and they became an integral part of the German empire produced by that
victory.
In contrast to the intense nationalism and militarism featured in con-
tinental gymnastics, British leaders emphasized acquisition of an individu-
alistic games ethic that they called sportsmanship. While Germans rejected
competition as morally corrupting, the British believed that effort to sur-
pass previous performances possesses morally uplifting qualities when tem-
pered by adherence to ideals of fair play and mutual respect. Games, espe-
cially cricket, were elevated to the status of moral discipline, and successful
competition according to the rules of the game was identified with certain
Victorian conceptions of manliness: seriousness, rectitude, courage, hon-
esty, leadership, individual initiative, and self-reliance, tempered by altru-
ism and a sense of duty. Although the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Welles-
ley, 1769–1852) probably never said that the Battle of Waterloo was won
on the playing fields of Eton, most Britons nonetheless believed that their
empire had been won through the superior spiritual qualities and moral
character inculcated by public school sports. Colonial administrators pro-
moted English games to instill British values and loyalty to the crown. So
great was the British transformation of games that historians generally
credit England with the invention of the modern concept of sport and its
diffusion throughout the world.
In 1892, a French educator named Pierre de Coubertin (1863–1937)
advocated the creation of a modern Olympiad as a means of combining the
team discipline and nationalistic sentiments of continental gymnastics with
the individual ethical qualities of English sports. Coubertin believed that
the moral discipline of English sports gave England a hidden source of mil-
itary power. He was especially influenced by the doctrines of “Muscular
Christianity” (i.e., teaching Christian ethics through physical contests) as
epitomized in the novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) by Thomas
Hughes (1822–1896). Based on these ideals, Coubertin argued that sports
and the ethical values of sports constituted a modern, secular religion that
should supplant the old-fashioned theistic creeds of Europe. He carefully
selected religious symbolism to imbue Olympic ceremonies with a sense of
spirituality: flags, processions, eternal flames, oaths, hymns, and so forth.
Coubertin wrote: “For me sport is a religion with church, dogma, ritual”
(Guttmann 1992, 3). Coubertin’s explicit emphasis on the spiritual and re-
ligious qualities of competition helped him overcome the skepticism of con-
tinental leaders who saw games as incompatible with the altruistic ideals of
their own gymnastic drills. In the face of this skepticism, Coubertin’s first
Olympiad in 1896 was a small affair with teams from only eleven Euro-
pean countries plus a few contestants from the United States and Chile.
Notwithstanding its shaky start, the Olympic movement quickly
Religion and Spiritual Development: Japan 477