our troops has been a real handicap in war; that we have too much regarded hostilities as a game in which there were certain rules to be observed, and that when we found ourselves matched against a foe whose object was to win by any means, fair or foul, the soldiers who were 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 always wins, and I doubt whether any of us would really prefer that even in war we 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 man will respect, that there are advantages which he must not take.  How often does some rather inarticulate hero, who has refused some tempting prospect or spurned some specious offer, explain his act of self-denial by the simple phrase of his boyhood, “I thought it wasn’t quite playing the game.”  Schoolboy honour is not always a faultless thing; sometimes it means the hiding 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 community can teach.

The chairman of a great engineering firm recently told the Incorporated Association of Headmasters, that when he went to Oxford to get recruits for his firm, he did not look for men who had got a First in Greats, but for men who would have got a First, if they had worked.  For these men had probably given a good deal of their time to rowing or games and had thereby learnt something of the art of dealing 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 schoolmaster is to interfere too much in school games.  He sees obvious mistakes being made, wrong tactics being 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 means, not an end, that if he does not let the boys really govern and make their mistakes, the game is failing to provide the training that it ought to give.  It is undoubted that schools which are carefully coached by competent players, where the responsibility is largely taken out of the captain’s hands, are more likely to win their matches.  But much is lost, though the game may be won.  The strong captain who goes his own way, chooses his own side, frames his own tactics and inspires the whole team with his own spirit, has had a practical training in the management of men which will stand him in good stead in the greater affairs of life.  “We are not very well satisfied” said a War Office official, “with the stamp of young officer we are getting.  Many of them never seem to have played a game in their lives, though they are first-rate mathematicians.”  And there is no doubt that whether for war or peace mathematics is not a substitute for leadership.