174 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



direction of the turn.^ This is unwelcome to most beginners, as it may- 

 involve deliberately leaning down the hill. But it offers unique difficulties 

 to any figure-skater who has consciously perfected the habit of leaning 

 automatically and invariably towards the turn. It is possible, however, 

 consciously to separate, to recognise and to understand the two require- 

 ments. Thus a person who skis and skates regularly may effect an 

 integration which comprises both turns. 



A master of only one class of movement-patterns, however perfect, 

 in a certain sphere of activity may in one sense be less skilled than another 

 who disposes of several. Yet the first, because of his excellent expression 

 of that one pattern, may be popularly regarded as the more skilled. It 

 might be said that his intensive skill is greater, his extensive skill less than 

 the other's. 



And here, remembering the complications in any discussion of a related 

 subject, intelligence, we may ask : ' Do special skills exist in a person 

 alongside a general skill ? ' I have discussed this subject, and researches 

 which bear upon it, elsewhere.^ It is too complicated to be developed 

 here. But there is reason to believe that though the extensively skilled 

 person may be jack of all trades and master of none, his skill in some 

 directions might be brought to a higher level by good teaching and 

 intelligent learning, events which are becoming commoner every day. 



' Propria ' and ' Accidents ' of Skill. 



(a) In sport. — One may pertinently inquire if some of the features of 

 ordinary sport-skills are essential or accidental. Borrowing terms from 

 logic, we may inquire if skill has its propria and its accidents. 



He who would answer this should purge himself of local and topical 

 prejudices. Many persons assume that skill must consist in the delicate 

 co-ordination of hand and eye and in the timing of complex actions to 

 coincide with a momentary combination of external events. Both these 

 gifts are often indispensable in dealing with a moving ball. But the 

 hurling of missiles is not the only skill to which man aspires. Certain 

 skills are proudly possessed by the blind. Delicate timing enters hardly 

 at all into many kinds of postural skill, and is seldom necessary for 

 industrial tasks. So probably those subjects which an Englishman would 

 naturally want to study, moving-ball games, should be put late m the 

 programme. More may be hoped at present from the study of postural 

 skills, depending little upon the athlete's ' eye.' Such are swimming, 

 gymnastics, ski-ing, skating, dancing, and eurhythmies. 



Sometimes competition in skill is a proprium, sometimes not.^ The 

 most obvious kind of competition is destructive, where A tries to spoil the 

 effect of B's skill, or to prevent it, as in boxing, fencing, football and 

 hockey. Cricket and tennis involve semi-destructive competition, through 

 prohibitions of space. Your cross-court shot may merely amuse your 

 opponent, but at least it lived from your racket to the net. 



In many sports the competition is non-destructive. The performances 

 may even be successive, with every chance for the competitor to do his 



5 Caulfeild, op. cit., pp. 178 ff. 



6 Skill in Work and Play. London, 1924, pp. 22 ff. 



'' Cf. an article ' Physical Culture in Germany,' Manchester Guardian, July 24, 1928. 



