Although he was born into the French aristocracy, Baron Pierre de Coubertin used all the resources at his disposal to serve the common man through sport and education.  He longed to close the distance that separated class from class and sport became his primary tool in that effort.  He believed that sport stripped away the artifice of social convention and created the interaction essential to bringing people together.  In August of 1913, he addressed this concept in the article 'Sport and the Social Purpose,' which was published in La Réforme Sociale.

“Sport reduces social distance, at times eliminating it altogether, at times going so far as to overturn the social hourglass by placing a humble craftsman higher than a prince. It quickens the spirit of the struggle, of effort, and of risk, yet the innate solidarity it engenders counteracts any woefully brutal or wild excesses that the taste for the struggle, the effort, and the risk might stir up. What other factor can we find that is capable of influencing social relations this way?”