Popular sports for girls included hockey, golf, cycling, tennis, fencing, and swimming. Of course, many of these sports were limited to the middle and upper classes who could afford the necessary materials and free time needed to play. Nonetheless, the inclusion of girls in physical culture created a new space for girls to be visible outside of the home and to partake in activities previously only open to boys. Sports became central to the lives of many middle-class girls, to the point where social commentators worried it would overshadow other cultural concerns. For example, a 1902 Girl's Own Paper article on "Athletics for Girls" bewailed, "To hear some modern schoolgirls, and even modern mothers, talk, one would suppose that hockey was the chief end of all education! The tone of the school — the intellectual training — these come in the second place. Tennis, cricket, but above all,
Popular sports for girls included hockey, golf, cycling, tennis, fencing, and swimming. Of course, many of these sports were limited to the middle and upper classes who could afford the necessary materials and free time needed to play. Nonetheless, the inclusion of girls in physical culture created a new space for girls to be visible outside of the home and to partake in activities previously only open to boys. Sports became central to the lives of many middle-class girls, to the point where social commentators worried it would overshadow other cultural concerns. For example, a 1902 Girl's Own Paper article on "Athletics for Girls" bewailed, "To hear some modern schoolgirls, and even modern mothers, talk, one would suppose that hockey was the chief end of all education! The tone of the school — the intellectual training — these come in the second place. Tennis, cricket, but above all,