at a critical period in the operations is frivolously termed a “drive,” and when the men extended at ten paces’ interval over a wide front are called “beaters,” it is natural that the leaders should look upon their work as analogous to the duties of a gamekeeper; and when an artillery officer is instructed to “pitch his shells well up,” he is encouraged to regard failure as no worse than the loss of a cricket-match.

It was at least to be expected that in the use, care, and management of horses upon which the success of a campaign, in which mounted men formed an unusually large proportion of the troops engaged, so much depended, the sporting instincts of the British officer would have made him particularly efficient; yet the evidence given by General officers before the Royal Commission showed that it was otherwise.  They are practically unanimous in the opinion that all branches of the mounted troops were inefficient, except the artillery, whose work so far as horses are concerned is akin to that of the skilful but unsporting farm teamster or wagoner.

A nation greatly addicted to Sport, Games, and Athletics is a nation lacking in that earnestness of moral purpose which should be its chief strength for War.  Amusements are regarded not as “recreation” or means of refreshing and re-invigorating the mind and body for the duties of life by a temporary change of occupation, but as the main objective of existence.

A retrospect into history will show that the most efficient armies were those in which the sporting instinct was non-existent.  The armies which in modern times have most satisfactorily performed the duties for which armies are raised were those of Gustavus Adolphus, Napoleon, Moltke, and Oyama.  Each of these was the most perfect military instrument of its day, and their exploits have never been surpassed.  Yet neither the Swedes, the French, the Germans, nor the Japanese were addicted to Athletics or Sport.  Their manly instincts were exercised, to the great advantage of their countries, in skill at arms and in the Military Art.[13]

The cult of Sport and Athletics sets up false ideals and lowers the intellectual standard.  Thousands of loafers, idlers, and work skirkers live upon the anticipations or recollections of out-door sports when not actually present at them, and are ready to spend their last shilling at the turnstile of the ground on which a handful of football gladiators are at play:  and are more exasperated by the defeat of the team which they patronise in a Cup Tie match than they would be by the loss of a battle by the British Army.  There is this to be said for the working classes, that in youth, if not longer, they in general endure a hard and strenuous life, and at least in their school years they cannot indulge a passion for amusement; whereas the class from which the officers of the British Army are drawn is encouraged on the other hand to indulge it from childhood.  Owing to the prominence given