BENEFITS OF LEARNING “THE SPORTING SPIRIT”
The London County Council controls 635 tennis courts; no play may take place on Sunday. It possesses eighty-two football or cricket grounds, but they are not open on Sunday; and so on. Summer-time, it is true, has increased the time available for recreation during the week, but its benefits are restricted to those within easy reach of the playing fields, and it is practically only on the Saturday afternoon that full use can be made of the facilities offered for games. Only a very small proportion of the youth of London has, consequently, an opportunity of ever playing an organised game of any kind, and the community as a whole loses thereby.
As a nation we owe more than can be computed to the influence exerted in this respect by our public schools; it is there that the oncoming leaders in industry and commerce are acquiring the habit of “playing the game.” But their leadership must be in vain unless there is a willingness on the part of the community generally – most of them manual or clerical workers – “to play up” too. Hopes for the future rest in no small measure on the cultivation of the clean, honest, fair dealing, give-and-take attitude which is summed up in the phrase “the sporting spirit.”
It is not our purpose to discuss the arguments advanced by Mr. WELLESLEY in his communication to the London County Council, for they speak for themselves. Some of them will be admitted by the most determined opponents of Sunday games and others will prove unacceptable. But his letter encourages the hope that this question may be weighed up with an open mind, Would it not be possible for the London County Council to open spaces under its control, permitting games to be played on Sundays after, say, one or two o’clock? There is something in Mr. WELLESLEY’S contention that “whilst at the present moment those who can afford it are at liberty to spend Sunday in peace and quiet if they are so minded, or in playing golf or lawn tennis if they prefer, the working-classes have hitherto been refused the right to decide for themselves how they will spend their Sunday.” That cause of reproach should be removed, and we believe it might be done without offending those who are the devoted champions of the British Sunday.