Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/28

Rh To these famous and wise men might be added a long list of others, equally distinguished, who appreciated the personal and national value of generations trained to manly exercises, their bodies developed, and their minds calmly confident in the ready power of self-defence.

Take an eminent man of a contrary opinion, and see how few will be ready to agree with him; how many will feel shocked at his word, as the expression of a false and injurious doctrine. Sydney Smith, who liked almost everything that was good, by some queer mental perversion, despised and detested manly exercises. "There is a manliness in the athletic exercises of public schools," he says, "which is as seductive to the imagination as it is utterly unimportant in itself. Of what importance is it in after life whether a boy can play well or ill at cricket, or row a boat with the skill and precision of a waterman? If our young lords and esquires were hereafter to wrestle together in public, or the gentlemen of the bar to exhibit Olympic games in Hilary term, the glory attached to these exercises at public schools would be rational and important. But of what use is the body of an athlete, when we have good laws over our heads, or when a pistol, a post-chaise, or a porter, can be hired for a few shillings? A gentleman does nothing but ride or walk, and