miles, faster than another man; the judgment, the quickness of eye,
the strength and swiftness of muscle needed to make a man a good
batsman were all well enough in days when a man's life might
afterwards depend on his use of sword and battle-axe. But now it
only enables him to play games rather longer than other people, and
to a certain extent ministers to bodily health, although the
statistics of rowing would seem clearly to prove that it is a
pursuit which is rather more apt to damage the vitality of strong
boys than to increase the vitality of weak ones.

So, if we look facts fairly in the face, we see that much of the
training of school life, especially in the direction of athletics,
is really little more than the maintenance of a thoughtless old
tradition, and that it is all directed to increase our admiration
of prowess and grace and gallantry, rather than to fortify us in
usefulness and manual skill and soundness of body. A boy at school
may be a skilful carver or carpenter; he may have a real gift for
engineering or mechanics; he may even be a good rider, a first-rate
fisherman, an excellent shot. He may have good intellectual
abilities, a strong memory, a power of expression; he may be a
sound mathematician, a competent scientist; he may have all sorts
of excellent moral qualities, be reliable, accurate, truthful,
punctual, duty-loving; he may in fact be equipped for life and
citizenship, able to play his part sturdily and manfully, and to do
the world good service; but yet he may never win the smallest
recognition or admiration in his school-days, while all the glory
and honour and credit is still reserved for the graceful,
attractive, high-spirited athlete, who may have nothing else in the
background.