The marriage of sport and education was the starting point of Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s vision for a better world.  Throughout his career, he sought to ensure that the Olympic Movement held true to his focus on the integration of sport—and his evolving philosophy of Olympism—into education.  One hundred years ago, with the world still engaged in the chaos of The Great War, the Baron sought to position Olympism as a force for education reform and an engine for the immediate tasks of rebuilding civic life across the war torn landscape of Europe.  These remarks appeared in “Olympic Letter III: Olympism and Education,” which was published in La Gazette de Lausanne on October 26, 1918.  Tomorrow, as the IOC launches its Olympism in Action symposium at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Coubertin’s original ideas on combining Olympism and education deserve due consideration.   

“Olympism is a destroyer of dividing walls. It calls for air and light for all. It advocates a broad-based athletic education accessible to all, trimmed with manly courage and the spirit of chivalry, blended with esthetic and literary demonstrations, and serves as an engine for national life and as a basis for civic life. That is its ideal program. Now can it be achieved?