The Sunday Eight O'Clock/Playing the Game
I HAVE always liked sport and sportsmen. I have never admired the man who goes into a game of any sort and who does not play it squarely and who does not take the results without whining and detailed explanation of how it all happened.
The man who takes a chance, or makes a bargain, or accepts a condition, or gives his word, and who then resorts to subterfuge or who shirks his obligations because the cards turn against him or conditions prove unpleasant or more strenuous than he had counted on, is a poor sportsman. He plays the game badly. It has seemed to me a not unimportant part of a man's training to learn to lose and not to snivel.
The fellow who calls a fault when his opponent's ball just cuts the line, the golfer who surreptitiously shoves his ball over with his foot to get a better lie or who slyly drops a stroke out of his score, the whist player who reneges or indicates in some way to his partner what is his best lead, the student at a class rush who tries by dirty tactics to injure his opponent or to put him out of business may be shrewd, perhaps, but he is no sportsman.
"This examination business is a game and a gamble" an upperclassman said to me yesterday. I could argue the negative of the proposition, but granted that his statement is correct, why not be a sportsman and play the game squarely?
Whether examination is mainly for mental discipline or merely for the assembling of curious or interesting facts matters little. It is a gentleman's game, and we should play it fairly.
The fellow who gets his data from another man's paper or from notes in his vest pocket, who smuggles a text-book into the class-room, or who whispers information (usually Playing the Game inaccurate) to his pals, who cribs his themes, or copies his home plates from some one else's work might possibly not break open a gym locker to steal a pocketbook or to secure a needed pair of running trousers, but even if he is not really a crook he is at least no sportsman. He is taking advantages of his opponent and is playing an unfair game.
"But a fellow has to pass," you say.
That is just what I am not willing to say any more than I can admit that one must always win at any cost. What one really has to do if he would get the most out of this educational game is to play according to rule, to be square and honest; to do his level best and take the consequences. There is a far worse thing than losing.
June