encourage in these, cannot fill a boy's whole
time and thoughts--or, if they do, his life, whether he is student or
athlete, or even the occasional combination of both, is still a narrow
one and likely to get narrower as years go by. If life to the
uneducated means a soulless round of labour varied by the public-house
and the "pictures," so to the half-educated it is apt, except in war
time, to mean the office and the club, with interests that do not go
beyond golf and motoring and bridge. If our lives are emptier and our
interests narrower than they need be, it is partly the result of a
narrow and unsatisfying education, which leaves half our powers
undeveloped and interests untouched, and too often only succeeds in
giving us a distaste for those which it touches. Both for the sake of
the present, therefore, to avoid the dangers of unfilled leisure, and
still more for the sake of the future, the wise schoolmaster does all
he can to foster, in addition to keenness in the regular work and
games, interests, both individual and social, of other kinds as well.
He will make opportunities for various handicrafts: he will try to
stimulate lines of investigation not arranged for in the
class-routine; he will encourage the formation of societies both for
discussion and active pursuits, for instruction and entertainment. It
is the purpose of this essay to suggest what, along these lines, is
possible in the school.

But the reasons so far given for the encouragement of leisure-time
interests are mainly negative. In order to realise to the full the
importance of this side of education, we must look rather at their
positive value. From whichever point of view one looks at it,
physical, intellectual, or social, this value is not small. Some of
these interests contribute directly to health in being outdoor
pursuits; and these, in not letting games furnish the only motive and
means of exercise, can help to establish habits and motives of no
little help in later life, when games are no longer easy to keep up.
And even in the years when the call of games is strongest, some
rivalry of other outdoor pursuits is useful as a preventive of
absorption in athleticism, easily carried to excess at school so as to
shut out finer interests and influences. It was a consciousness of
this that led Captain Scott, in the letter written in those last hours
among the Antarctic snows, thinking of his boy at home, and the
education that he wished for him,