The committee in a circular in connection with the Earl of Birkenhhead's letter sets out the purposes of the Association as follows:—
First, to spread the practice of open-air games and athletic pastimes throughout every country in the world. Second, to bring the athletic youth of all nations together in healthy, but friendly rivalry and in the atmosphere that is created by the international comradeship of sport. Since. its foundation in the year 1905, the British Olympic Association has promoted the phy-cal and moral well being of the nation and created a new bond between the sport loving democracies of the world.
It organized and carried through the Olympic Games held in London in 1908, the first games at which truly representative national teams took part. Since then it has sent representative British teams—track and field athletes, footballers, oarsmen, fencers, boxers,. swimmers, lawn tennis players, and others—to take part in the Games.held at Stockholm in 1912, at Antwerp in 1920, and at Paris in 1924. Each time' better and stronger all-round teams have been sent, with increased comfort for the competitors.
The British Olympic Association has also encouraged within the measure of its power international sport, by sending British teams abroad run or play games against teams in foreign countries and by the entertainment of foreign teams in Great Britain, In the same spirit it has entertained teams that have come to this country from British Dominions overseas, and has worked in the closest touch with the Olympic associations of the various self-governing Dominions. The greatest importance has always been attached to this work. The British Olympic Association has always taken leading part in the work of international conferences and committees connected with the organization of] the Olympic Games, and thus has brought British opinion to bear upon the development of amateur sport throughout the world.
Stimulation of Interest in Athletics The Council of the British Olyni pic Association may therefore claim that the Association has in great part fulfilled the purposes for which it was created:—
By making possible British participation in great international contests, it has stimulated untold numbers of young British men and Women to take an active interest in athletic games; By urging the provision of better facilities for the playing of games by every class of the community, it! has helped to secure more running: tracks and playing grounds for public use: nothing does more for the physical well-being and the ternal unity and contentment of the nation. By its work of propaganda, it has helped to raise the standard of sportsmanship in ihe playing of]
By its general work, it has helped! to cement good feeling between the playing publics of Great Britain and the Dominions averses By givingsto the youth of Great Britain in every walk of life an opportunity of meeting and mixing, with the youth of our Dominions: and of other nations: thus broad: ing the minds of all and bringing about a better understanding of each' other's point of vie By helping to make the Olympic Games a great international festival of nations, it has done much to transform the whole Olympic movement into what the Prince of Wales called it at the Olympic Banquet in Paris in 1924—a true "League of Sporting Nations."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.