Football

.4SS0CI4 TION FOOTM4LL.
the object of repressing the excess of zeal which has been,,
perhaps, the rational outcome of the growth of the game
and of the keen competition which has followed the rapid
development of football during the last few years. The
changes in the constitutign of the Association, and the chief
events which have marked the devolution of Association
football, will form material for a
special
chapter,
CHAPTER III,
THE PROGRESS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
T
HE
withdrawal of the party which affected the Rugby
game, following so closely as it did on the well-meant
attempt of those who were chiefly responsible for the foun-
dation of the Football Association to devise a code which
should be acceptable to both parties, naturally retarded the
advance of the Association. For some time the policy of
those who guided its destinies in its infancy was mainly of a
passive kind. The first object was to conciliate the different
schools which had shown themselves averse to the adoption
of Rugby rules. It was not an easy task to incorporate
the many different varieties of the dribbling game then in
vogue in one comprehensive scheme. The work was neces-
sarily slow, and for several years the history of the Associa-
tion was singularly uneventful. By degrees, though, the
process of absorption took effect; and as year by year the
influence of the Association extended, there was a corre-
sponding willingness among those who had before adhered
to their own particular variation of the game to recognize
the importance, if not the necessity, of
a
uniform
set
of rules,