With these classes sports
are an occasional diversion rather than a serious feature of
life. This common body of the people can therefore not be said to
cultivate the sporting propensity. Although it is not obsolete in
the average of them, or even in any appreciable number of
individuals, yet the predilection for sports in the commonplace
industrial classes is of the nature of a reminiscence, more or
less diverting as an occasional interest, rather than a vital and
permanent interest that counts as a dominant factor in shaping
the organic complex of habits of thought into which it enters.
As it manifests itself in the sporting life of today, this
propensity may not appear to be an economic factor of grave
consequence. Taken simply by itself it does not count for a great
deal in its direct effects on the industrial efficiency or the
consumption of any given individual; but the prevalence and the
growth of the type of human nature of which this propensity is a
characteristic feature is a matter of some consequence. It
affects the economic life of the collectivity both as regards the
rate of economic development and as regards the character of the
results attained by the development. For better or worse, the
fact that the popular habits of thought are in any degree
dominated by this type of character can not but greatly affect
the scope, direction, standards, and ideals of the collective
economic life, as well as the degree of adjustment of the
collective life to the environment.
Pages:
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351