238 ANCIENT SUSSEX GAME OF STOOLBALL 



enjoyable because defeat is not yet a certainty for 

 our side. Round the players gather many past- 

 masters of the game, onlookers who never weary 

 of criticising and praising, because they played 

 themselves when they were children and can speak 

 with authority. These are the wives of village 

 leaders and of officials such as the postman, mason, 

 and carpenter, and as some have babies who can- 

 not be left at home, a sprinkling of perambulators 

 surrounds the tea-table. So from earliest days 

 the Sussex child grows accustomed to stoolball, 

 and sometimes the best team has in its eleven 

 little girls of ten or twelve years old, who are par- 

 ticularly nimble and quick at picking up a ball 

 and flinging it towards the " target." 



These old country games are to be encouraged, 

 for apart from the excitement of competition 

 between distant villages, the fun of playing and 

 the interest in looking on, there is so much to be 

 learnt from them. Playing for a captain teaches 

 discipline and resourcefulness, and those who play 

 games much should be able to learn how to conceal 

 their feelings. Boys teach each other these simple 

 things in schooldays ; they learn then how to take 

 a beating well, and not to show too much pleasure 

 over winning, but girls have not the same oppor- 

 tunities of becoming philosophers. 



As children, they have far less chance of under- 

 standing that esprit de corps which public-school 

 life teaches to boys. Having to face discipline, 

 punctuality, ability to shoulder responsibility, the 

 knowing how to " keep smiling " when things are 

 not looking especially hopeful, above all a capa- 



