mind, he spontaneously thinks in terms of the school of fence, even if he has never seen or heard of a sword.

The wisdom embodied in the school of fence was purchased at a heavy price. Untold millions perished in their blood, before the imperfections in theory and practice were eliminated. What little survives and has come down to us constitutes a priceless heritage which few in our day have learned to value, much less to use.

When one whose interest is suddenly awakened by the magic of the Sword gets but a glimpse of the power that is locked and hidden in the school, he sees why the Sword is such a favorite form of symbolism in poetry, magic, and in art. Personal physical combat, having become also a struggle of minds, the mysteries of the Master Swordsman akin to those of the necromancer and the magician, to which the ordinary man had no access, became the necessities which spelled rescue from being spitted on an opponent’s blade. The mental instruments of Time, Distance, Initiative, Decision, Mental Domination, etc., forced themselves on man’s attention and later became expressed in available form in what is known as the Esoteric School of the Sword.

This School, with its open door to man’s dominion over brute force in physical combat is still awaiting any man or woman who is capable of being awakened to its possibilities and when the real school of Fence is generally understood and taught, the Sword will take its place in a transmuted form and its school will be recognized as one of the truest and highest forms of art.

*By permission of “Fencing”, a new monthly magazine, from April issue.