THE PETERITE Vol. LX
MAY, 1968
No. 378
EDITORIAL In thinking over the last few years' sport on the School one cannot help but be struck by the way in which minor sports have established a reputation for this School far outside the bounds of York. Squash and fencing spring readily to mind, and 'Shooting comes hard on their heels. Nor is this the work of a few individuals; in each a tradition has been built up which we have come to accept. These sports occupy minority time. Their success has been chiselled from hard and bare corners of a crowded timetable, and has depended on devotion and ability by boys and coaches who have often been committed to other sports in the major part of their sporting timetable. More and more there is a clamour for diversity in the sporting curriculum. "Why shouldn't I play golf? Sail? Trampoline? Cannot I do for tennis, swimming (already growing in impetus) and these other sports what others more gifted have done for the traditional lines of cricket, rugby, rowing? Build them into something with a tradition, too?" The appeal is both powerful and reasonable, and sometimes comes from the heart. Sometimes, of course, it doesn't, and then one loses sympathy knowing that an irksome commitment is being shrugged aside. Let us take a moment's cool look at what is involved. The Public School must compete to survive. It must also retain its peculiar individuality. Both are hard business propositions. If you can get elsewhere what you pay to get here, you might as well get it free elsewhere. For many parents the choice, consciously or otherwise, is influenced by preconceived ideas of what a school is like. So that in attracting such prospective parents, a school must be wary of shrugging aside its traditional image in favour of a lot of experimental ideas. This is relevant particularly to the field of sport in which the register of victories against old rivals may play a more than justifiable part. And further we have our friends and opponents to consider; the competitive field in which our standards are measured. No use playing Badminton if you can't get a game. On the other hand, and speaking from a purely educational viewpoint, one must be aware that many boys don't fit with a traditional pattern of team games. One might add that, from their later record, they are often by no means untalented or uninterested in sport of one kind or another. And even the old Blue whose business-tired eyes search for the evening rise is glad of the schoolday hours when he learnt to lay a modest fly on the school baths. To consider this diversity. In practice it depends on two factors. There must be an adequacy of coaches or else an adequacy of enthusiasm in the boys to, say, organise themselves on a club basis; or both. In coaching the emphasis in public schools has always been on the usually 1
