This, then, is what cricket and boating, battledore and archery, shinney
and skating, fishing, hunting, shooting, and baseball mean, namely, that
there is a joyous spontaneity in human beings; and thus Nature, by means
of the sporting world, by means of a great number of very imperfect,
undignified, and sometimes quite disreputable mouthpieces, is
perpetually striving to say something deserving of far nobler and
clearer utterance; something which statesmen, lawgivers, preachers, and
educators would do well to lay to heart. My children, she would say, are
not intended to be made working machines; they have capacities for joy,
for spontaneous action, for doing some pleasant thing for the mere sake
of doing it, without any regard to gain or profit, whether it be of
money or anything else; and by obeying my dictates, they will find
riches which they never sought for, will obtain gifts they never asked.

Why, a fast young man at an English University too often learns no good
thing there, except to play a capital game at cricket, have a good seat
upon a horse, pull an oar till he drops, and to have a general belief in
the omnipotence of pluck! And I can tell you that is no bad education
too, as far as it goes. I am perfectly well aware that fast young men
too often learn other and worse things than these, learn to drink, and
swear, and debauch, and to spend as fast as possible in riotous living
the manhood and strength which God has given them. But this I know and
publicly declare, that it is this love of manly sports which keeps the
fast young men of England from utter corruption and decay. Such men,
renowned in their school and college days as good cricketers, oarsmen or
riders, were the men that made Alma, Inkermann, and Balaklava possible;
who have just done battle at fearful odds on the burning plains of
India, on behalf of helpless women and slaughtered babies; and those
whom their strong right arm could not save, it was able to avenge! The