In November of 1928, looking back on his long career in education reform—based on the core idea of integrating exercise and sport into the public school curriculum—Baron Pierre de Coubertin recalled those days when he had to promote the benefits of sport in contrast to intellectual learning. Today’s quote is from his speech, “The Educational Use of Athletic Activity,” delivered to the International Bureau of Sports Pedagogy in Lausanne.

“They were well aware that although a Latin translation assignment improves the mind (an activity that is becoming much too foreign to us), it is sport, with all its violent contact, its options and its opportunities, that prepares (excuse me! that can prepare) the body and the character for the battles of life. They sensed that sport combines the only two things that, taken together, ensure peace among societies: mutual assistance and competition. They sensed that it is in sports that the combination of confidence and wariness, daring and prudence, enthusiasm and self-control so necessary for success is achieved. These are, as it were, the foundations of proper human balance.”