pinion of the homes from which boys come. The parent who says when
the boy joins the school, "I do not mind whether he gets in the sixth,
but I want to see him in the eleven," is by no means an uncommon
parent. I have no objection to his wanting to see his boy in the
eleven, the deplorable thing is that he is indifferent to intellectual
progress. I have heard an elder brother say, "Tom has not got into his
house eleven yet, but he brought home a prize last term. I have
written to tell him he must change all that, we can't have him
disgracing the family." When a candidate has failed to qualify for
admission to the school at the entrance examination, I have had
letters of surprised and pained protest, pointing out that Jack is an
exceptionally promising cricketer. It is assumed that we should be
only too glad to welcome the athlete without regard to his standard of
work. If we could get the majority of parents to recognise the
schoolmaster's point of view, that while games are an important
element of education, they are only one element, and that there are
others which must not be neglected, we should have made a real step
forward towards the elimination of the excessive reverence paid to
the athlete.

After the press and the parent comes millinery. Perhaps it is Utopian
to suggest that "caps" can be entirely abolished; but the enterprise
of haberdashers and the weakness of school authorities have led to a
multiplication of blazers, ribbons, caps, jerseys, stockings, badges,
scarves and the like, which certainly tend to mark off the successful
player from his fellows, and to make him a cynosure of the vulgar and
an object of complacent admiration to himself. Success in games should
be its own reward. In some cases it certainly is. And the paradox is
that very often it is those who are least bountifully endowed by
nature who profit most. Some there are who have such natural gifts of
strength and dexterity, that from the first they can excel at any
game. Triumphs come to them without hard struggle, and they breathe
the incense of applause. But others have a clumsier hand, a slower
foot, and yet they have a determination to excel, a resolution in
sticking to their task that brings them at the last to a fair measure
of skill. Such a boy is already rewarded by the toughening of the will
that perseverance brings: he does not need a ribbon on his sweater. To
give the other, the natural athlete, a coloured scarf, is to run the
r