Courage, endurance, self-control, public spirit, fair play, leadership, these are the virtues which we find may be encouraged by the practice of games at school.  It is not a complete list of the Christian virtues, perhaps rather we might call them Pagan 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 athleticism?  What precisely is the complaint?  It is this, that boys regard, and are encouraged to regard their games as the most important side of their school life, that their interest in them is so overpowering that they have no interest left for the development of the intellect or the acquisition of knowledge, 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 amusements as the main business of life, give to them the industry and concentration which should be bestowed upon science, letters or industry, and swell the ranks of the amiable and incompetent amateur.  It is argued 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 indictment; it is a good thing 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 much time given to the playing of games?  In winter time I should say No.  I suppose that if we include teaching 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 time.  A game 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 time occupied.  A game of fives or a physical drill class need not demand more than an hour.  The game that really wastes time—­and I am sorry to admit it—­is cricket.  I am not thinking so much of the long waits in the pavilion when two batsmen on a side are well set, and the rest have nothing 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 groundsmen.  I am thinking rather of the excessive practice at nets.  An enthusiastic house captain is apt to believe that by assiduous practice the most unlikely and awkward 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.