THE BAEBAEIANS 5 



The explanation of course is that the article was written by 

 a Philistine, to be read by brother Philistines who have adopted 

 and developed a vast system of athletic contests, which have nothing 

 to do with field sport ; and he bewrays incidentally the animus 

 of the Philistine towards the Barbarian — Jacob's sense of smooth 

 respectable broadcloth superiority over his red-necked brother Esau. 

 A close study of the article will reveal the fact that this natural 

 perennial feeling as between the two types of human nature is rein- 

 forced not only by the fact that the Universities are run almost 

 entirely by Philistines and principally for Philistines, but also from 

 the classic traditions of the Academic World. 



Our Public Schools and Universities attach, and rightly, at least 

 as much importance to the development of " character " as they do 

 to the imparting of either useful or ornamental knowledge : 



Mens Sana in corpore sano, 



to use a hackneyed expression, is the finished product of the 

 system. And the lines on which this goal is approached are classic 

 and stoical : the moral functions of " sport " being those learned from 

 the Hellenic athletes and philosophers. The Barbarians on the other 

 hand are young squires who come from a landowning race whose 

 traditions are rather mediaeval and feudal than classic, and it is for 

 this reason that the squires are " barbarous " sportsmen rather than 

 " cultured " athletes. One of our most painstaking contributors. 

 Lord Ernest St. Maur, of Trinity Hall and Burton Hall, Loughboro', 

 who is of course an unmixed " Barbarian," contributes an anecdote 

 which is not only amusing but interesting, because it is typical of 

 the uninterest and ignorance with which we feudal Barbarians are 

 regarded by the classic Philistine. 



" I remember on one occasion," he says, " I was exercising the 

 pack with Charlie Thompson, when I met one of the Dons of my 

 College, who stopped and asked me what the ' curious coloured dogs ' 

 were that I had with me. I told him they were beagles — small 

 hounds. He asked what we kept them for. On telling him that 

 we hunted hares with them, and followed them on foot, he expressed 

 great surprise and said, 'Do you mean to say that human beings 



