ATHLETICS IN SCHOOLS. 681 



edge have been made smooth, and everything invites the unwilling to 

 learn. The results of many years' unintermittent labor are presented 

 in a compressed form in every description of hand-book and pocket- 

 primer, for it is only permitted to a comparatively few to remain 

 ignorant and be content therewith. The field of knowledge has thus 

 been greatly extended and opened out, and a great diversity of sub- 

 jects have been grappled with, in one way or another ; and, in spite 

 of the fact that much of this great movement produces a paltry cari- 

 cature of learning, new interests have been excited and minds stimu- 

 lated which would have lain stagnant beforfe. The managers of the 

 various seats of education have roused themselves to supply the needs 

 of the time and extend their resources ; and they now present to the 

 public a programme far broader and more inviting than that of a 

 quarter of a century ago. In this way various special lines of educa- 

 tion have been more widely adopted, and their adoption has influenced 

 the purely general education, with this result : Men now perceive that 

 boys' minds are almost infinitely various, and that knowledge of va- 

 rious sorts must be presented to them in various ways — anything to 

 awaken interest and encourage voluntary intellectual effort. Now, 

 it is from the development of this theory that I think we may ex- 

 pect results having an important bearing on the matter in hand. 

 The introduction of subjects likely to attract boys' interest and the 

 general idea of teaching them by exciting that interest tend to upset 

 the notion that work is valuable per se quite independently of the 

 subjects worked at. It must be admitted that this notion has been 

 allowed every chance. Men have aimed at educmg solid effort by a 

 curriculum of study which could only be attractive to a select few. 

 Let us hope that the idea has really had its day, for, besides being, as 

 many now think, comparatively useless in itself, its effect on an over- 

 grown athleticism is positively pernicious. So long as the graver occu- 

 pations of a boy's life are slavish and detested, he will throw himself 

 heart and soul into any kind of amusement, and set himself to find his 

 only happiness therein, while all knowledge, all that is either useful 

 for practical life, or merely refining in itself, he will vaguely think 

 must be in a way dismal ; his view of it will be colored by the memory 

 of the toilsome and sterile hours he has spent with his books. And, 

 even if he is forced to learn something, such knowledge as he gains 

 will be unproductive ; he has no affection for it, and does not care to 

 impart it. It is remarkable how many men seem half ashamed even 

 of such useful knowledge as they do possess. If boys' minds are to 

 be elevated from athletics to anything higher, it will not be by such 

 methods as these." 



The change of method which Mr. Littleton regards as hopeful 

 consists, first, in modernizing the curriculum of studies, and intro- 

 ducing into it subjects less repulsive than those now in vogue, and 

 which are capable of exciting a readier and stronger intellectual in- 



