Many critics of our British "public school" consider that far more stress is placed upon achievements in athletics than in the academic sphere, and, in particular, complain against games being compulsory. We are told that it is (76) to compel boys with no athletic (77) to spend hours of misery on a cricket or football field, when, if (78) to themselves, they would occupy their time far more usefully and enjoyably in some (79) hobby. The (80) to this argument (81) the facile assumption that every non-athlete has some profitable hobby. This is not true; (82) even if it were, model engineering or stamp-collecting is no substitute for being out in the fresh air, exercising the muscles and having (83) with other human beings.
(84) the youthful idolizing of athletes, which tends to upset a boy’s (85) of values and may do (86) harm to the objects of this hero-worship, (87) a very different matter. The schoolboy (88) may suffer enormously through being adorned at an early age with a spurious (89) of artificial light. From Preparatory School to University his career is a (90) procession Then he becomes a legend for the future, one of the greatest products of the school that is proud to call him her son although (91) may have taught him nothing except to play football—which he could do already. Not until he hangs up his football boots for the last time and takes his stock out into the open market of the world does he realize his true value—or the lack of (92) . It would be (93) for everybody if this tinsel pageantry were stripped from games at an early stage. The boy who is good at games is entitled to the admiration of his fellows.
But there are still those devotees of sport who support the emphasis laid on school games for much deeper masons, and for whom sport is kind of religion. To them the sporting spirit is the finest attitude with which to face life, since its possessor is very conscious of his obligation to the (94) Yet the truth about the religion of sport is that it does not deliver the goods; it fails to produce sportsmen. In actual fact, games have practically no effect on character, for a selfish man will play his game selfishly in spite of all that has been talked about the team spirit, while a chivalrous man will be chivalrous in his games. Games afford an opportunity for showing the spirit within; they are a (95) for virtue or for vice; and it is for this that we should value them, not as some miraculous process for making a bad man or a crooked man straight. If we support the system of compulsory games, let it be for the right reasons.
79（）
A．profitable
B．perfect
C．professional
D．appropriate
