Prologue: Middle-Class 'Revolutionaries' in Pursuit of Moral, Physical, Political and Social Health

A similar development occurred in Europe in the nineteenth century.4 In European, and especially in English, schools in a similar period of rapid expansion in population, wealth and world-wide aspirations, props of gender, moral, social and political order were erected. Educationalists used modern sport as a central prop to support a structure of perceived moral superiority. This is no exaggeration.s Some of these educationalists feature prominently in Reformers, Sport, Modernizers. 6 They helped to change Europe - and the world - ideologically, recreationally and topographically.