FITNESS AND COMPULSION [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—"
Fitness, in the sense in which it is used, is not a para- mount necessity." Nevertheless, it will probably be a decisive factor in any future war. The fitness which is barely able to push a pen or guide a mechanical tool would not carry us through Ludendorff's " total war " waged by Goering's " iron men."
" It is merely one element in a healthy life." I venture to suggest that, owing to the intimate relationship between body and mind, physique is both a product and an index of national character, and that compulsory physical education might be as valuable an agent for moulding character as is that compulsory mental education which we accept without question. The individual's claim to freedom could still be recognised. It would merely be necessary to assume that in this infantile age a citizen needs compulsory education after the age of fourteen.
You rightly stress the effect of the standard of living upon national physique, but is our physique proportionate to the standard of living ? Materially we are not much worse off than other nations ; physiologically we are. Curiously enough, it is precisely in the dictator countries, where, according to our Press, the conditions of life are growing worse, that physique is improving. In England we have excellent health services, yet we spend tens of thousands of pounds to induce people to use what it costs millions to provide free. We are creating open spaces, and migrating rapidly into crowded areas. There is abundance of good food, and as much bad cooking and slovenly housekeeping. The spending power of the masses is low, and the national drink, tobacco, betting and amusement bills increase. We have ample leisure, and very little active recrea- tion. Even the substitution of cars for babies has not notice- ably improved the nation's health.
This failure of the people to be as healthy as material condi- tions permit argues some radical defect in English society. It also shows that the significance of the material conditions of life for the health of the nation can be overrated. Personal experience taught me that the Germans were fitter during the lean years from 192o to 1923 than we in England. After all, the German athletes of today were the war babies whose childhood fell precisely during that period of food shortage: All this points to the truth that the ultimate causes of physical fitness, as of mental alertness, are spiritual, and that on the whole we are as fit as we want to be or have the energy to be. Millions of soldiers learned that lesson during the war. Food, housing, clothing and health services play a secondary part, while bread, beer, potatoes, tooth-paste, sardines, patent foods and all the other commercial weeds of the fitness' campaign rank still lower.
Since compulsory education has not created a love of learning, could physical training provoke a desire for health ? It might and it might not, but at least it would raise the standard above the equivalent of illiteracy. At best it might transform the nation. Strange things happen when people discover their
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