Part 8 (2/2)

[Footnote 4: _Journ of Heredity_, VIII 1917, p 53]

VIII

ATHLETICS

By F B MALIM

Master of Haileybury College

At a conference held by the Froebel Society in January, 1917, the subject for discussion was the employment of women teachers in boys'

schools With some of the questions considered, whether women should have shorter hours thandiscipline, and the like, I am not now concerned; but I was interested to hear from one speaker after another that a woe in a boys' school, because she could not take part in the games The speakers did not come from the public schools, whose devotion to athletics constitutes, we are soer, but mainly from primary and secondary day schools in London

But none the less it was assuames are an essential part of his education The saers of boys' clubs and si to carry on the education of boys who have left the elereat difficulty of finding grounds to play on in the neighbourhood of great towns, cricket and football are encouraged by any possiblelads of our industrial centres Gaarded as a desirable element in the education of the British boy, and are provided for hianised for him by those responsible for his environment But this is quite a modern developh in the very early days of that school, that so far were the authorities fro cricket, that the boys theed to subscribe small sums for the purchase of the necessarythe names of the subscribers fell into the hands of the head ated for the ter without inquiry that they were the clients of a juvenile bookames as a part of a boy's education, we shall naturally answer first that a full education is concerned with the proper development of the body For this purpose we yaames ”So far,” says Dr Saleeby, ”as true race culture is concerned, we should regard our muscles merely as servants or instruments of the will

Since we have learnt to employ external forces for our purposes, the mere bulk of a muscle is now a matter of little importance Of the utmost iraduate the activity of our hly trained servants This is a matter however not of muscle at all, but of nervous education Its foundation cannot be laid by ames in which will and purpose and co-ordination are incessantly employed In other words the only physical culture worth talking about is nervous culture The principles here laid down are daily defied in very large measure in our nurseries, our schools and our barrack yards The play of a child, spontaneous and purposeful, is supreh when considered from the outside, it is simply a means of muscular development, properly considered it is really the means of nervous development Here we see muscles used as human muscles should be used, as instrunised Fro field is iymnasium[1]”

It would be a mistake to under-estimate the value of the Swedish system of physical exercises Its object is not the abnormal development of muscle, but the production of a healthy, alert and well balanced body The military authorities in the last three years have been confronted with the problee, poise and flexibility to nuiven a one-sided development by the constant perfor sitting at a desk, and the task would have been much less successfully tackled without the aid of the Swedish methods In schools these exercises iven two conditions, small classes and a really skilled instructor For the value a boy derives froe extent depends upon himself, on the concentration of his oill It is ale class that this concentration is given, and any kind of exercise done without purpose or resolution rapidly degenerates into the h we may use physical exercises as an aid, I should be sorry to see the that they were an adequate substitute in the development of the body (which I doubt) they cannot claiames in the developant claims are put forward on behalf of athletics as a school of character, alant as are the terms in which at other times the ”brutal athlete” is denounced I don't think it is found by experience that athletes cherish higher ideals or are more humble-minded than their less muscular fellows; I doubt if they beco We must carefully limit the clairounds to go on What virtues can we reasonably suppose to be developed by gae It certainly requires courage to collar a fast and heavy opponent at football, to fall on the ball at the feet of a charging pack or to stand up to fast bowling on a buhtly intolerant of a ”funk,” and we should not attach too s as we must the virtues which we are to develop in a nation, we realise that for the security of the nation courage in her young land is attested by the fields of Flanders and the beaches of Gallipoli We shall therefore give no heed to those who decry the danger of soas that are worth gaining can be ithout toil, so there are sos are less attractive in a boy than the habit of playing for safety; in the old prudence is natural and perhaps ad it is precocious and unlovely But we need not introduce unnecessary risk by the e The practice, for exaether, without regard to size or skill, is very araded solely by the proficiency which boys have shown In each set boys are matched with others whose skill approxith of older boys and can get the proper enjoyment from the display of such skill as they possess

And as we desire our gaer, so we shall wish them to foster the spirit that faces hardshi+p, the spirit of endurance That is why I think that golf and lawn tennis are not fit school gaht on the sa in alertness and sheer skill, in the nice harmony of eye and hand racquets has no equal But cricket, football, hockey, fives can all be painful enough; often victory is only to be won by a clinching of the teeth and the sternest resolve to ”stick to it” in face of exhaustion

This is the merit of two forms of athletics which have been oftenest the subject of attack, rowing and running Both of course should be carefully watched by the school doctor; for both careful training is necessary But a sport which encourages boys to deny themselves luxuries, to scorn ease, to conquer bodily weariness by the exercise of the will, is not one which should be banished because for some the spirit has triue when soibe of our enelish word is ”coood to retain in our schools some forms of activity in which comfort is never considered at all The Ithaca which was [Greek: hagathe koyrotrophos]

was also [Greek: trecheia]

Again no boy can meet with real athletic success who has not learnt to control his temper It is not merely that public opinion despises the man who is a bad loser; but that to lose your teaby forward does not develop his finest gaiven an extra spice to his onslaught But in the majority of contests the man who keeps his head in Notably this is true in boxing, a fine instrument of education, whateverSo dispassionate a scientist as Professor Hall in hisas ”a manly art, a superb school for quickness of eye and hand, decision, full of will and self-control Thepunishment follows Hence it is the surest of all cures for excessive irascibility, and has been found to have a most beneficial effect upon a peevish or unmanly disposition”

But perhaps the best lesson that a boy can learn froames, is the lesson that he must play for his side and not for himself He does not always learn it; the cricketer who plays for his average, the three-quarters who tries to score hihtly condehly sound on this point, and it is the virtue of inter-school and inter-house coet self and to think of a cause There is a society outside himself which has its claim upon him, whose victory is his victory, whose defeat is his defeat Whether victory co as victory be won; later in life ames for their health's sake or for enjoyment, but they lose that thrill of intense patriotism, the more intense because of the smallness of the society that arouses it, hich they battled in the mud of some November day for the honour of their school or house Small wonder that when school-fellows meet after years of separation, the ladly return, are the memories of hard-won victories and manfully contested defeats

But victory must be won by fair means There is a story (possibly without historical foundation) that a foreign visitor to Oxford said that the thing that struck hireat university was the fact that there were 3000 ame than win it by unfair means It would be absurd to pretend that that spirit is universal: the coanisation of professional football and the developrade a noble sport But the standard of fair play in school gaement of this spirit by cricket and football that renders them so valuable an aid in the activities of boys' clubs in artisan districts It has been argued that the prevalence of this generous te our troops has been a real handicap in war; that we have too ame in which there were certain rules to be observed, and that e found ourselves ainst a foe whose object was to win by any means, fair or foul, the soldiers ere fettered by the scruples of honour were necessarily inferior to their unscrupulous foe It has perhaps yet to be proved that in the long run the unchivalrous fighter alins, and I doubt whether any of us would really prefer that even in e should set aside the scruples of fair play But in the arts and pursuits of peace that man is best equipped to play a noble part who realises that there are rules in the great game of life which an honourable es which he must not take How often does so prospect or spurned some specious offer, explain his act of self-denial by the si the ga; so of real iniquity But the honour of the playing field is a generous code, and to have learnt its rules is to have learnt the best that the public opinion of a boy co firm recently told the Incorporated association of Headet recruits for his firot a First in Greats, but for ot a First, if they had worked For theseor ga with men The student who sticks to his books learns many lessons, but not this To be captain of a house or of a school, and to do it well is to practise the art of governing on a small scale A sore temptation to the schoola adopted, the wrong sides chosen, and he longs to interfere He is anxious for victories, and forgets that after all victories are a very secondary business, that games are only a overn andto provide the training that it ought to give It is undoubted that schools which are carefully coached by coely taken out of the captain's hands, are h the gaoes his oay, chooses his own side, frames his own tactics and inspires the whole tea in the reater affairs of life ”We are not very well satisfied” said a War Office official, ”with the sta Many of theh they are first-rate mathematicians” And there is no doubt that whether for war or peace mathee, endurance, self-control, public spirit, fair play, leadershi+p, these are the virtues which we find ames at school It is not a coht call thean virtues, but it is a fine list for all that And the best of it is that they are as it were unconsciously learnt, acquired by practice, not by inculcation The boy who follows virtue for its own sake would be, I fear, a sad prig, but the boy who follows a football for the sake of his house, may develop virtue and enjoy the process

But what are we to put on the other side of the account? If it be true that athletics is a fine school for character, what is the ground for the frequent complaint that the public schools make a ”fetish” of athleticisard, and are encouraged to regard their games as the most important side of their school life, that their interest in the that they have no interest left for the develope, that prominent athletes, not brilliant scholars, are the heroes of a boy community, and that in consequence many men of the better nourished classes, after they have left school, look upon their aive to them the industry and concentration which should be bestowed upon science, letters or industry, and swell the ranks of the aued that schools are converted into pleasant athletic clubs, and that boys, instead of learning there to work, merely learn to play Now this is a serious indict to learn to play, but it is not the only thing a school should teach Riding, shooting and speaking the truth may have been an adequate curriculum for an ancient Persian, but it would not provide a sufficient equipment to enable a man to face the stress of modern competition, or to understand the developments of the science and industry of to-day

Is too ames? In winter ti hours and preparation, a boy spends some six hours a day on his intellectual work, or if you prefer, he is supposed to spend that tiame of football two or three times a week, does not last more than an hour and a quarter; if you add a liberal allowance for changing and baths, two hours is the whole tiame of fives or a physical drill class need not deame that really wastes ti sowaits in the pavilion when two bats to do but to applaud I see no way out of that difficulty, so long as wickets are prepared as they are now by artistic grounds rather of the excessive practice at nets An enthusiastic house captain is apt to believe that by assiduous practice the most unlikely and aard recruit can be converted into a useful batsman, and the result is that he will drive all his house day after day to the nets, until they begin to loathe the sight of a cricket ball

We should recognise that cricket is a gaood cricketers And happy are those schools which are near a river and can provide an alternative exercise in the summer, which does not require exceptional quickness of eye and wrist and does provide a splendid discipline of body and spirit In the summer it is well to exempt all boys from cricket, who have really a taste for natural history or photography Summer half-holidays are ee against our gaanised to such a pitch that hobbies are practically prohibited The zealous captain will object that such ”slacking” is destroying the spirit of the house Weplayer neverhis proper development in the pursuit of butterflies, a developain by unsuccessful and involuntary cricket House masters too are apt to complain that freedom for hobbies is subversive of discipline, and to quote the old adage about Satan and idle hands That there is risk, is not to be denied But you cannot run a school without taking risks

Our whole systeely in the hands of boys is full of risks Sos shi+pwreck; more often it does not For in the majority of cases the policy of confidence is justified by results

There is one way of wasting time that is heartily to be conde on I am inclined to think that if all athletic contests took place without a ring of spectators, we should get all the good of games and very little of the evil Certainly professional football would lose its blacker sides if there were no gateFew ames; it is the applause of the ical enough to say that I would forbid boys to watch ainst another school; the emotions that lead to the ”breathless hush in the Close” are so compounded of patriotism and jealousy for the honour of the school, that they are far fronoble

But I would not have boys coainst clubs and other non-school teaame to stir their own blood The half-holidayon a touchline and then crowding round a fire

That the athlete is a school hero and the scholar is not, is lory on the school by success in an exa person, who is not likely to help to win the matches of the year But the hero-worshi+p is not undiscrio far to nullify the influence of physical strength and skill Boys' admiration for physical prowess is natural and not unhealthy The hariven to such prowess by foolish elders Fore such unwise influences I should put the press Even in to think their achievements in the field are of public importance when they find their names in print Some papers publish portraits of prominent players, or a series of articles on ”Football at X--” or ”The prospects of the Cricket Season at Y--” The suggestion that there is a public which is interested in the features of a schoolboy captain, or wishes to know thewhich have led to the success of a school fifteen, is likely to give boys an entirely exaggerated notion of their own ireat deal of tinition

Next there is the parent Our ever active critics are apt to forget that schools are to a large extentthe tone and opinion of the homes from which boys come The parent who says when the boy joins the school, ”I do not ets in the sixth, but I want to see him in the eleven,” is by noto see his boy in the eleven, the deplorable thing is that he is indifferent to intellectual progress I have heard an elder brother say, ”Toht hoe all that, we can't have hi the family” When a candidate has failed to qualify for admission to the school at the entrance examination, I have had letters of surprised and pained protest, pointing out that Jack is an exceptionally prolad to welcoard to his standard of work If we could get the nise the schoolames are an important element of education, they are only one elelected, we should have made a real step forward towards the elimination of the excessive reverence paid to the athlete