HOCKEY FOR GIRLS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1407, 6 April 1912, Page 11

HOCKEY FOR GIRLS.

WHAT AN AUTHORITY SAYS. Hockey' as a game for girls is becoming increasingly popular in A r ictoria, and sports mistresses approve of it because they consider that, properly played, it gives an excellent training in the cultivation of ' self-restraint, unselfishness, good temper, and a sportsmanlike disregard of pain. That may well be true-, but if it lias the counterbalancing disadvantages it' is only right, to regard them,, too. A short article on the subject,' con-' tributed to the educational supplement' of "The Times" of February 9, should give pauso to enthusiasts. ' The writer ' claims, as a college and county player, and as a games mistress with several years' experience, to speak with some authority. "Hockey,", she says, "if it is played with energy and spirit, is an extremely exhausting game. The ball travels fast and far, and for an hour and ten minutes the majority of the players are running, almost incessantly, at full sneed. . . . Apart from the possibility of injury, a girl who can safely play hockey should be able to endure, and to beneiit by, extreme fatigue, and should be hardy enough not to suffer from exposure. _ In other words, she must be the exceptional rather than the average girl. ... I therefore maintain that hockey should be given up in public secondary schools, so long as the girls are subjected to severe over-pres-eure in work, as they are; at present. , Tho important point appears- to be that the girls who play hockey should be phyeically fit, and this is a matter that parents' should certainly make sure of tpr themselves. By-and-by, when regular medical inspection of the pupils ary schools is in vogue, such matters ns ' this will come within the purview and control of the medical inspectors.