s a great thing to be able to lose well; much greater thanbeing able to win well. I think we do both well here at Hillton, butthere may be room for improvement; there usually is everywhere. It’sfine to win. I’d rather win any day than to lose. But I don’t alwaysmanage it. And it’s got to be the same way with a track team or afootball eleven or a crew. Sometimes it has got to come in second;perhaps third. If no crew was willing to accept second place therewouldn’t be any races, and soon there wouldn’t be any crews.
“I have a youngster at home; he isn’t very big yet--just put on hisfirst pair of trousers the other day--but he looks a good deal like afootball man already. Some day I expect he’ll come here to school. Ifhe does I hope he will row on the crew and play on the eleven or thenine, and, if he can, run well or leap the hurdles. But if I had my wayI’d fix his victories and defeats for him in about a proportion of onevictory to nine defeats. For it isn’t winning that helps a fellow get agood hard grip on the world, but losing. Yes, fellows, a boy or a manwill learn more wisdom--good, useful, every-day wisdom--in one defeatthan he will in nine victories. It would be a hard course for Remsen,Jr., but it would make a better man out of him in the end than would awhole eight years of first prizes. So don’t despise defeat, as long asit is honorable. Learn to make the most of it. Don’t feel down-heartedfor more than two minutes and a half; that’s quite long enough forregrets. Cheer the victors, and go back and try again. Don’t blame theother man because he won--it was probably your own fault; but shakehands with him and, if you must, tell him to look out for his laurelsnext time. Defeat ought to teach us courage, perseverance, manliness,good temper, and self-possession--all good things to learn. As I lookback on my school and college days I can remember occasions when I wonbigger victories through defeat than when I rowed in a winning crew orplayed on a winning team.
“But that’s enough about losing. You’ll think that I’m a bird of illomen, I’m afraid. So let’s talk about something else. I wonder how manyof you fellows realize the fact that all the hard work and training youhave gone through with and are still undergoing is not, after all, apreparation toward winning a track meeting or a boat race? Did you everstop to ask yourselves what the right aim of athletics is--what thechief aim should be? Some of you will answer: ‘That’s easy; the chiefaim of athletics is winning.’ Wrong; the true aim of all athletics,the world around, is physical culture. Winning is of small importance;contests are only incentives. We go in for athletics because we wishto attain to a condition of physical fitness that will allow us tomake the most of our lives. Athletics without training is useless; itwill accomplish almost nothing good. I use the word training here inits fullest meaning: moderation in diet and exercise, temperance andregularity in daily life, cleanliness and self-restraint. We train inorder that the actual athletics will benefit us. I might go throughthe most approved course of chest-weight and dumb-bell exercise, butif, as soon as it was over, I went to the table and stuffed my stomachfull of indigestible food, drank a lot of liquor, smoked a lot ofcigarettes or cigars, stayed up every night until one or two o’clock,took no outdoor exercise and breathed impure air all day, why, I mightas well let the chest weights alone so far as any benefit is concerned.Athletics require training, whether we are going to compete in sportsor not; and training means power to perform hard tasks with a modicumof fatigue and often with enjoyment; it enables th
e body to endurehardships, heat, cold, or fasting, without becoming endangered, and itclears the cobwebs out of the brain.
“Unusual strains without previous preparation will often proveinjurious. Training prepares us for those strains; our ability to meetthem increases as the training advances. The best training is thatwhich trains all parts of the body in unison. Don’t allow your exerciseto develop one physical portion of your body at the cost of any other;because you are going to throw weights don’t neglect your leg muscles;because you are going to try for the one-hundred-yard dash don’tneglect your arms. In short, avoid becoming a ‘specialist’ as much aspossible. Keep in mind the fact that general health and not success atone feat is the end of athletic training.
“I’m doing a good deal more talking than I intended to, and I dare sayI’m boring you badly, just as I feared I should. But there is one morething that I want to touch on while I’ve got you where you can’t getaway, and that----”
“Go on! We like it!” shouted a boy at the back of the room; and theaudience clapped and laughed its approval.
“Well, that’s very good of you,” Remsen continued smilingly. “But I’mabout through. If I was--well, a kind of athletic dictator in thiscountry, I should require from every fellow a verbal signature tothis pledge: ‘I will always play fair!’ It isn’t a very long pledge,but it means a good deal, as you will see if you’ll consider it. Ifevery schoolboy, whether an athlete or a grind, and every college manwould sign it and stick to it, we’d never hear of one school’s having‘severed athletic relations’ with another; there’d be no brawlingin football games, and we’d never see the charge of professionalismbrought against a college. And it is a pledge that we need not leavebehind us when we graduate; it’s a good pledge to stick to rightthrough life.
“I have no fault to find with Hillton athletes on the score ofunfairness. I earnestly believe that athletics are pure here; but I’mnot going to assume any ‘holier than thou’ attitude; and I hope youwon’t. Let us keep them as pure as we can and give an unobtrusivelesson to other schools--yes, and colleges. That’s all I’ve got to say,fellows. I thank you for listening so kindly.”
Ere the cheer had started Don was on his feet.
“Mr. Remsen,” he cried, “won’t you put that pledge to us? I’m sureevery fellow here will sign it gladly.”
A chorus of assent arose and much clapping. Remsen turned back to theaudience and held up his hand.
“You’ve heard what Cunningham has said. Nothing would please me morethan to have you all accept that pledge. Shall I put it to you?”
One deep, hearty “Yes” swept through the room.
“Very well. Suppose you take the pledge by rising. If there are anyhere who for any reason prefer not to pledge themselves I hope theywill keep their seats without any embarrassment. There may be some hereto-night who are so certain of their ability to always act rightly thatthey will not deem a pledge necessary. I shall think no less of thosewho decline to go through the form.”
The speaker paused and looked about the hall, a smiling brightness inhis gray eyes.
“Then after me, fellows, and rise. ‘I will always play fair.’”
“I will always play fair.” The response was earnest and hearty, andbefore the last word had died away every person in the hall was on hisfeet--graduates, Professor Beck, and all; not a person remained seated.
Stephen Remsen looked for a moment into the dozens of earnest facesbefore him. Then: “God send we can keep that pledge!” he said soberly.
Whereupon “Pigeon” Wallace leaped on to a chair and the cheering began.