Challenge

Last year in Norway, a lithe, bespectacled U. S. youth fell into a friendly argument with a lean, puckery-faced young Norwegian. They were talking about their bodies. The U. S. disputant was Harold M. Osborne, 1924 Olympic high jump and decathlon champion, world's record-holder in both events. His contention was that he could compel his body to perform feats surpassing in dexterity and variety those of his interlocutor, Charles Hoff, world's champion pole-vaulter.

Lately Hoff came to the U. S. (TIME, Jan. 18). Osborne looks out through his spectacles at some pupils he is instructing in a Florida school. Since landing, Hoff has done some running on indoor tracks that was anything but slouchy. Last week Hoff bethought himself of Osborne's talk and called him out to meet him, at the Knights of Columbus games in Manhattan next month, in an all-round athletic duel. Sportdom awaited Teacher Osborne's reply, hoping much that the joust might be but realizing the obligations that are a pedagog's.