About Amateurs.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 15, 13 October 1909, Page 9

About Amateurs.

A DEFENCE OF THE PROFESSIONALS. What is an amateur? asks a writer in the “Weekly Dispatch,” and goes on to answer his own question as follows:— Literally “a lover,” but that definition would hardly satisfy the officials of the Scottish Rugby Union, whose action in refusing to meet the members of the English Union has set all the world of sport talking about, amateurs and professionals and what constitutes the difference between the two. As a matter of fact, the definitions of an amateur differ according to the form of sport in which he is engaged. Under Rugby football rules on this point, Mr A. J. Balfour would be a professional golfer, because he has played with professionals, but as a golfer he remains an amateur, whom other amateurs may play without risk of being disqualified. But there is a great world outside the world of sport, and it is interesting to note how amateurism is regarded in the former. Why, when we come to examine the ordinary meaning of the word, there is something absolutely disparaging in it in nine cases out of ten where it is used. How often do we hear it said that so-and-so is “only an amateur”? Meaning that the said so-and-so follows an occupation for amusement because he is not sufficiently skilled or talented at it to follow it for profit.

Take the amateur amst or the am> teur musician. If he were a Sargent or a Kubelik or a Caruso, we take it for granted that he would take the golden reward which the world is ready to offer for his services, since he knows as well as we do that in professionalism in such callings there is no stigma, but rather an added glory. The world as a whole is apt to accept a man’s valuation of himself—at any rate, if the valuation be a low one; and if a doctor or a lawyer were consistently to give his advice for nothing most people would be ready enough to believe that that was exactly what the advice was worth. Professional men are proud of their professions, and the world backs them up in this matter. A soldier, be he private or field-marshal, is a professional soldier, but we don’t think any the worse of him for that, nor do we ever stop to inquire whether at the end of a year’s work he is in or out of pocket. The minister of religion is a professional man. who may either earn his living or spend his private fortune on his work; it makes no difference to his social standing: but in other instances—such as the lawyer and the doctor above mentioned—a man is apt to be judged by what he earns. On the whole, then, when the art critic disposes of a crude production of some well-intentioned but inexpert painter as. “a very amateurish effort,” he is voicing the general opinion of the world as to amateurs in general. They are the people who dabble, who are not thorough, who, in a word, do not greatly matter. Tn sport, we know, the term has a very different significance. There the amateur is set upon a pedestal, from which convenient —or sometimes inconvenient —■ height he -looks down on the mere professional who makes his living out of his abilities. Is there really any justification for such a point of view? Is not the man who accepts payment as player simply because he could not otherwise afford to play at all, as good a sportsman on the face of it as any other? Does not the present drawing of the line in many games make entirely for class distinctions, which are eminently unsportsmanlike and more than a little snobbish?