232 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

from the Crowds of gaping Gurths and chattering
Wambas who watched the performance 'from the
side lines. To be sure, the performance of these
experts sets a standard for second-rate players
to judge themselves by, just as a performance
on the tight rope sets a standard of the way
to keep our balance when crossing a stream on a
plank bridge. And that no doubt is salutary.
Yet no one who has studied these enormous
crowds—and I have seen as many as eighty
thousand people in one—would think for a
moment that they have paid their two or even
four dollars for the purpose of acquiring a stan-
dard of excellence in a play or in anything else.
They have paid to see a fight. And a fight is
what they see.

The size of the crowds, the wild enthusi-
asm they display as the performance proceeds,
the blaring of brass bands at every success-
ful hit or run, the groans that arise at. un-
successful dittos, do not convince me that
the American people have a genius for sport.
And even if they have—and I am not going to
dogmatize about the matter—it would have
some difficulty in surviving in presence of the
formidable money interests which grow up round
these spectacular games* How, for example,
a genuine sporting spirit can maintain itself in a
university which turns over 400,000 dollars as
gate money for a single match " beats me,"
' as they say in Yorkshire " 'oiler/' Similar