IS THERE TOO MUCH SPORT?

Otago Witness, Issue 3830, 9 August 1927, Page 73

IS THERE TOO MUCH SPORT?

" All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”; so ran the old saying. I suppose now that I have married daughters of my own I take a special interest in the generation that is growing up, ami 1 cannot help asking if both Jack and Jill ate not very much overdoing the “ play ” nowadays. If they are dull, it will not be the result of having no fun, but of getting bored because they have too much of it.

A schoolgirl’s chief ambition, whether hers be a secondary, high, or private school, is to be captain of her team and to get into the First Eleven. Sport is about the only subject in which she is really interested. And no wonder, when all her preliminary education aud training are with that end in view, and games, instead of being the refreshment after, work, have become one of the most important factors in school life.

A fashionable boarding or day school sends out a prospectus that might be an advertisement for a hotel for wintersports. Splendid playing fields are described. Special attention is paid to all games —hockey, tennis, cricket, net ball, lacrosse, badminton, etc. An expensive games mistress is provided, ami a, great deal of time is allotted to sport. Teaching of the three R’s seems to take quite a secondary place, and recreation, in the wrong sense of the word, the first and most important position. The writing may have improved since our young days, but the modern girls’ knowledge of arithmetic is decidedly vague, and scarcely any girl leaves school with an idea how to spell. Young girls who come to my house talk about their visiting matches, and it is not an exaggeration to say that between short journeys and long journeys they will cover several hundreds of miles during a term, fares and food, of course, being at the parents’ expense. What would our mothers have thought of all this cult of physical exercise? To begin with, it was a reasonable one, and healthy amusement is not to be decried, but the fuss made over games nowadays is ridiculous.

, Again, over-indulgence in sports ruins the figures of many schoolgirls. Mothers all desire their girls to be healthy, fit, and graceful, but the over-athletic girl is neither graceful, nor has she a good figure, as is fairly obvious when one sees the over-developed and over-strained figures possessed by many golf and hockey experts. Looking at the subject from a more serious point of view, too violent exercise is bad both for the constitution and the heart, and it may lead to dangerous complications in later life.

When we were young, Saturday was a day looked forward to both by ourselves and by our mothers. It was the one day in the week we had for going about together. But, alas for the mothers of to-day! Saturday after Saturday they wait for their daughters to be free to go out with them for some “ ploy,” but each successive Saturday holds some “ fixture,’’ some “ most important ” match which must be played, and by the time the hockey season has ended the tennis has begun, so the modern mother has to resign herself to losing a great deal of her daughters’ companionship.

Ibis, however, would be a selfish point of view if the fun were for the ultimate good of the girl. But I. am convinced that while sport in moderation is good, when carried to excess it is not only bad on the physical side, but on the mental side as well, as an over-tired schoolgirl cannot pursue her studies properly. And while sport develops camaraderie and the spirit of fairplay, when it is over-done it leads to that hardness of outlook that I am afraid is becoming characteristic of the young girls of today.—An exchange.