Most young athletes learn the rules of various sports from watching -television, playing in neighborhood games, and joining organized; teams. But before the rules became standardized, having watched or played a sport in one place did not guarantee that one would know the rules in another. In his popular novel Tom Brown's School Days (1857),set at Rugby School in England, Thomas, Hughes included a conversation between "new boy" Tom Brown and his schoolmate East that reveals the differences in football rules from school to school and suggests the importance of sport in establishing social hierarchies in the elite English "public" schools:

"You just will see a match; and Brooke's going to let me play. . . . That's more than He'll do for any other lowerschool boy. . . ."

"Who's Brooke?"

"Why that big fellow who called over at dinner. . . . He's the cock of...