Sports and Games

There are still those devotees of the sport who support the emphasis laid on school games and for whom sport is a kind of religion. To them, the sporting spirit is the finest attitude with which to face life since its professor is very conscious of his obligations to the community. Yet the truth about the religion of sport is that it does not deliver the goods; it fails to produce sportsmen. In actual fact, games have practically no effect on the character, for a selfish man will play his games selfishly in spite of what has been talked about the team spirit, while a chivalrous man will be chivalrous in his games. Games afford an opportunity for showing the spirit within; they are a vehicle for virtue or for vice; and it is for this that we should value them, not as some miraculous process for making a bad man good or a crooked man straight. If we support the system of compulsory games, let it be for the right reasons.