Utility of Sport.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 8, 23 August 1911, Page 9

Utility of Sport.

ITS NATIONAL SIDE Just at the moment, when the probable effect of the compulsory training scheme on the sports of the Dominion is being discussed, it may not be inappropriate to remark that regarded always as a means rather than as an end, athletic sport should prove a powerful factor in building up the organisation of national life. In the case of the in fividual and the family, wholesome outdoor sport indulged in after a juditiou- fashion tends to maintain and improv health, and ultimately makes for I r.gevity; while, in the case of the n.ition, sport should logically have the effect of increasing its defensive resources, and therefore enable it to survive against attack, and flourish. Take, for illustration, the sport of swimming, it would appear that ignorance of swimming exists in quarters where its existence is a constant menace to human life. It strikes one as inconi ris in the highest degree to find sai- : : en, whose lives are mostly spent on ti e sea, unable to swim, yet results prove wi- to be a common enough fact. In the vise of a shipwreck, inability to swim naturally would not tend to create any calmness of mind on the part of sailors or passengers, who realise that their doom is sealed as soon as they find themselves in the water “on their own," to .we a well-understood expression. Two -ignal instances can be recalled where British and American sailors were precipitated by accident into the water, and ::.e loss of life, simply because the mariners had little or no knowledge of swindling, was simply appalling. In such sad .lies lives are sacrificed because of neglect to acquire an easily-gained acquaintance with the knack of floating and rawing along safely over the surface of tic water. A: man, woman, or child can learn t* - ir in less than a fortnight, if persev is brought to bear on the initial it: ’ Anything mu-'* float which is s tor bulk lighter than water, and nman body, with the lungs air-ex- : .inj.-d, is lighter than the quantity of it displaces, so that it is only a ■ -t n of balancing on the surface t. water, to permit of safe breathing, to enable any person to swim. While Nature did not intend man to live in the water like a duck, or a seal, it certainly has fitted him to remain immersed - 1 ng as he has an ounce of strength hit to enable him to balance in the water. Swimming is, in fact, a mere question of the balancing on the surface if the water, and, as Nature has already provided the machinery within the human lungs, the only difficulty the beginn*r has to overcome is to breathe with- it the water rushing into the m This knack can easily be picked tip after half a dozen attempts in shallow water. And as salt water or fresh water swimming is a healthful pastime, tnere is not only a sort of life policy oblamed by a natatorial knowledge, but the time spent gaining or practising the art well spent, and only a curmudgeon Would begrudge it. fre<h air is the panacea now preached i'y medical science to eombat the scourges that overtake crowded populatrnn-. and sport gives the seeker after air a double objective, and unless re objective in this case is two-edged •" | .est is apt to be rather tame and ■“'■i -I. A noted physician has warned tit ‘our lives are sponges, which ! • I to be squeezed, gentlemen.’’ And •' not by sitting all day in the busi- ■ armchair that the national liver n g ( --, that constant squeezing that the u. t- r advises us is necessary, and we ••1 know that the state of a man’s liver a deal to do with his mental atti--1:1 towards any given subject. It is ■ >y the owner of this digestive which the Creator intended that individual should regard as an imt part of the bodily mechanism, io.' about in the open air, and, by - of some rousing exercise, eonand galvanising it that the man J n ■' >.y normal health. The present !’ age of machinery and business 5 ■ -t ii ati-ation, and it is only the open •u q the playgrounds of the people, *. .an counteract the liver-torpifying tlfisiU of modern city and town life. And. in these days of triumphant de”3the lessons inculcated in Hport- ' iii are not without salutary effects in .’ . ij-idy politic. Every sport is er-gsm-ed, and has its code of rules, obedip Ce to wnieh becomes an instinct with ac true sportsman, who, if he is bowled

out, does not wait for the umpire to dismiss him, nor would he appeal for a leg-before unless he thought the batsman’s leg had improperly prevented the ball hitting the wickets. Attention to the rules governing the game is apt to make for observance of law and order and fairplay. And mere class distinctions go for naught in the arena of sport. "I don’t see the bishop’s name in tlie scoring-book,’’ complained the onlooker to the scorer. “Oh. yes: there it is. Smith, b Jones, 6,’’ was the indignant reply. For the time being, while they are contesting as man to man with their fellows in friendly rivalry, “my lord’’ and “his grace” are dropped. Dean Swift spoke of the levelling that took place in the swimming baths, and satirically described all men there as resembling "bifurcated radishes.” it being impossible once the finery was doffed to toll lord from labourer. Shakespeare, in the protest of Cas.-ius against the citizens n king “a god” of Caesar, put these words into the mouth of the envious •• Bnt ere we could arrive the point proposdo Caesar eHed: ‘ Help me. Cassias, or 1 sink,’ I. as Eneas, our great ancestor. Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anehises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber. Did I the tired Caesar.” An English cricket critic attributed the success of an Australian player to the fact that Australians do not suffer from “nerves,” which is very flattering testimony to have bestowed on Australian athletes, and this absence of nerves

of the wrong sort may account for the splendid records in athletics generally that representatives of England have made abroad, and it is clearly a triumph for the open-air proclivities of the race. Athletic sports create what may be called the competitive temperament, and, as we are told that competition is the life of trade, this competitive temperament must indirectly assert itself for the benefit of the race in commercial enterprises. Phrenologists would mostly likely declare the bump of combativeness in athletes to be well developed, and this quality is one which must stand to the nation when the inevitable hour of trial and stress arrives, and when manly fortitude alone stands between conquest and oppression on the one hand, and freedom and enlightenment on the other. When the dogs of war are unleashed is the time for the athletes of the nation to prove their mettle, and they have uniformly distinguished themselves in British warfare, hence meriting encouragement in the piping times of peace. There can be no greater fallacy entertained than to imagine that the moderate amount of anybody’s time athletic spurts need occupy is wasted, as the strengthening of physical and moral fibre that should result ought to be for troth the individual and national wellbeing.