SPORT: ITS RELATION TO THE STATE 343 



possess no outlet for their legitimate animal spirits, 

 which become debauched into a savagery, which 

 is a disgrace to any civilised state. We have 

 numerous Acts of Parliament dealing with education, 

 chiefly remarkable for the absence of the main 

 principle of education, aptly expressed in the Latin 

 axiom, Mens sana in corpora sano. We hear of 

 lengthy discussion anent the introduction of pianos 

 into Board Schools, but we hear no mention of 

 cricket fields and football clubs. Long before he 

 has left school the London boy can be seen in the 

 streets smoking cigarettes and taking surreptitious 

 drinks out of the can, which contains his father's 

 supper beer. Every week we read of parents com- 

 plaining to police magistrates that they are unable 

 to manage their own children. Let us mark the 

 result. It is obvious to everybody, who cares to 

 notice the youths of London. They are under- 

 sized, with a physique which no insurance doctor 

 would pass as sound. They have a slouching gait, 

 rounded shoulders, thin chests, pallid complexions, 

 and the vicious expression which plainly denotes 

 that a mischievous boyhood has been developed 

 into a criminal manhood. Recent police-court dis- 

 closures have told us that they do not even possess 

 the bulldog courage of a Bill Sykes, but that their 

 crimes are the outcome of cowardice and cruelty. 

 Last and worst, they beget children who, according 

 to the law of probabilities, will be less useful and 

 more dangerous members of society than them- 



