Nearly four decades after the launched his education reform efforts in France, Baron Pierre de Coubertin remained dissatisfied with the changes his initiatives had wrought.  As he stepped to the podium to deliver his retirement speech to the IOC in Prague in May 1925, he wanted to remind his colleagues that the work before them remained unfinished.  Part of his mission in the founding the modern Olympic Games had been to help promote the popularity of sport in order to facilitate the great educational reform he had in mind, not only in France, but across Europe and around the world.  He made clear to his colleagues that he intended to focus his remaining energies on “an educational structure … more suited to the needs of the day.” That meant a school system and classrooms open to all classes and ages of society, from children to adults. It was clear that he wanted the IOC and the Olympic Movement to continue to carry the banner of education reform forward as well—a wish that was never fulfilled as the rising demands and visibility of sport absorbed all the Olympic Movement’s resources.

“Europe is rich in magnificent, slowly accumulated culture, but no longer does some guide wire lead those of a privileged social status through it, while access is simply forbidden to the non-privileged. The time has come to build an educational structure with architecture more suited to the needs of the day.”