Sibylla : $b or, The revival of prophecyMace, C. A. (Cecil Alec)
Philosophy
Sibylla : $b or, The revival of prophecy
Mace, C. A. (Cecil Alec)
Civilization; Progress
To those who play the newer game, sport will become a rigorous
discipline and a scientific pursuit.
The general public, moreover, will increasingly enjoy its sport by
proxy. The televisual cinema, which will then be stereoscopic, will
provide a substitute for the football match; and the sporting spectacle
will naturally form only an incident in the variety show. Again, the
sporting interest will be merged, this time in the interests of
general entertainment.
Another important change already far advanced which will radically
alter the character of sporting life is man’s recent discovery of his
mind. The punch ball and gloves now hang limply on the wall whilst
the one time early riser lies comfortably in bed cherishing the
formula by which he grows sturdier and more Spartan in every way.
Instead of Sandow we have Pelman, and this will spread to the schools.
Enterprising teachers graphically plot the progress of their pupils
upon the wall. Small boys will exhibit their I.Q.s and scorn a display
of biceps. If Alec Waugh continues to write about it, the change may
reach the Public Schools. Again, it is the work of the printing press
which is at last beginning to tell. Anagrams and intellectual puzzles
of all kinds have existed for the few from ages immemorial, but in the
cross-word puzzle the principle is finding a wider appeal.
Lastly, the final blow to sport and to our British system of thought
built up upon it will come from the industrial field. Industrial
psychology will undermine it by eliminating its fundamental function.
The forms of sport with which we are most familiar arise chiefly
as a reaction against sedentary and ill-planned occupations.
Scientifically organized labour of the future will exhibit more
variety and give fuller expression to the many-sidedness of man.
Excessive specialization of the individual in his work has produced an
artificial differentiation in the arrangement of his life, of which the
distinction of work and play is the most glaring example.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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