From the Almonte Gazette
Dr. James Naismith The Inventor of
Basketball
On Saturday
afternoon,
The
ceremony was held under the auspices of Ramsay Women’s Institute and the public were
cordially invited to attend.
Below is a short biography of Dr. James Naismith, which was written by MRS. HOLLIE LOWRY, at the time.
*****
The
parents of James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, were Margaret Young and John
Naismith. They, with their little family lived a
short time in a white stuccoed house on the farm belonging to young Mrs. Naismith’s
father, Robert Young, lot 22, west half, concession 9.
They
moved to Quyon, Que., where they lived until typhoid fever claimed both young parents in
death in the fall of 1870, both aged 37 years. The children, Annie, about 11 years old,
James about 8 and Robert about 3 years old, came back to live with their uncle, Peter J.,
their grandmother and a young aunt. The
grandfather Young had died in July, 1870.
After
the passing away of the grandmother and the marriage of the aunt, Jim’s sister, young
Annie Naismith. with the help of another young girl was able to manage the housekeeping.
Annie remained un-married and continued to keep house for her uncle, first on the farm and
also after they moved to Almonte when Mr. Oates bought the farm.
The
Naismith children attended the Bennie's
As
a young man he worked as a hired man with neighbours until he was 22, before he had enough
money to start at
He
taught school for a short time in the 10th line school, S.S. # 15, when the teacher, Mr.
Young had to quit because of his health. He attended Almonte High School along with Tait
McKenzie. He decided to become a Presbyterian Minister and went to McGill in
Lacking
a complete formal High School education he put all his energies into his studies. The first
two months he studied almost continuously. Two young men from higher classes called on him
and warned him that he was studying too hard and needed to get some exercise and relaxation.
He hardly looked up from his book, but said, “That’s what I thought, too, but now look
at me.” He had been paying up with ill health for two years from overwork. The advice sank
in.
The
next Saturday afternoon he went for a walk on the campus and came upon a football team
practising. The boy played centre got hurt in the scrimmage, his nose was bleeding badly.
Football was pretty informal in those days, and there were no more substitute players then.
They asked if someone standing by would take his place. When none of the senior students
offered, Jim Naismith stepped forward. The captain threw him the ball. At the next game he
was on the team and stayed on it all through his seven college years for Arts and Theology.
Once
when this student minister had to preach, he turned up with two black eyes, received in a
football game with
In his last year in theology in the
All
the way through his seven college years in McGill
and
When he graduated as a Presbyterian
minister in 1890, at 28, he decided after talking things over with one of his professors to
go to
On
completing his training in 1891, he became assistant professor in Physical Education there.
Here he worked with Dr. Guillick, who founded the Girl Scouts of America (in U.S.A. of Girl
Guides). He also worked here with Dr. Stragg, the father of Modern Football, who was still
alive in 1964. James Naismith found that there was nothing much but plain exercises to do
after the football season was over. Dr. Guillick suggested that he think of some game to
play indoors without the injuries that boxing, wrestling and tumbling caused. A few days
later Professor Naismith gave a set of rules for the new game. These five rules are still
used as the basis of basketball. He invented many, many other things including a way of testing if a student had been drinking. One young man who played on the first
team was still alive in 1961 at the age of 88 years, a retired Presbyterian Minister, Dr.
Hildner. He remembers helping Professor Naismith to nail the peach baskets to the balcony of
the gymnasium. Later the bottoms were knocked out from the peach baskets. Once when he
visited
The
game spread like wildfire. Naismith’s students went to summer camps and taught this game.
Those attending went home and got teams started at the Y.M.C.A.‘s and in High Schools and
Colleges. As it only needed a ball and two hoops it became common in Church groups. One was
organized, the first, in Cleveland in 1905 and
is going yet. Hundreds of letters came in asking for the rules of the game. Naismith and Dr.
Guillick compiled a book of rules that became the base manual of the game. In seven years it
was translated to Chinese in
James
Naismith went to the University of Cleveland, Ohio doing Y.M.C.A. work and studying about
the human body. He became a M.D. in 1898, but he never practised medicine, just as he seldom
preached from a pulpit. However, he never lost sight of his high calling and for years he
conducted a Bible Class every week of more than 300 students. In 1892 a group of girls at
Springfield formed a basketball team and playing in long dresses with leg of mutton sleeves
and some with even a hint of a bustle. Dr. Naismith was invited to come and see them play.
Later he married one of this team. They had two sons and one daughter. They were married
forty years when she died at 67 in
In
1936, three years before his death, a Naismith week was declared and basketball players all
over the U.S.A. collected money and sent Dr. Naismith to the Olympic games in Berlin, when
he saw his game played by 33 nations. He had
helped to build strong healthy bodies in thousands of young people who learned to play
happily together in a game where they were not likely to injure themselves or each other.
People realize that he did much good service to his God by helping young people to build
strong healthy minds in strong healthy bodies. Recognizing this fact the Presbyterian
College in Montreal bestowed upon him the Honourary degree of Doctor of Divinity. So he was
James Naismith, M.D. and D.D.
On
the centenary of his birth in 1961 the