UNITING THE CLASSES

Southland Times, Issue 18852, 18 June 1920, Page 5

UNITING THE CLASSES

FRATERNITY IN SPORT. It is one of the great disappointments of the history of progress that democracy has not brought brotherhood. Liberty we have, equality we are f approaching, fraternity is like the horizon, however hard we press forward, it seems as. far away as ever (writes J. 1.. Paton, Headmaster, Manchester Grammar School, in the Daily News- 1. Hie growth of great cities, which brings together unexampled accumulations of humanity, has tended rather to destroy than to increase neighbourliness between man and man. In a village, or small country town, everybody knows everybody. Personal misfortune or need soon makes itself known, and helpful sympathy is quickly forthcoming. In a big town you may go under without a soul ever knowing, much less reaching out a helping hand. The more neighbours a man has, the less neighbourhness. That is the reason why, in spite of the fact that the rale of pay in the country is at most half of what it is in the town, if so much, the percentage of pauperism in a country district is not so high. Moreover, the mere fact that a man and his family are known, tile mere fact that something is expected of him, helps wonderfully to keep him up to the mark. His very self-respect acts as a control and saves him from committing himself. But when he goes among strangers, that check is lost. Who cares? And that is why there is much more crime among a city population than there is among an equal number scattered among the villages. There are other forces which make for division between man and man in modern life. Every town of any size has, like Dante's Inferno, its concentric circles. The comfortable classes live in the outer circle of respectable vhladoin. the "useful classes’* (to use William Morris's term I have to live near their work. They hive off into separate- churches, separate schools, separate, clubs for sport and social intercourse. The employer goes off for a round of golf, the employee goes off to sec "Spurs” play the "Hornets.” Of all this we are uneasily unconscious, and the City Missions, the Charity Organisation Societies-, the thousand and one philanthropic institutions whose annual meetings keep the Mayor'- parlour aired all through the winter —are the sign and symptom of our uneasiness. Hut more and more we are corning to see that we cannot solve the problem of the great city by writing cheques or by paying rates. "The gift without tha giver is hare.” THE PERSONAL TOUCH. What we want is personal friendship between the different classes of society. The war brought its the brotherhood of arms. In peace it looks as if that brotherhood would soon disappear. That were a pity. Tiie great social movement of last century came through a group of educated men who made friends of I heir working class brothers. Maurice. King-icy, Tom Hughes, Ruskin. And if a young fellow of the wealthier class wants to count for something in the big social movements which lie ahead of us, it will have to he by the same method. Rub .-boulders on equal term* with a man of your own years whose upbringing has been the diametrical opposite of your own, and you will understand things with a wider sympathy and a truer judgment. There are many ways. To some ii will be the Settlement. To some the Worker.-' Educational Association. But the widest appeal will be the appeal of sport. There is no difference between rich and poor in tiie love of football, cricket, camping. The newly won leisure of the worker will run largr-iv to games. Park..- (.ommilteea will be kept ouite busy- now municipal government is in Labour hands, laying out plaving fields m the parks, and providing more recreation grounds for the young fellow from tile public ,-c.h00.. Nothing so surely cultivates comradeship as sharing the same pleasure, ami thr b'-althicM. of oil pleasures is that which is most widely shared, the pleasure of the game. If our work separates us, let our sport unite. Our work perhaps wc cannot choose, but our sport we can.