GAMES
By OUR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT A T a recent session of the B.B.C. Brains Trust, the perennial
question was once more raised as to whether, in this country, undue attention is paid to games ; and a woman speaker, who thought that this was so, added that, in the interests of a better world, she would prefer her son to be good at scholakship rather than at games. Given so bald a choice probably most pebple would agree with her. But proficiency at games need not, of course, be incompatible with proficiency at work. Wisdom, more to be desired than both, is not necessarily the fruit of either ; and as a part of our national education, there is surely a good deal to be said for games. There are no doubt many crafts, apprenticeship to which provides much of the physical fitness and dexterity that the playing of games 'helps to produce, as even the most grudging must admit. But in a modern Industrial civilisation many scores of thousands of people must inevitably lead an administrative, clerical or otherwise sedentary life. Man, as a species, may or may not have been biologically intended for this. But such a life is, at any rate, very different from that which his survival has compelled him ro live for the enormously greater proportion of his history. Throughout this time he has been a hunter, a warrior, a manual labourer, an adventurer. His existence and health have depended
on his bodily activity, the speed of his reactions in an emergency, and the wit which has resulted from the experiences so gained ; and, apart from this, he has seemed to possess, as a species, an apparently non-utilitarian instinct for playfulness and play.
This has expressed itself, and particularly perhaps amongst the Anglo-Saxon peoples, in a natural and extremely widespread love of games, in the stricter sense of the word, and of allied physical recreations. Thus, a few years before the war, the present wrtter had occasion to interview upon this topic an unselected and con- secutive series of iso London working boys and too London work- ing girls, all.between the ages of 16 and zo. Of the 15o boys, only eight had no outdoor hobby or recreation, and only 17, as it happened, belonged to such bodies as the Boy Scouts. But 63 • regularly played cricket and football, 72 were cyclists for pleasure. at were swimmers, 59 were country campers whenever they had the chance, five were cross-country runners and six were gardeners. None of these boys were under any sort of compulsion. Their leisure was' theirs to do what they liked with. This also applied to the girls, of whom 81 regularly went out for country walks, at were tennis players, 5o swimmers, 19 country campers, nine cyclists for pleasure, two track runners and three gardeners.
Too much should not, of course, be deduced from such relatively small figures. But they do at least suggest that the organised games of a school meet—at any rate for a large number of normal children—some deep desire apart from anything that they may do in the way of actual physical education. But even from this point of view they should never, in an industrial nation, be too lightly regarded. Most games, and especially the ball games and such a recreation as boxing, open up—in a general atmosphere, of joie de vivre—new channels in the growing child for the co-+ ordination of eye, ear and the voluntary muscles, and provide special opportunities for the development of sense and muscle co-operation. With this is associated a cumulative and satis- fying feeling of physical self-confidence, which can prove nothing but helpful in after life, however or wherever lived. Later, when elementary proficiency has been acquired, these games afford chances for the exercise .of mental judgement and rapid decision in conditions themselves not crucial but admirably suited as a pre- paration for conditions in which they may become vital. And it is difficult to see how all this could be done as well, if at all, in the classroom or laboratory.
But games, at any rate as played by the great majority, have a socially educative aspect at least as important. They 'are governed by rules, accepted as necessary for their proper enjoyment, but which must nevertheless be obeyed. Most games involve playing with and adapting oneself to others, sacrificing oneself from time to time in order to attain a common end and conforming—what- ever one's private feelings—to the decision of the umpire or referee with grace and good temper, though not necessarily with slavishness. If a referee or umpire, by common consent and after experience, shows himself to be incompetent, he can be replaced. But in any particular game he is the appointed judge, whose ruling holds good. All this combines to form an experience that must surely be valuable for life in whatever political or economic form of society ; and again it is difficult to see how this could be secured so well, if ar all, in a classroom, library, or course of physical training.
Finally, as generally played by the great majority—and not only in this country—games of all sorts have gradually developed 3 common standard of what is called sportsmanship, which is, after all—and however it may be decried—not altogether ethically un- worthy. It recognises that games are not to be won at all costs or unfairly. It recognises that a man who is down is not to be kicked—or at any rate deliberately. It recognises that, if a doubt exists, the benefit is to be given to the other player or the other side. It recognises that minor blows and strains are to be taken good-temperedly and without self-pity. It recognises that the happy loser is as entitled to his meed of applause as the winner. It recognises that the winner should be modest, or at least appear to be so. It recognises that a game is never lost till it is won ; and surely this is a code, or, at least, a general attitude, that might well be of some use in the building of a better world.
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