Practicable Socialism, New Series

by S. A. Barnett; Mrs. S. A. Barnett

2. Pleasure should not only give enjoyment, it should also increase capacities for enjoyment. It should strengthen a man’s whole being, enrich memory and call forth effort.

The Quality of English Playing.

If these principles have a basis of truth, the questions arise, “Are the common recreations of the people such as to encourage our hope of English progress? Do they make us proud of the growth of national character, and give us a ground of security for the high place we all long that England shall hold in the future?” The country may be lost as well as won on her playing fields.

Recreation means the refreshment of the sources of life. Routine wears life, and “It is life of which our nerves are scant”. The excitement which stirs the worn or sleeping centres of a man’s body, mind or spirit, is the first step in such refreshment, but followed by nothing else it defeats its own ends. It uses strength and creates nothing, and if unmixed with what endures it can but leave the partaker the poorer. The fire must be stirred, but unless fuel be supplied the flames will soon sink in ashes.

It behoves us then to accept excitement as a necessary part of recreation, and to seek to add to it those things which lead to increased resources and leave purer memories. Such an addition is skill. A wise manager of a boys’ refuge once said to me that it was the first step upwards to induce a lad to play a game of skill instead of a game of chance. Another such addition is co-operation, that is a call on the receiver to give something. It is better for instance to play a game than to watch a game. It may, perhaps, be helpful to recall the principle, and let it test some of the popular pleasures.

Popular Pleasures.

Pleasure, while offering excitement, should not depend on excitement; it should not involve a fellow-creature’s loss or pain, nor lay its foundation on greed or gain.

This principle excludes the recreations which, like drink or gambling, stir without feeding, or the pleasures which are blended with the sorrows of the meanest thing that feels. It excludes also the dull Museum which feeds without stirring, and makes no provision for excitement. Tried by this standard, what is to be said of Margate, Blackpool, and such popular resorts, with their ribald gaiety and inane beach shows? Of music halls, where the entertainment was described by Mr. Stead as the “most insufferable banality and imbecility that ever fell upon human ears,” disgusting him not so much for its immorality as by the vulgar stupidity of it all. Of racing, the acknowledged interest of which is in the betting, a method of self-enrichment by another’s impoverishment, which tends to sap the very foundations of honesty and integrity; of football matches, which thousands watch, often ignorant of the science of the game, but captivated by the hope of winning a bet or by the spectacle of brutal conflict; of monster school-treats or excursions, when numbers engender such monopolizing excitement that all else which the energetic curate or the good ladies have provided is ruthlessly swallowed up; shooting battues, where skill and effort give place to organization and cruelty; of plays, where the interest centres round the breaking of the commandments and “fools make a mock of sin”.

Such pleasures may amuse for the time, but they fail to be recreative in so far as they do not make life fuller, do not increase the powers of admiration, hope and love; do not store the memory to be “the bliss of solitude”. Of most of them it can be easily foretold that the “crime of sense will be avenged by sense which wears with time”. Such pleasures cannot lay the foundation for a glad old age.

Does this sound as if all popular pleasures are to be condemned? No! brought to the test of our second principle, there are whole realms of pleasure-lands which the Christian can explore and introduce to others, to the gladdening, deepening, and strengthening of their lives. May I read the principle again?