Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/713

Rh being athletic journals, contain original compositions, both poetry and prose. They serve a useful purpose, as well as the societies, by fostering a mental activity among the class hardest to reach. Many a young athlete must have first been induced to exert his immature powers by writing (say) some reflections on certain aspects of football. The theme, doubtless, is somewhat humble, but he has to do his best, as his readers know the details of the question thoroughly, and will express their opinion as plainly as any weekly review. Perhaps he learns for the first time that having ideas is not the same thing as expressing them. But to promote the existence of journals which deal entirely with the school-games is dangerous. A very definite impression is made on the younger boys, if they are led to think there is only one subject on which their superiors think it worth while to express their ideas. An indefinite prestige is added to any subject, and still more to any name, by being immortalized in a few lines of letter-press, and it seems advisable that this glamour should not be thrown around one set of interests solely. The periodical should have a double character, and ought to act in the same way as the two kinds of debating society existing together; the serious portion of the journal would be the field for the literary effort of the studious and the scholar-like, as the literary society would be for their speeches; while the athletic records can teach athletes to write, just as the debates of the fashionable club would help them to speak."

But again, and in another aspect, Mr. Littleton sees that the question is complicated with outside influences. If public opinion strengthens excessive athleticism on a grand scale, by making it a popular show, the feeling for it is also fostered in the family, so that boys' heads are filled with it before they enter school. Here, also, as in many other matters, the weakness and folly of parents have a baneful efficacy in hindering educational improvement and school reforms. On this point it is remarked: "But what is to be said about the life at home? It is a farce to talk of debating societies and the like being available to combat this or, indeed, any other difficulty, so long as boys are sent to school primed, since the nursery, with the one idea that amusement is to be sought at school, and that a boy, if he is worth anything, will find it and make the most of it. The efforts of the professional teachers depend, to a great and generally unappreciated extent, on the cooperation of the parents. Meantime, the mischief is frequently done before the school-training begins. It is not very uncommon to find parents who have sent their son to a fashionable school, previously urging him to keep out of debt and make suitable acquaintances, but at the same time warning the poor child against getting too fond of books. Others, no doubt, are more cautious; but the traces of a genuine stimulus hence toward useful work are lamentably rare, and more rarely still are habits of reading encouraged away from school. Not, however, that we need always postulate reading; we may, perhaps,