et
aside the scruples of fair play. But in the arts and pursuits of peace
that man is best equipped to play a noble part who realises that there
are rules in the great game of life which an honourable man will
respect, that there are advantages which he must not take. How often
does some rather inarticulate hero, who has refused some tempting
prospect or spurned some specious offer, explain his act of
self-denial by the simple phrase of his boyhood, "I thought it wasn't
quite playing the game." Schoolboy honour is not always a faultless
thing; sometimes it means the hiding of real iniquity. But the honour
of the playing field is a generous code, and to have learnt its rules
is to have learnt the best that the public opinion of a boy community
can teach.

The chairman of a great engineering firm recently told the
Incorporated Association of Headmasters, that when he went to Oxford
to get recruits for his firm, he did not look for men who had got a
First in Greats, but for men who would have got a First, if they had
worked. For these men had probably given a good deal of their time to
rowing or games and had thereby learnt something of the art of dealing
with men. The student who sticks to his books learns many lessons, but
not this. To be captain of a house or of a school, and to do it well
is to practise the art of governing on a small scale. A sore
temptation to the schoolmaster is to interfere too much in school
games. He sees obvious mistakes being made, wrong tactics being
adopted, the wrong sides chosen, and he longs to interfere. He is
anxious for victories, and forgets that after all victories are a very
secondary business, that games are only a means, not an end, that if
he does not let the boys really govern and make their mistakes, the
game is failing to provide the training that it ought to give. It is
undoubted that schools which are carefully coached by competent
players, where the responsibility is largely taken out of the
captain's hands, are more likely to win their matches. But much is
lost, though the game may be won. The strong captain who goes his own
way, chooses his own side, frames his own tactics and inspires the
whole team with his own spirit, has had a practical training in the
management of men which will stand him in good stead in the greater
affairs of life. "We are not very well satisfied" said a War Office
official, "with the stamp of young officer we are getting. Many of
them never seem