a love of popularity; their consistency resulted from conviction. He opposed Parliamentary reform at home as steadily as he promoted the cause of freedom abroad. Right or wrong, in that respect he held the same doctrines alike when Pitt was his chief and when Lansdowne was his colleague.

It may be said with truth that when he was finally called to the helm, he owed that well-earned elevation to the united confidence of his sovereign and the people. Nor is it less true that his premature death a few months later was not only a cause of deep sorrow throughout his own country, but was felt as a loss by every nation capable of appreciating high qualities of mind, sound principles of conduct, and resolution to confront every kind of difficulty for the honour and welfare of his native land.

STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

ATHLETICS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

AN Englishman who travels from time to time on the Continent, and on his way converses with some of the Frenchmen or Germans he meets, not unfrequently elicits some opinion from them on the institutions or peculiarities of his own country; for he has a feeling that such opinions are perhaps free from the prejudices he is familiar with at home, and that consequently the views they express may be original, even if erroneous. He is accordingly prepared for something a little new, and there are a few subjects in which I think his expectation will not be disappointed. One of these is the education of the boys of our higher classes. Let us suppose that he is talking with an intelligent Frenchman, a man fully acquainted with his own country, who has also picked up what he can about England He will find him highly appreciative of our public-school system, which appreciation the Englishman takes as a matter of course, having probably been educated at one himself, and having great faith in the training he has undergone; but the reason the foreigner gives rather surprises him. It is not the intellectual training our lads enjoy which has excited his admiration; on that score he thinks his own lycees in Paris are in no way inferior. Still less is it the almost unbounded liberty allowed to English boys; that he regards as a national idiosyncrasy which, if tolerably harmless in England, it would be madness to encourage in France; but he selects for his unqualified approval a feature of our educational system which has no counterpart in the establishments of his own country, that is to say, the culte of athletics. The Englishman is surprised because he is hardly yet prepared to say that athleticism is quite the most admirable feature in our schools, and he does not see why, if the thing is so much admired, it is not adopted in France. Now leaving the latter question aside, we have to consider firstly, whether athleticism is so highly spoken of with good reason; secondly, if there are grounds for thinking that elements of danger are contained therein; thirdly, if this is the case, what measures should be taken to meet this danger most effectually.

1. What then are the main reasons why athletics are encouraged among boys at school? or rather let us say, What ought to be the

reasons why they are encouraged? for it often happens that a system is valuable on certain grounds, but is lauded and supported on others; which perhaps we shall find to be the case in this instance. Firstly then, they are encouraged, and rightly so I think, on the grounds of health. Recent years have witnessed among all classes of society a growing attention to the health of the body, and the hygienic value of games for boys has never yet been seriously impugned. Few things are more consoling to our national vanity than the contrast presented by the spectacle of English boys engaged in one of our outdoor games, and that of a troop of sallow knock-kneed French youths filing in groups of three along the high-road, for this is their corresponding and solitary recreation. An English boy has probably tried the same thing at a private school, and hates the memory of it now that he is 14 and can play football regularly; but a young Frenchman of 17 bas never known anything more attractive. He hears occasional rumours of a country where boys practise 'le box' and other strange pastimes, and wonders if they are happy; while his young energy is never stirred by the delight of bodily feats successfully performed, or stimulated to prowess by eager companions. His youth passes wearily, and he looks back on it afterwards as the time of his life most productive of dismal recollections, a time of close restraint and unrelieved labour. We observe this contrast and believe in athletics as preservative of one immeasurably precious possession, the possession of health, and so leading to another yet more precious, for boys and men alike, the possession of happiness. Again, there is another most useful side to athletics not so commonly talked of; I mean their discipline. A boy is disciplined by them in two ways: by being forced to put the welfare of the common cause before selfish interests, to obey implicitly the word of command, and act in concert with the heterogeneous elements of the company he belongs to; and secondly, should it so turn out, he is disciplined by being raised to a post of command, where he feels the gravity of responsible office and the difficulty of making prompt decisions and securing a willing obedience. Good moral results of this sort may be expected from games wherever they have developed spontaneously, and where all, even to the youngest, eagerly engaging, choose their commanders, pugnæque cient simulacra sub armis.

These are some of the satisfactory aspects of athleticism. More might be enumerated, but it would be superfluous, as Englishmen evidently are alive to all the merits of this national characteristic, and we may remark that this has been especially noticeable during the last quarter of a century or so. It is not easy to produce authentic information bearing on the importance attached to athletics before the lifetime of the present generation, but there are two facts showing clearly enough which way the stream runs, that are worth mentioning. Any one who played in the Oxford and Cambridge or

Eton and Harrow cricket matches thirty years ago can testify that there were scarcely enough spectators to form a continuous line round Lord's cricket-ground. In the latter match it was not found necessary to use ropes till 1864, while now such is the importance of the annual pageant that it affects the duration of the London season. At about the same date a few keen partisans gathered together to see the Universities contend in rowing. Little was said about it, scarcely anything written. Nowadays the crowd assembled to see the practice of the crews equals the number of those who used to watch the actual race; moreover, the minutest facts connected with the play of each oarsman's muscles are anxiously picked up on the spot, form a paragraph in the daily papers, and are telegraphed to the Antipodes. Deducting from all this the influence of fashion and the mere gregarious tendencies of society, it is quite clear that there has been a dead set of public feeling towards increasing the importance of all athletics. In short, the tide has borne all before it, and scarcely a warning voice has been heard hinting at the possibility of going too far; and consequently very many boys, soon after they enter the schools (some of them before), are impressed with the notion that athletics are to be pursued as the one important thing-in conjunction with reading perhaps, si non, quocunque modo-but pursued with every nerve they must be.

Such then, briefly, is the system, its merits, and the light in which it is regarded. I come now to consider the elements of danger contained therein.

2. At first sight anyone would say that its chief danger in the present day lies in the superfluity of time devoted to various outdoor pursuits at school. This is wrong. I do not deny, of course, that too much time may be, and not unfrequently is, absorbed daily by games; but that is not the chief danger; authorities could easily suppress an extra hour or two if they saw fit. But it is not generally realised that the effects of games last far beyond the close of playhours. Leaving out of sight all physical considerations, over-fatigue, &c., which are, nevertheless, very important, let us look merely at the effects on the mind. Suppose the case of a lad in a school where athletics are much thought of, who is perhaps just emerging from obscurity because it is found that he can row or bowl well. He finds himself with an unlimited prospect of fame before him; if he makes a great struggle, some important step in his 'young ambition's ladder' will be reached; he will be elevated into a social atmosphere now tenanted by the high ones of the earth, who look down on him scornfully, but, in the event of his success, would soon be walking arm-inarm with him. A fascination, unimaginable by the outside world, urges him onward, and with a sense of his increasing importance comes an increasing appreciation of the method by which he has risen; so that, even with his books before him, his mind is wandering

among the scenes of his ephemeral triumphs and reverses, while he ruminates on his last big innings or the prospects of distinction in a coming football match. Prizes, places in the school, are but little things, and are treated as of little worth. This statement of the case is not a whit exaggerated as far as the majority of athletes are concerned. It needs a very exceptional boy indeed, after having been engaged in an absorbing pursuit, to unshackle straightway his energies and thoughts simply at the call of duty, probably uninviting, irksome duty. But the athletes are not the only ones affected. Wherever athletics are very popular, around the coterie of successful gamesters is formed a large horde of hangers-on, boys who admire muscle without possessing it, and who, formed by nature for a very different line, adopt the habits and opinions of the superior class, till, perhaps without participating, their interest too is absorbed by the prevailing rage, and the tone of the whole community is affected. Under these conditions work, honest spontaneous effort in other lines but amusement, is impossible.

In this way intellectual interests are gravely imperilled by any advanced growth of athleticism. But it may be said that there are some things even more important than intellectual interests, and provided that the action of athleticism on these is undoubtedly beneficial, we can put up with a considerable loss of book-learning in view of greater advantages. This leads me to consider briefly the complex question of the effects of athletics upon vice and immorality at schools. We are familiar with a widely-held opinion that healthy games are, per se, a check upon vicious tendencies, but we do not account for the fact that among schoolboys the mere students are, as a body, more virtuous than the mere athletes; for that this is a fact I cannot doubt, though it is a little difficult to point to the reason. Probably any great amount of idleness and absolute supremacy of recreation over study would act injuriously in this direction; for though athleticism may easily so engross the attention as to stunt the higher life of a school, it does not appear that it is sufficiently powerful to act as a barrier to the lower tendencies; idleness, however caused, must be deleterious in this respect. On the other hand it is tolerably clear that at the Universities there is not a higher standard among mere students than among mere athletes, so that we must be careful not to attribute any evil effects directly to games; indeed, almost all agree in thinking that a student at the University, and certainly a hard-working boy at school, is the better for participation in them. Meanwhile, an energetic athlete without an idea of any other pursuit whatever, is better off and less likely to turn out vicious than a wholly idle University man, or schoolboy; and the appreciation of this fact seems to have led people into investing athletics with a power of stemming vice; the truth being that they are in a limited degree obstructive of it, but only in a limited degree, and it is quite erroneous to suppose that in any educational institution a predominance of