BAD CITIZENSHIP IS BECOMING APPARENT IN THIS COUNTRY TO-DAY.
One form of bad citizenship among many is evident around us on the part of the people themselves, who, not having been taught to think of the future, or of their country, allow themselves to come under the despotic power of a few professional agitators whose living depends on agitating (whether it is needed or not); and, blinded by the talk of these men, they attack the hand that finds the money, till they force employers to spend fortunes, either in devising machinery that will take their place and not go on strike, or in removing their business to other countries, leaving the agitators fat and happy, and a mass of people unemployed and starving, and unable to provide for the crowds of children they continue improvidently to bring into the world.
FOOTBALL.
One of the causes of the downfall of Rome was that the people, being fed by the State to the extent of three-quarters of the population, ceased to have any responsibility for themselves or their children, and consequently became a nation of unemployed wasters. They frequented the circuses, where paid performers appeared before them in the arena, much as we see the crowds now flocking to look on at paid players playing football.
Football in itself is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place and "play the game," and these are the best of training for any game of life. But it is a vicious game when it draws crowds of lads away from playing the game themselves to be merely onlookers at a few paid performers. I yield to no one in enjoyment of the sight of those splendid specimens of our race, trained to perfection, and playing faultlessly; but my heart sickens at the reverse of the medal—thousands of boys and young men, pale, narrow-chested, hunched-up, miserable specimens, smoking endless cigarettes, numbers of them betting, all of them learning to be hysterical as they groan or cheer in panic unison with their neighbours—the worst sound of all being the hysterical scream of laughter that greets any little trip or fall of a player. One wonders whether this can be the same nation which had gained for itself the reputation of being a stolid, pipe-sucking manhood, unmoved by panic or excitement, and reliable in the tightest of places.
Get the lads away from this—teach them to be manly, to play the game whatever it may be, and not be merely onlookers and loafers.
Indifferent citizenship is, and always has been, the progeny of indifferent government. With it there arises a crop of doctors to suggest remedies: faddists on feeding, faddists on Socialism, faddists like myself on scouting, and so on. Some may be right, some wrong; all mean well. A certain class of Socialist, for instance, has come to the fore lately. As a matter of fact we are all Socialists in that we want to see the abolition of the existing brutal anachronism of war, and of extreme poverty and misery shivering alongside of superabundant wealth, and so on; but we do not quite agree as to how it is to be brought about. Some of us are for pulling down the present social system, but the plans for what is going to be erected in its place are very hazy. We have not all got the patience to see that improvement is in reality gradually being effected before our eyes.
We have a parallel in London just now in the several railway stations, which, having been found to be out of date and inadequate for their increased traffic, are being reconstructed. The Man in the Street has demanded that they should be pulled down at once, and that afterwards something better should be devised and built up. But the management have been wiser; they have recognised the defects of the old, but before pulling down they have seen that it would be fatal to stop traffic during the alterations, and have therefore laid the new foundations outside the old; they have erected the new buildings over the effete ones, and have then pulled these away piecemeal, without interrupting the public convenience, trade, or routine for a moment.
It is easy to pull down; the difficulty is to do so without damage to the country. We ought to begin by building up on a sounder foundation before destroying the old.