is done by the advertisement given to such prowess by foolish elders.  Foremost among such unwise influences I should put the press.  Even modest boys may begin to think their achievements in the field are of public importance when they find their names in print.  Some papers publish portraits of prominent players, or a series of articles on “Football at X—­” or “The prospects of the Cricket Season at Y—­“.  The suggestion that there is a public which is interested in the features of a schoolboy captain, or wishes to know the methods of training and coaching which have led to the success of a school fifteen, is likely to give boys an entirely exaggerated notion of their own importance and to justify in their minds the dedication of a great deal of time to the successes which receive this kind of public recognition.

Next there is the parent.  Our ever active critics are apt to forget that schools are to a large extent mirrors, reflecting the tone and opinion of the homes from which boys come.  The parent who says when the boy joins the school, “I do not mind whether he gets in the sixth, but I want to see him in the eleven,” is by no means an uncommon parent.  I have no objection to his wanting to see his boy in the eleven, the deplorable thing is that he is indifferent to intellectual progress.  I have heard an elder brother say, “Tom has not got into his house eleven yet, but he brought home a prize last term.  I have written to tell him he must change all that, we can’t have him disgracing the family.”  When a candidate has failed to qualify for admission to the school at the entrance examination, I have had letters of surprised and pained protest, pointing out that Jack is an exceptionally promising cricketer.  It is assumed that we should be only too glad to welcome the athlete without regard to his standard of work.  If we could get the majority of parents to recognise the schoolmaster’s point of view, that while games are an important element of education, they are only one element, and that there are others which must not be neglected, we should have made a real step forward towards the elimination of the excessive reverence paid to the athlete.

After the press and the parent comes millinery.  Perhaps it is Utopian to suggest that “caps” can be entirely abolished; but the enterprise of haberdashers and the weakness of school authorities have led to a multiplication of blazers, ribbons, caps, jerseys, stockings, badges, scarves and the like, which certainly tend to mark off the successful player from his fellows, and to make him a cynosure of the vulgar and an object of complacent admiration to himself.  Success in games should be its own reward.  In some cases it certainly is.  And the paradox is that very often it is those who are least bountifully endowed by nature who profit most.  Some there are who have such natural gifts of strength and dexterity, that from the first they can excel at any game.  Triumphs come to them without hard struggle, and they