ct of supervision of this sort that the ethical value of
baseball for boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age is forfeited.
Without the trainer to direct their practice games, and as a recognized
expert to try out the players for the various positions, the
possibilities of forming a team are few and those of unjust and harmful
conduct many.

If at the outset, the group, coming together in park or vacant lot,
cannot speedily agree upon a _modus operandi_, their energy is turned
into profane disputing about the chief positions, and usually a game
cannot be organized, or, if it is, lack of agreement as to put-outs,
runs, fouls, and debatable points soon ruins the attempt, with little
left to most of the boys except resentment of the might-makes-right
policy. On the other hand, whether one has in mind a team or a chance
group of players, the presence of a capable adult as an immediate and
final court of appeal guarantees fair play for all, prevents personal
animosities, and inspires each one to do his best in the presence of a
competent judge.

Wherever the team with proper supervision is a possibility the moral
value of the game will be at its maximum. Uniforms are not to be
despised. Loyalty to the school represented is but boyhood's form of
what in later life becomes ability to espouse a cause and to assume a
degree of social responsibility in keeping with that attitude.

Because of this loyalty the boy who expected to play in the prominent
position of pitcher takes his less conspicuous place in right field, if
by fair trials under the trainer another boy has demonstrated his
superior fitness to fill the much-coveted position. For the credit of
the community or school which he has the honor to represent, the match
game must be won; hence he surrenders his personal glory to the common
good. He does more. Under the excitement of the contest and with the
consequent strengthening of the team spirit, he encourages the very boy,
who would otherwise have been only his personal rival, to do his level
best, forgetting utterly any mean individual comparisons and all
anti-social self-consciousness, in what he has enthusiastically accepted
as the greater common good.

He goes to bat at a critical juncture in the game. The score is close.
He as much as anyone would like to have runs to his credit. But for the
sake of the team his chief concern must be to advance the base runner.
So he plays carefully rather than spectacularly