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The history of physical education (PE) in Canada and sport generally has undergone many incarnations and been subject to innumerable social mores. More specifically, PE development in Canada was linked to longer-term and international developments, especially in Britain and the United States. To the chagrin of many peaceable Canadian educators and citizens, much of the older literature on the subject stressed the importance of military training in PE development. Canada's official historian of the Canadian army in the Second World War succinctly expressed why so many Canadians might eschew the influence of the military on our public life, stating, "Canada is an unmilitary community. Warlike her people have often been forced to be; military they have never been" (Stacey, 3). While many deride the suggestion that PE be linked to military service, the Canadian militia and army provided essential and indispensible catalysts to the acceptance, growth and institutionalization of PE and sport in Canada.
It is common, when imagining the history of physical education, to simply recall the Olympiads held by the ancient Greek city states as early as 776 BCE. The competitive and military undertones of the ancient games is beyond dispute. Beyond that heralded example, one is hard pressed to find examples of organized, competitive sporting events, let alone organized physical education. However, physical education has been institutionally enshrined in civilizations across the globe, going back to the earliest civilizations, in the form of military training. This is not to draw an epistemological, pedagogical, or even chauvinistic line between the military and modern physical education, simply to suggest that the institutionalization of physical education has a longer and more honoured historical pedigree than at first it might appear.
The professionalization of physical education in the modern sense, however, really took off in the 19th Century and was fostered in the United States through the activities of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education (now American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance), which was founded in 1885. The organization sought to professionalize and legitimize physical education by emphasizing scientific research. But as Roberta J. Park argues, the profession remained "service oriented" until the mid-20th century, when the discipline developed into a scholarly community (Park, 2007). This article focuses on the...