That there is risk, is
not to be denied. But you cannot run a school without taking risks.
Our whole system of leaving the government largely in the hands of
boys is full of risks. Sometimes it brings shipwreck; 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 condemned, the
waste involved in looking 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
gate money and no betting. Few men or boys are the worse for playing
games; it is the applause of the mob that turns their heads. But I am
afraid I am not logical enough to say that I would forbid boys to
watch matches against 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 from ignoble.
But I would not have boys compelled to watch the games against clubs
and other non-school teams. Above all, if they watch, they must have a
run or a game to stir their own blood. The half-holiday must not be
spent in shivering on a touchline and then crowding round a fire.
That the athlete is a school hero and the scholar is not, is most
certainly true.
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