THE GAME OF LIFE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5241, 20 February 1928, Page 4

THE GAME OF LIFE.

DOERS OR LOOKERS-ON. A SCHOOLMASTER’S VIEWS. In one sense the scene at an Association football cup final is a microcosm a revelation of the world of men in miniature. There we set 22 men doing something, and as many thousands locking on, 2& makers, and 22 thousmd spectators ; there may be many reasons for this disproportionate, not certainly in the control of the majority and the fault may lie elsewhere ; but fault it is, and the spectacle is not edifying, for let it be remembered that the 22 alone are playing the game, writes Mr M. L. Jacks, headmaster of MUI Hill School, in the St. Martin’s Review

So it is in life Those only play the,game of life who spend all their time in doing—not only the. time wnert they are nominally “at work,” but also the time when they are their own masters, free to exercise a healthy activity or to indulge a lazy pastivity, to recreate themselves « r to stand still, or to undo the fibres of their spiritual being And these doers are a diminish’ng host During those searching years between 1914 and 1918 there was a universal desire to be doing something, and no being was more unhappy than that man, woman, or responsible child wiho, through age or natural infirmity was compelled to be inactive; tlie man beyond the age limit or in class C 3, the woman bound by conditions which allowed her no release, the boy or girl old enough to. understand, but young enough to be at scihool —these were to be pitied. But where has gone that, fever and fervour ? Whither has vanished the gleam ? For in these “ piping ” times of peace there is little of such genh er.al craving for activity, and meh are more ready to rest than to do. And yet the calls to action are, I believe, no whit less insistent and the field narrower by not an inch.

Perhaps the cause lies partly in the greater difficulty of hearing the call and of discerning the field, when there is no immediate and overwhelming threat excluding all other interest, when, there is no battlefield shutting out the view of every other field. But the cause lies, too, in something more material than this. Since the beginning of the century, andl particularly since the war, we have been living in a world which, makes it increasingly easy to live and yet be a looker-on. LOOKING BACKWARDS. In the old. days when households were self-supporting, when villages were cut off from the main sjtream of life, when there were few books and fewer newspapers, when there were no cinemas and only occasional visits of strolling players f°r amusement —in those days a man was thrown back on himself, not only for earning a livelihood for his body, but also for earning a livelihood fplr his soul; and this latter he did by developing some body which, perhaps, became a village industry, by fashioning beautiful things, by malting poems, by dancing on the- viMaq’e green So was he likely to be a doer, not only while he went forth to his; labours in the day time, but also when the night came and no man could work—no, not work, but enjoy an active and a recreative leisure. Now. all that has changed. Newspapers arc within the reach of all, and newspapers which provide matter adapted to the needs of the laziest in the form most easily apprehended; often it happens that nobody need read further than the headline ; he who runs may read; —and if he does he reads sensational paragraphs which cost nothing to grasp and leave nothing to work on.

The cheapest, and therefore, the most accessible books are generally the cheapest not only in price, but in real value ; recent statistics from many public libraries tell a depressiing tale in this respect, but the records of the few libraries, where attempts have been made to combat the disease of the best-seller, reveal that this tale need never have been told; the fault is not in ourselves), but in our star-writers, and. in the placid assumption of those whpi are responsible for the literature that reaches us that we can enjoy no star of greater magnitude. SOMETHING TO ** BITE ON.” So it is, too, .with the kinema, and —to a lesser degree, with the theatre. Both are fraught .with boundless possibilities for good, for giving us something to “ bite on.” fjpr providing us with material for the exercise of our intellectual and spiritual powers—exercise which, is a form of doing. But they fail The theatre sometimes, the kinema very rarely does this for us. Th& tendency is all the other way—to help us to pass an idle hour, idle because the spectacle on which we are invited to lobk makes) no demand on ;any part of us and calls forth no activity of any sort; and the tragedy of it all is that the more occupations there are offered for an idle hour, the more idle hours there will be to occupy. The criticism here is a criticism of quality; newspapers, books theatres, kinemasi—they are all potentially good, but they fail to fulfil their potentiality ; the newspaper is folded, the curtain falls on the /final act the lights go up in the cinem a palace and the man should go honae to his bed more of a man ; the written! word should have led him to read new depths in human life, khe spoken play to hear the more solemn music of existence, the moving picture sjhould have moved him nearer to the goal of his spiritual being. Tai each instance he should have been compelled “to do something about, ft” ; but usually the doing is all done for him. The whole of life tends, to become a kinema show.

The development of wireless telephony brings uss to another aspect o£

the danger. It is remarkable and praiseworthy that the wireless programmes should have maintained so high a standard of real value (and that these programmes are welcomed is further evidence, added to, that of the good public libraries, that the depressing tale need never be told). But there is, danger here, too, th°ugh it is a more general danger and more subtle in its .attack.

It is sometimes better to do a little thing than to listen to a big onie; and 'here are innumerable small duties to be done, duties of social intercourse, duties, to a family, duties to a sick friend, which are in danger of being postponed and ultimately of being omitted by the habit of lister-ing-in. Our hearing of the word—whether conveyed to us through the medium of printed page, drama, or broadcaster —must never be a substitute (as it often is) for action. “Be ye doers of the word, and not ihearers only, deceiving yOur own selves.” The deceit lies; in the belief that to be a hearer, a looker-on, is to live. “The man that standeth idle,” said Brother Giles, “loses this world and the next; for the brings’forth no fruit in himself, and profits not his neighbours/’