The Times during the past week has been full of
letters on compulsory games at the Public Schools, a number of corre- spondents complaining of the fact that boys are forced to play football and cricket against their will. No doubt a strong ease can be made out against the system of obliging boys of weak constitution to undertake athletic feats beyond their strength. The plea, too, that in many instances the abstention from violent exercise is perfectly compatible with health, is sound enough. The parents who argue thus from the security of their own libraries, would, however, talk very differently were they confronted with the problem of managing a great boarding-school. As a matter of fact, the compulsory playing of games is essential to the maintenance of the morale of a body of four or five hundred boys herded together under unnatural and artificial conditions. If they were to be forced to allow the boys to idle about just as they chose whenever they were not in class, we do not believe that a dozen head-masters could be found to undertake the responsi- bility of keeping open their schools. The remedy for the abuses of the present system lies with the parents. They should be careful only to send boys to boarding-schools who are fit to stand the physical strain of compulsory athletics. The weak, or those exceptional lads who are marked out for students by being born with bodies which, though healthy, require no exercise, and, indeed, only suffer from it, had far better be kept at home.
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