“He said that if I were to stay long enough in England and go to a course of concerts at the Chelsea Town Hall, I would soon learn to think differently.  And that if cricket and football were introduced into China, the Chinese would soon emerge out of their backwardness and barbarism and take a high place among the enlightened nations of the world.  I thought to myself as he said this that your games are no doubt an excellent substitute for drill, but if we were to submit to so complicated an organisation it would be with a purpose:  in order to turn the Europeans out of China, for instance; but that organisation without a purpose would always seem to us to be stupid, and we should no more dream of organising our play than of organising a stroll in the twilight to see the Evening Star, or the chase of a butterfly in the spring.  If we were to decide on drill it would be drill with a vengeance and with a definite aim; but we should not therefore and thereby destroy our play.  Play cannot exist for us without fun, and for us the open air, the fields, and the meadows are like wine:  if we feel inclined, we roam and jump about in them, but we should never submit to standing to attention for hours lest a ball should escape us.  Besides which, we invented the foundations of all our games many thousand of years ago.  We invented and played at ‘Diabolo’ when the Britons were painted blue and lived in the woods.  The English knew how to play once, in the days of Queen Elizabeth; then they had masques and madrigals and Morris dances and music.  A gentleman was ashamed if he did not speak six or seven languages, handle the sword with a deadly dexterity, play chess, and write good sonnets.  Men were broken on the wheel for an idea:  they were brave, cultivated, and gay; they fought, they played, and they wrote excellent verse.  Now they organise games and lay claim to a special morality and to a special mission; they send out missionaries to civilise us savages; and if our people resent having an alien creed stuffed down their throats, they take our hand and burn our homes in the name of Charity, Progress, and Civilisation.  They seek for one thing—­gold; they preach competition, but competition for what?  For this:  who shall possess the most, who shall most successfully ‘do’ his neighbour.  These ideals and aims do not tempt us.  The quality of the life is to us more important than the quantity of what is done and achieved.  We live, as we play, for the sake of living.  I did not say this to the professors because we have a proverb that when you are in a man’s country you should not speak ill of it.  I say it to you because I see you have an inquiring mind, and you will feel it more insulting to be served with meaningless phrases and empty civilities than with the truth, however bitter.  For those who have once looked the truth in the face cannot afterwards be put off with false semblances.”

“You speak true words,” I said, “but what do you like best in England?”