I notice that some papers, especially papers that call themselves
patriotic, have fallen into quite a panic over the fact that we have
been twice beaten in the world of sport, that a Frenchman has beaten us
at golf, and that Belgians have beaten us at rowing. I suppose that the
incidents are important to any people who ever believed in the
self-satisfied English legend on this subject. I suppose that there are
men who vaguely believe that we could never be beaten by a Frenchman,
despite the fact that we have often been beaten by Frenchmen, and once
by a Frenchwoman. In the old pictures in _Punch_ you will find a
recurring piece of satire. The English caricaturists always assumed
that a Frenchman could not ride to hounds or enjoy English hunting. It
did not seem to occur to them that all the people who founded English
hunting were Frenchmen. All the Kings and nobles who originally rode to
hounds spoke French. Large numbers of those Englishmen who still ride
to hounds have French names. I suppose that the thing is important to
any one who is ignorant of such evident matters as these. I suppose
that if a man has ever believed that we English have some sacred and
separate right to be athletic, such reverses do appear quite enormous
and shocking. They feel as if, while the proper sun was rising in the
east, some other and unexpected sun had begun to rise in the
north-north-west by north. For the benefit, the moral and intellectual
benefit of such people, it may be worth while to point out that the
Anglo-Saxon has in these cases been defeated precisely by those
competitors whom he has always regarded as being out of the running; by
Latins, and by Latins of the most easy and unstrenuous type; not only
by Frenchman, but by Belgians. All this, I say, is worth telling to any
intelligent person who believes in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon
superiority. But, then, no intelligent person does believe in the
haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon superiority. No quite genuine Englishman
ever did believe in it. And the genuine Englishman these defeats will
in no respect dismay.
The genuine English patriot will know that the strength of England has
never depended upon any of these things; that the glory of England has
never had anything to do with them, except in the opinion of a large
section of the rich and a loose section of the poor which copies the
idleness of the rich. These people will, of course, think too much of
our failure, just as they thought too much of our success. The typical
Jingoes who have admired their countrymen too much for being conquerors
will, doubtless, despise their countrymen too much for being conquered.
But the Englishman with any feeling for England will know that athletic
failures do not prove that England is weak, any more than athletic
successes proved that England was strong. The truth is that athletics,
like all other things, especially modern, are insanely individualistic.
The Englishmen who win sporting prizes are exceptional among
Englishmen, for the simple reason that they are exceptional even among
men. English athletes represent England just about as much as Mr.
Barnum’s freaks represent America. There are so few of such people in
the whole world that it is almost a toss-up whether they are found in
this or that country.
If any one wants a simple proof of this, it is easy to find. When the
great English athletes are not exceptional Englishmen they are
generally not Englishmen at all. Nay, they are often representatives of
races of which the average tone is specially incompatible with
athletics. For instance, the English are supposed to rule the natives
of India in virtue of their superior hardiness, superior activity,
superior health of body and mind. The Hindus are supposed to be our
subjects because they are less fond of action, less fond of openness
and the open air. In a word, less fond of cricket. And, substantially,
this is probably true, that the Indians are less fond of cricket. All
the same, if you ask among Englishmen for the very best cricket-player,
you will find that he is an Indian. Or, to take another case: it is,
broadly speaking, true that the Jews are, as a race, pacific,
intellectual, indifferent to war, like the Indians, or, perhaps,
contemptuous of war, like the Chinese: nevertheless, of the very good
prize-fighters, one or two have been Jews.
This is one of the strongest instances of the particular kind of evil
that arises from our English form of the worship of athletics. It
concentrates too much upon the success of individuals. It began, quite
naturally and rightly, with wanting England to win. The second stage
was that it wanted some Englishmen to win. The third stage was (in the
ecstasy and agony of some special competition) that it wanted one
particular Englishman to win. And the fourth stage was that when he had
won, it discovered that he was not even an Englishman.
This is one of the points, I think, on which something might really be
said for Lord Roberts and his rather vague ideas which vary between
rifle clubs and conscription. Whatever may be the advantages or
disadvantages otherwise of the idea, it is at least an idea of
procuring equality and a sort of average in the athletic capacity of
the people; it might conceivably act as a corrective to our mere
tendency to see ourselves in certain exceptional athletes. As it is,
there are millions of Englishmen who really think that they are a
muscular race because C.B. Fry is an Englishman. And there are many of
them who think vaguely that athletics must belong to England because
Ranjitsinhji is an Indian.
But the real historic strength of England, physical and moral, has
never had anything to do with this athletic specialism; it has been
rather hindered by it. Somebody said that the Battle of Waterloo was
won on Eton playing-fields. It was a particularly unfortunate remark,
for the English contribution to the victory of Waterloo depended very
much more than is common in victories upon the steadiness of the rank
and file in an almost desperate situation. The Battle of Waterloo was
won by the stubbornness of the common soldier—that is to say, it was
won by the man who had never been to Eton. It was absurd to say that
Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields. But it might have been fairly
said that Waterloo was won on the village green, where clumsy boys
played a very clumsy cricket. In a word, it was the average of the
nation that was strong, and athletic glories do not indicate much about
the average of a nation. Waterloo was not won by good cricket-players.
But Waterloo was won by bad cricket-players, by a mass of men who had
some minimum of athletic instincts and habits.
It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly. It shows
that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a nation
when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few
experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely
looking on. Suppose that whenever we heard of walking in England it
always meant walking forty-five miles a day without fatigue. We should
be perfectly certain that only a few men were walking at all, and that
all the other British subjects were being wheeled about in Bath-chairs.
But if when we hear of walking it means slow walking, painful walking,
and frequent fatigue, then we know that the mass of the nation still is
walking. We know that England is still literally on its feet.
The difficulty is therefore that the actual raising of the standard of
athletics has probably been bad for national athleticism. Instead of
the tournament being a healthy _mêlée_ into which any ordinary man
would rush and take his chance, it has become a fenced and guarded
tilting-yard for the collision of particular champions against whom no
ordinary man would pit himself or even be permitted to pit himself. If
Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields it was because Eton cricket was
probably much more careless then than it is now. As long as the game
was a game, everybody wanted to join in it. When it becomes an art,
every one wants to look at it. When it was frivolous it may have won
Waterloo: when it was serious and efficient it lost Magersfontein.
In the Waterloo period there was a general rough-and-tumble athleticism
among average Englishmen. It cannot be re-created by cricket, or by
conscription, or by any artificial means. It was a thing of the soul.
It came out of laughter, religion, and the spirit of the place. But it
was like the modern French duel in this—that it might happen to
anybody. If I were a French journalist it might really happen that
Monsieur Clemenceau might challenge me to meet him with pistols. But I
do not think that it is at all likely that Mr. C. B. Fry will ever
challenge me to meet him with cricket-bats.