Ferrers himself opened the discussion with typical exuberance.
"How much longer," he finished, "are we going to waste our time, our energy, our force on kicking a football? We have no strength for anything else. And all the time, while Germany has been plotting against us, piling up armaments, we have been cheering on Chelsea and West Ham United. Look at the result. We were not prepared, we are only just getting ready now. And why? Because we had wasted our time on trivial things, instead of things that mattered; and unless we turn away from all this truck, trash and cant about athleticism, England is not going to stand for anything worth having."
He sat down amid tempestuous applause. The audience were really excited. They had gradually grown sick of games during the last two terms, and now apparently they had the best authority for doing so. Everyone likes being congratulated.
The opposition suffered in having Burgess to support them. We have heard of him before. Years had not altered him much. He was the same conceited, self-righteous puppet as of old. People got tired of listening to him. There was a sound of shuffling, a window began to bang with unnecessary noise. He sat down to an apathetic recognition.
Davenport then made a very biting speech against games.
"The Bull" was surprised to see him speaking on Ferrer's side. He was in the Second Fifteen, and a very useful outside.
"Whatever we may have done before the war," he cried, "and we did many foolish things, it is quite obvious that now this worship of sport must cease. Let us hope it is not revived. We are sent here to be educated—that is, to have our minds trained; instead of that, we have our bodies developed, our minds starved. We play footer in the afternoon, we have gym. at all hours of the day, and other experiments in voluntary compulsion, such as puntabouts after breakfast. The result is we work at our play, and play at our work...." He elaborated the scheme in an amusing way. There was a lot of laughter. "The Bull" looked fierce. Rudd, who had for a "rag" insisted on speaking for the opposition, discoursed on the value of "mens sana in corpore sano." Everyone shrieked with laughter.
He finished up thus:
"Well, look at me. I am the hardest-working fellow in the school." A roar of laughter went up. Rudd had nearly been deprived of his position of school prefect for doing so little work. "I am also a fine athlete. To-day I clean bowled two people on the pick-up, and hit a splendid four over short-slip's head. I am what I am because of our excellent system of work and play. Look at me, I say, and vote for athleticism."
Buffoonery is often more powerful than the truest oratory.