ever reads an English book, except perhaps an
ecclesiastical biography; he would say that he had no time to read a
novel; probably he glances at the Christian Year on Sundays, and peruses
a Waverley novel if he is kept in bed by a cold. Yet he considers
himself, and would be generally considered, a well-educated man. I
believe myself that the reason why we as a nation love good literature
so little is because we are starved at an impressionable age on a diet
of classics; and to persist in regarding the classics as the high-water
mark of the human intellect seems to me to argue a melancholy want
of faith in the progress of the race. However, for the moment we all
believed ourselves to be men of a high culture, soundly based on the
corner-stone of Latin and Greek. Then the Bishop went on to speak of
athletics with a solemn earnestness, and he said, with deep conviction,
that experience had taught him that whatever was worth doing was worth
doing well. He did not argue the point as to whether all games were
worth playing, or whether by filling up all the spare time of boys
with them, by crowning successful athletes with glory and worship, by
engaging masters who will talk with profound seriousness about bowling
and batting, rowing and football, one might not be developing a
perfectly false sense of proportion. He told the boys to play games
with all their might, and he left on their minds the impression that
athletics were certainly things to be ranked among the Christian
graces. Of course he sincerely believed in them himself. He would have
maintained that they developed manliness and vigour, and discouraged
loafing and uncleanness. I am not at all sure myself that games as at
present organised do minister directly to virtue. The popularity of the
athlete is a dangerous thing if he is not virtuously inclined; while
the excessive organisation of games discourages individuality, and
emphasises a very false standard of success in the minds of many boys.
But the Bishop was not invited that he might say unconventional things.
He was asked on purpose to bless things as they were, and he blessed
them with all his might.

Then he went on to say that the real point after all was character and
conduct; that intellect was a gift of God, and that conspicuous athletic
capacity was a gift--he did not like to say of God, so he said of
Providence; but that in one respect we were all equal, and that was in
our capacity for moral effort; a