The editorial then goes on to give some examples, saying that to play billiards, for instance, is the amusement of a gentleman, but to play billiards pre-eminently well is hardly that. The writer argues that a man who makes it his life's work to become a successful billiard-player can hardly, in the mean time, have continued to be a gentleman in the best use of the word. As another example, the writer states that chess is perhaps, of all recreations, the one most adapted to intellectual persons, but to be pre-eminent at chess, he argues, is generally to be that and nothing else.
There is a good deal of truth in this, and it may well be said that the athletes who go in purely for record-breaking, even if they stick strictly to the amateur spirit so far as the letter of the law is concerned, devote themselves so fully to their endeavors that they have little time to cultivate the gentler arts and amenities of social life. They consort so constantly with trainers and rubbers and professional sports that they grow more or less to be like these; they talk like them, they act like them, and they begin to shun more elegant society; and while still remaining amateurs, they are unquestionably amateurs of a lower social caste. This degradation is due solely to their own conduct. There is a wide difference between a healthy and keen indulgence in sport and a passion for breaking records, putting aside any mention of the money-making feature of the question.
It would seem that Mr. Lyttelton is not the only man in England whose attention has been called to this weakness among their amateurs; for the Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., who was present at Stamford Bridge on the occasion of the athletic meeting of the Association of Conservative Clubs, made remarks in a similar vein when he distributed the prizes to the winners. He said that there were critics of athletics who watched the rapid growth of interest in sport with something like suspicion, not to say dislike. He asserted, however, that he did not share their views, for he had always held that the healthy interest in athletic sports was one of the most distinguishing and characteristic marks of our age, and he considered it an admirable sign of the times. Nevertheless he warned the young men who were listening to him to beware of the danger of carrying their sports too far, and he said that that point was reached when training or indulgence in sports ceased to be a pastime and became an occupation. There is fruit for considerable thought in the remarks of these two prominent English gentlemen.
