EDITOR'S TABLE. 



705 



present day can not be considered a 

 favorable sign. Open-air sports, no 

 doubt, conduce to physical develop- 

 ment: but it may be questioned 

 whether the interest which they in- 

 spire arises from any sense of their 

 importance in this respect. Local ri- 

 valries and the spirit of faction have 

 much more to do with it. Another 

 point is that talk about sport is the 

 easiest kind of talk for empty minds; 

 and what floods of it are sweeping 

 the land to day no one needs to be 

 told. Considering the wealth of 

 matter for conversation which tbe 

 modern world affords, it is lamenta- 

 ble to think how many households 

 among the comfortable classes seem 

 almost incapable of discussing any 

 other subject morning, noon, and 

 night than games of one kind and 

 another and the " records " made by 

 pitchers, batters, throwers, runners, 

 kickers, and sluggers. People of 

 presumed education, who will only 

 scan the head lines of the news in 

 regard to important social and po- 

 litical movements, will read every 

 line of the prolix reports devoted to 

 the doings of the sporting world. In 

 the language of the day a match be- 

 tween two football or hockey clubs 

 is an ''event." All this means, we 

 do not hesitate to say, a hurtful 

 amount of mental dissipation; and 

 it means also, we fear, the cultivation 

 of idle habits. To what extent the 

 work of our educational institutions 

 is impaired by the undue devotion of 

 the young to sports, many leading 

 educators are prepared to attest. It 

 is not, they will say, the time actu- 

 ally spent upon games that counts 

 against study, so much as the ever- 

 lasting occupation of brain and 

 tongue with the discussion of games. 

 It is there the evil lies. 



Here again we see a result of the 



material advance of society. People 



are more self-indulgent because they 



have the means of being so. They 



yul. lii 52 



give more time and thought to 

 amusements, because amusements 

 are continually being brought to 

 their very doors, and in a hundred 

 ways forced on their attention. And 

 yet there is a residuum in society 

 that knows little of amusement. 

 There is even a section of the com- 

 munity that lives below the level at 

 which amusement is possible. A 

 race enervated by self-indulgence is 

 not in a fit condition to grapple vig- 

 orously with its social problems, and 

 yet social problems too long neglect- 

 ed may take on some day a very 

 alarming form. It is evident that 

 there is much for serious-minded 

 men and women to do to prevent an 

 actual degeneration of character and 

 intellect in our time. We want new 

 and higher social ideals, and the 

 question is how to create them. We 

 want to destroy the fascination of 

 mere money. We want more of 

 equality in the community and less 

 of caste; but the equality, or the ap- 

 proach to it, should be produced by a 

 leveling up of those who are now 

 below a decent standard of culture, 

 not by any .debasing of those who 

 have reached such a standard. We 

 want, of course we want, a purer tone 

 in our politics ; and that we can not 

 have till those who make the politi- 

 cian are imbued with some sense of 

 public duty. There are hundreds 

 of agencies for good at work in 

 the land; but many of these con- 

 demn themselves to partial sterility 

 through the comparative narrowness 

 of their aims, and sometimes through 

 the exaggeration of language with 

 which they urge their special re- 

 forms. It is human nature at large 

 that wants uplifting; and if the light 

 is in the world as it is the light of 

 reason, of truth, of charity, why may 

 we not hope to make it shine more 

 widely, and so create for ourselves 

 a social state w T hereof we shall not 

 need to be ashamed? 



