, I believe we are judged more
by a few failures than by many successes. We can all of us in our
experience recall many an honest athlete who is now doing splendid
service to Church or State, doughty curates, self-sacrificing doctors,
soldiers who are real leaders of men. When they became men they put
away childish things, but they have not forgotten what they owe to the
discipline of their boyish games. Games are not the first thing in
life for them now, but they have no doubt that they can do their work
better from an occasional afternoon's play. They see things in their
right proportion, because they know that the first thing is to have a
job and do it well. If we can teach boys to begin to understand that
truth while they are at school, we shall have exorcised the bogey of
athleticism. I should expect to find (though I do not know) that the
authorities at Osborne and Dartmouth do not need to bother their minds
about that bogey. Their boys play games with all a sailor's
heartiness, but their ambition is not to be a first-class athlete, but
to be a first-class sailor, and the games take their proper place. It
may be desirable to reduce the time devoted to games, though as I have
said I doubt if there is any need to do so, except for cricket. It may
be that we should give more time to handicraft, or military drill. But
these things will not change the spirit. What we need to do is to make
clearer the object of education in which athletics form a part, that
there may be more sense of reality in the boy's school time, more
understanding that he is at school to fit himself manfully and capably
to play his part on the wider stage of life.

[Footnote 1: C.W. Saleeby, _Parenthood and Race Culture_, pp. 62, 63.]

IX

THE USE OF LEISURE

By J. H. BADLEY

Head Master of Bedales School

To teach a sensible use of leisure, healthy both for mind and body, is
by no means the least important part of education. Nor is it by any
means the least pressing, or the least difficult, of school problems.
"Loafing" at times that have no recognised duties assigned them, is
generally a sign of slackness in work and play as well; and if we do
not find occupation for thoughts and hands, the rhyme tells us who
will. The devils of cruelty and uncleanness will be ready to enter the
empty house, and fill it at least with unwholesome talk, and
thoughtless if not ill-natured "ragging." Yet work and games, whatever
keenness we arouse and