Stevenson somewhere recommends the conception of life as a series of
adventures, each morning witnessing as it were a new embarkation upon
some treasure-quest or feat of arms. And I have often observed that my
adventurous friends have a knack of reporting with all the flavor of
genuine adventures, experiences which upon sober reflection seem rather
to fade into the light of common day. It would appear, therefore, that
it is they who put the adventurous into life, rather than that life is
responsible.
In this fact lies much encouragement for one whose life seems set in a
routine of commonplace; who lives upon a decent city street, where even
burglars seldom penetrate, and nothing more exciting than automobile
collisions ordinarily happens. These last are, however, of a gratifying
frequency, if it is excitement that one craves. Indeed, we have latterly
come to a weary sense of annoyance when the familiar crunch informs us
that two motorists have simultaneously claimed the right of way. The
pious duty of sweeping up all that was mortal of these unfortunates
sometimes becomes really distressing, and one feels like a modern Tobit,
keeping watch o'er man's mortality.
I make it a point never to witness these distressing occurrences; that
would be a vocation in itself. Only when the fatal crash is heard do I
emerge, like AEsculapius from his temple. I was a witness once, but only
in a burglary. I had not, of course, seen the burglary, but I could
remember seeing the _corpus delicti in situ_, as it were, later than any
one else; and the proof that the object had existed had, of course, to
precede the evidence that it had disappeared. Such is the logic of the
law. Twenty several times I accordingly visited the Halls of Justice,
and twenty several mornings I sacrificed upon the altar of duty. Months
wore on; we witnesses, from our frequent meetings, came to be firm
friends. We talked of forming a permanent organization. We even began to
produce a literature, though all that I now remember of it is, 'For
we're trying Johnny Artzle in the morning.'
I became so seasoned an habitue of the court building that belated
witnesses for other tribunals, on reaching the witness-room, would rush
up to me and explain in broken English that they had been detained, that
they had come as fast as they could and hoped I would excuse them;
showing that there was nothing about me that looked out of place in the
precincts of the Criminal Court.
But, with all this assiduity, we did not convict our burglar. The kindly
judge reduced his bail, that he might rejoin his family; he seized the
opportunity to filch some golden teeth, which a prosperous dentist had
destined for his fashionable clients, and this irate gentleman thrust in
his case ahead of ours (though the Statute of Limitations had not yet
run against us) and thus snatched from us the satisfaction of immuring
our defendant in his deserved dungeon.
This is why I never witness motor accidents. But it is plain that even
this unhappy business may take on the glamour of romance when approached
from the point of view of adventure. The other morning, when the
familiar crunch informed us that we were again to function as first aids
to broken humanity, I rushed into the street, to see a large limousine,
of the eight-passenger type now usual at obsequies, resting comfortably
on its port side on the opposite parkway. What might it not contain, in
the way of youth, beauty, and interest? Yet in point of fact, when its
cargo had been laboriously hoisted up through the main hatch, which was
ordinarily its right-hand door, it proved to be nothing very romantic
after all, and we gave it its coffee with a certain vague sense of
disappointment. Some people really are not worthy of adventure, and it
is a great pity that many who have adventures refuse to accept them
gratefully in an adventurous spirit.
War is, of course, the main avenue to adventure, and even so commonplace
an affair as military drill has, at least in its early stages,
adventurous possibilities. Our corporal (for I have to admit that I am
only a private--as yet) being one day kept from duty by a seminar on
Plato, an expert on the history of art, excluding that of war, was set
over us. His eagerness exceeded his experience, and it is not too much
to say that he led us into places of danger previously unsuspected. The
company, though with the gravest misgivings, was called upon to deploy
as skirmishers, guide left. Placing himself at our head and crying,
'Follow me,' our gallant leader at once set off at a double-quick in the
wrong direction, where a lieutenant much out of breath overtook us,
crying, 'Hay, corporal! you belong at the other end of the line!'
'Follow me,' ordered our leader unabashed; and we double-quicked to the
other end, there to meet the other lieutenant, with the cry, 'Hay,
corporal! you belong in the middle of the line!'
But one of our most inflexible deans occupied the middle with his squad,
and his conception of military duty would not permit him to budge
without orders. Perhaps he remembered the Marne and defeat by
dislocation. With no place to go, our embarrassment was relieved by the
captain's 'As you were,' and we formed again in our familiar column of
squads. But in the slight confusion which I have to admit had for a
moment prevailed, a metathesis had taken place: from being third squad
we had become fourth, which position carried with it the responsibility
of leading the second platoon. When therefore the hoarse order,
'Platoons column left,' rang out, the company plodded placidly on in
column of squads. We seemed to have lost our platoon consciousness. Our
captain was annoyed; he knew that he had two platoons, but they declined
to separate. Again the order came, without effect.
The company now vaguely felt that something was wrong, and suppressed
cries of 'Hay, corporal! you're pivot man!' 'Hay, second platoon! wake
up!' came to us from front and rear. With a start, our guilty squad
awoke to its new responsibilities, and a sense of the eternal
watchfulness of the soldier's life. _Qui vive? Qui va?_
The day before Marshal Joffre arrived, I asked our guide, a Plattsburg
veteran, whether the Faculty Company was to participate in his review of
the battalion. His face darkened with apprehension.
'Say,' said he, 'that would be a mess! He's reviewed better troops than
we are!'
Never more desperate ones, though, we agreed. Like all great soldiers,
our officers are modest, even about their handiwork. We of the ranks,
however, in our eagerness feel some disappointment that we cannot
exhibit our newly won proficiency, even to General Barry. Why keep it
all for Hindenburg?
Battalion drill is a great day in the life of the military neophyte, and
our favorite evolution is the company front double-quick. It would have
been a pleasure to perform this for the Marshal of France, but our last
execution of the manoeuvre made our officers reluctant to exhibit our
proficiency in it again to the jealous eye of authority. In company
front, we spread in two ranks well across the field, and at the command
'Double time!' we inaugurated a really imposing movement, before the
reviewing officer. For some reason the front rank of the first squad set
a rapid pace, which the whole rank nobly strove to imitate. The second
rank, in fear of being distanced, came thundering up behind, and the
first rank, hearing their onset close upon their heels, regularly ran
away. In consequence, our alignment, usually so precise, suffered
considerably; and it began to look like an interscholastic 'quarter
mile' badly bunched at the finish. Reduced to the more professorial
'quick time' at the end of the race, we soon recovered our breath if not
our composure, and it was remarked that in the rush it had been the
Faculty orators who led the field; both things being after all at bottom
a matter of wind.
Before we were dismissed that morning, the reviewing officer commented
favorably on our drill, excepting only the double-quick, and admonished
us to try to keep from laughing. Yet is it not well known from the
writings of Captain Beith and others that the British Tommies go into
action laughing, joking, and singing music-hall ballads?
The other day the major's usual stirring lecture on the art of war was
replaced by that threadbare faculty device, a written quiz. The first
question (I believe I am disclosing no military secret in telling) was,
'Name the textbook.' The answer was, of course, I.D.R.; but some poor
fellows who had plunged into the contents without first mastering the
cover, were found wanting.
The sociability characteristic of convocation processions naturally
tends to pervade our military marching as well. At battalion the other
day we were trying to catch the captain's far-off orders and then to
distinguish which of several whistles was the 'command of execution' for
our company, when a late arrival dropped into the vacant file beside me,
and in the most sociable manner began to relate an experience on the
rifle range the Saturday before. This extended narrative was much
interrupted, for I lost him every little while under the stress of those
far-off orders, of which he appeared quite unconscious. His method
seemed to be to wait for the evolution to be completed and then rejoin
me wherever I might be and resume his parable, although he did
occasionally complain that he had not heard the order.
Nevertheless, we learn quickly. The other day the first sergeant, a
theologian of a wholly unsuspected bellicosity, called upon the squad
leaders to report. The first corporal at once glibly cried out, 'All
present or accounted for'; whereupon each successive corporal, confident
that none of his men had been killed or captured since the day before,
joyfully answered with the same crisp and comprehensive formula.
For all our attempts at militarism, a certain democratic informality
still lingers among us. The captain is ordinarily affectionately
addressed as 'Henry.' Thus, while at rest, a voice is heard from the
rear rank: 'Well, Henry, I don't understand what the rear rank is to do
on the order, "Company platoons right." Now the front rank--'
'There's no such command,' answers the captain patiently, thus closing
the incident.
The captain frequently marches backward, so that he can face us and
enjoy the swift precision with which we carry out his orders. The other
day he backed into the east bleacher and sat down abruptly on the bottom
step. Luckily he gave the command to halt, or in our blind obedience we
should probably have marched right over him up the bleacher and off the
back of it into space.
I shall never forget our first review. It was with no little reluctance
that our captain consented to our participation in it. He seemed to fear
that we might shy at the visiting officers' decorations, and run away.
Only the most protracted good behavior on our part carried the day.
After marching past the reviewing party, in as straight a company front
as we could exhibit, we opened our ranks for inspection, and the
visiting colonel prowled about among us. Just before he reached our
company, a student major, in a frenzy of apprehension, came up and gave
us one final adjuration not to wiggle.
The colonel--a fine military figure--marched swiftly up and down our
ranks, stopping now and then to address a few crisp questions to one or
another of the men. He seemed to select those whose soldierly bearing
suggested military promise; at least our corporal and I thought so, as
we were the men he spoke to in our part of the line. Or it may be that
we were standing so like statues that he wanted to satisfy himself that
those marble lips could speak. Our comrades were of course eager to know
what he had said, and we had later to tell them that he had imparted to
us important military information of a confidential character; to which
they cynically replied, '_Yaas_, he did!'
We also tactfully let it be known that the colonel was anxious to learn
whether our officers were perfectly satisfactory. With more tractable
and appreciative inquirers we entered into more detail. He had asked the
corporal whether he had ever shot a rifle: corporal blushingly admitted
that he had once shot a squirrel. (Corporal is a football hero, and
accustomed to meet the enemy at much closer quarters than rifle range.
The rest of us, on the other hand, are publicists, and are deadliest at
distances of from 500 to 5000 miles.) Number 2 was asked if he could
cook, and claimed that he could. Colonel in his haste did not think to
ask Number 2 if any one could eat what he cooked, or he would have
learned that Number 2's cookery is best suited to prisoners of war.
Colonel had no sooner departed on his inquisitorial way than the student
major reappeared from nowhere, in a fearful rage, to inquire if we
couldn't stand still even for _two minutes_, and to complain bitterly
that during the inspection one man had been guilty of rubbing his nose.
Murmurs of disapproval ran through the ranks at the mention of this
wretched offender, who was probably responsible for dragging our company
down to a tie with the Law School for third place out of nine in the
honors of the day.
Captain now mercifully ordered, 'Rest,' and a prodigious and concerted
sigh rose from the ranks. Each man abandoned his pokerlike pose of
'Ten-_shun_' for an attitude of infinite dejection and fatigue. It was
6:15 and I remarked to Number 2 that my back ached. He said his ached
clear through. Our former corporal asked the captain what a man was to
do if he had a dinner engagement. Captain said he had one, but guessed
we'd all have to wait for orders to dismiss. Corporal replied that he
hadn't one, but just wanted to know. If one is to rise in the service,
one should never lose an opportunity of extracting military information
from one's officers.
We have not yet been promoted to uniforms, but last night after drill
we were informed that while we could not be provided with the invisible
olive-gray now in fashion, some antiquated khaki-colored uniforms of
1910 were being provided for our adornment. This arrangement met with no
objection. The fact is, we are not wholly unaccustomed to wearing
clothes of the fashion of 1910, and furthermore, while we have no desire
to be conspicuous, some of us rather shrink from the idea of wearing
invisible clothing, no matter how fashionable.
So full of adventure is military life, even in its most elementary form.
But after all I am not primarily a soldier: I am a human coral
insect--that is to say, a university professor, before whom life
stretches, as Stevenson said of another class, 'long and straight and
dusty to the grave.' I should like to be a volcanic being, shouldering
up whole islands at a heave; or even, if that could not be, perhaps
engulfing one or two, reluctantly of course, now and then. Whereas it is
my lot in life to labor long and obscurely beneath the surface, to make
the intellectual or historical structure of the universe solider by some
infinitesimal increment, about which in itself nobody except my wife and
me particularly cares.
Sometimes, however, I repine a little and wish that I were, say, a
porpoise, splashing gayly along at the surface, and making a noise in
the world. Once in a while, when I am going to sleep (for even a coral
insect must sometimes sleep), dreams float through my mind of sudden
achievement, such as might make one a porpoise or better; and once one
of these nearly came true. Judge how nearly. I was wandering through a
half-subterranean Spanish chapel, fitly set with huge old missals, dark
altar-pieces, covered stalls, and quaint curios. Its dim recesses
beckoned us on from one rich relic to another. Interest quickened. It
seemed a place where anything might be, awaiting only the expert eye of
discovery. I had often fancied such a place, and finding in some dim
corner of it a certain long-lost work of literature still remembered
after a thousand years' absence; somewhere in such a sleepy
treasure-house it doubtless lay, enfolding within its mouldering folios,
not its quaint contents only, but fame and fortune for its finder. And
look! Yonder, under a corner staircase, is a shelf of old books, large
and small. You approach it with feigned indifference; here, if anywhere,
will be your prize, a manuscript whose unique rarity will awaken two
hemispheres. It is not among the ponderous tomes, of course; so you take
them down first, postponing putting fortune to the decisive touch. But
these small octavos have just the look of promise; they are thin, too,
as it would be; and what period more likely for it than that sixteenth
century to which they so obviously belong?
Only the other day, a friend of mine who lives on our reef, and on a
branch even more recondite than mine, found among the uncatalogued
antiques of an American museum the one long-lost Tel-el-Amarna tablet,
which had disappeared almost as soon as it was discovered, and of which
it was only known that it was probably in America. Thus may one be
changed in a moment from polyp to porpoise, and be translated from the
misty obscurity of the bottom to the stirring, dazzling, delightful
surface of things.
But after all, the plain truth is that adventure consists less in the
experiences one actually has than in the indefatigable expectancy with
which one awaits them. Indeed, I sometimes fear that people must be
divided into those who have adventures and those who appreciate them.
And between the two the affinity for adventure is greater treasure than
the experiencing of it. If we are possessed of the affinity, adventure
itself is, at most, just round the corner from us. This opens the life
of adventure to all who crave it. What possibilities lie in merely
crossing a street, for example! Some one remarked the other day as he
dodged across among the motor-cars, 'Why not take a chance now and then
and lead a real life for a few minutes?'
I therefore recommend the life of adventure. It conceives each day as a
fresh enterprise, full of delightful possibilities and promise, and so
preserves the wine of life from growing flat.
Here is the secret of youth. The moral of Mr. Disraeli's epigram is, 'Be
adventurous.'
[Illustration]
An Indictment of Intercollegiate Athletics
By William T. Foster
I
Intercollegiate athletics provide a costly, injurious, and excessive
regime of physical training for a few students, especially those who
need it least, instead of inexpensive, healthful, and moderate exercise
for all students, especially those who need it most.
Athletics are conducted either for education or for business. The old
distinction between amateur and professional athletics is of little use.
The real problems of college athletics loom large beside the
considerations that define our use of the terms 'professional' and
'amateur.' The aims of athletics reveal the fact that the important
distinctions are between athletics conducted for educational purposes
and athletics conducted for business purposes.
When athletics are conducted for education the aims are (1) to develop
all the students and faculty physically and to maintain health; (2) to
promote moderate recreation in the spirit of joy, and as a preparation
for study rather than as a substitute for study; and (3) to form habits
and inculcate ideals of right living. When athletics are conducted for
business, the aims are (1) to win games--to defeat another person or
group being the chief end; (2) to make money--as it is impossible
otherwise to carry on athletics as business; (3) to attain individual or
group fame and notoriety. These three--which are the controlling aims of
intercollegiate athletics--are also the aims of horse-racing,
prize-fighting, and professional baseball.
These two sets of aims are in sharp and almost complete conflict.
Roughly speaking, success in attaining the aims of athletics as
education is in inverse proportion to success in attaining the aims of
athletics as business. Intercollegiate athletics to-day are for
business. The question is pertinent whether schools and colleges should
promote athletics as business.
Nearly all that may be said on this subject about colleges applies to
secondary schools. The lower schools as a rule tend to imitate the worst
features of intercollegiate athletics, much as the young people of
fraternities, in their 'social functions,' tend to imitate the empty
lives of their elders that fill the weary society columns of the
newspapers.
If the objection arises that intercollegiate athletics have educational
value, there is no one to deny it. 'Athletics for education' and
'athletics for business' are general terms, used throughout this
discussion as already defined. Exceptions there may be: only the main
tendencies are here set forth. The whole discussion is based on my
personal observations at no less than one hundred universities and
colleges in thirty-eight states during the past five years.
The most obvious fact is that our system of intercollegiate athletics,
after unbounded opportunity to show what it can do for the health,
recreation, and character of _all_ our students, has proved a failure.
The ideal of the coach is excessive training of the few: he best attains
the business ends for which he is hired by the neglect of those students
in greatest need of physical training. Our present system encourages
most students to take their athletics by proxy. When we quote with
approval the remark of the Duke of Wellington that Waterloo was won on
the playing grounds of Eton, we should observe that he did not maintain
that Waterloo was won on the grandstands of Eton.
What athletics may achieve without the hindrance of intercollegiate
games and business motives is suggested by the experience of Reed
College. There the policy of athletics for everybody was adopted five
years ago before there were any teachers, students, alumni, or
traditions. Last year all but six of the students took part in athletics
in the spirit of sport for the sake of health, recreation, and
development. Sixty per cent of the men of the college, including the
faculty, took part in a schedule of sixteen baseball games. Nearly all
the students, men and women alike, played games at least twice a week.
There were series of contests in football, baseball, track, tennis,
volley-ball, basket-ball, and other out-of-door sports. All of this,
according to the report of the athletic association, cost the students
an average of sixteen cents apiece. No money for coaches and trainers;
no money for badges, banners, cups, and other trinkets; no money for
training-tables and railroad fares; no money for grandstands, rallies,
brass bands, and advertising. Fortunately, it is the unnecessary
expenses that heap up the burdens--the cost of athletics as business.
The economical policy is athletics for everybody--athletics for
education.
II
Opposed to the three educational aims are the aims of athletics as
business--winning games, making money, and getting advertised.
Almost invariably the arguments of students in favor of intercollegiate
games stress the business aims and ignore all others. Win games!
Increase the gate-receipts! Advertise the college! These are the usual
slogans. Thus the editors of one college paper reprimand the faculty for
even hesitating to approve a trip of fifteen hundred miles for a single
game of football:--
'Contrary to the expectations of the students, the matter of the
Occidental football game for next fall has not been acted upon as yet.
That such an important matter as this has not received attention so far
from the Faculty is unfortunate. While it is generally believed that the
Faculty will act favorably in regard to letting the game be scheduled,
it is understood that some opposition has developed on the ground that
such a long trip would keep the football men away from their classes too
long a time.