|
YOU may say at once that the necessity of vigour is
self-evident. But one must distinguish between vigour,
the cultivable virtue, and vitality, the essence of
life. The former we may acquire, the latter is the gift
of the gods. We may display vitality with little vigour;
and with a spark of that indispensable fire we may kindle
a conflagration of energy.
In the realm of art and expression
this or that achievement may have essential vitality
and still be lacking in vigour. And yet it is vigour
that gives art its power and makes it prevail. You may
see a painting or a piece of modelling, accurate, poised,
beautiful, delicate, and quite flawless in execution;
so that at first you are inclined to pronounce it a
bit [Page 24] of perfect art; until
after a time it grows tame; you begin to tire of it;
the charm of mere loveliness of line or tone has not
been enough to hold your admiration. The thing has lacked
vigour; it has not that electric power of impressing
itself upon one, so needful to make perfection more
perfect still. For perfection is not merely the cutting
way of imperfections, but the energizing and vitalizing
of the chosen form. It is not enough in art to secure
perfect form, a perfect colour, a perfect tone; it is
necessary also (it is even more necessary) to make them
live. It is not enough to create shapes of beauty; we
must give them vigour as well, so that they may survive
and prevail against what is indifferent and unlovely
and inimical to joy. Passive beauty is well, but active
beauty is best.
Then, too, lack of vigour will mean lack of growth.
The artist who has no exuberance, no superabundance
of vigour to impart to his creations, will not have
enough to ensure his own development. What he is he
will remain. [Page 25] You need look
for no wonder-working from him in future years. All
his skilled hand was able to do it has done. The limited
energy at his command has accomplished his utmost in
its faultless, but unliving, creations; and no superfluous
vitality remains to be transmuted into new vitality
of the art or to expend itself in new enterprises of
culture.
With
vigour we may hope for anything, without it there is
no future. It was vigour, the profusion of energy, the
redundance of vitality, that created and sustains the
earth; and nothing short of this will create it anew
in forms of beauty under the hand of the artist, or
lend to these forms the endurance needed to confront
the wear of time.
How
necessary, then, for the artist to have vigour at all
costs — vigour for the whole personality, body,
mind, and spirit! And certainly quite as necessary for
all of us laymen as well. And it will not suffice us
to have mental vigour alone, or physical vigour alone,
or moral vigour alone; we must have a balance [Page
26] of these. For otherwise we should make
no real progress; we should begin to revolve upon ourselves,
and be deflected from our true course. But a complete
and poised personal vigour, strong, intelligent, and
happy — who shall say how far it may not go, or
set limits to its achievement?
We
recognize this need of a balance of vigour in our academic
training, where athletics are encouraged, to counteract
the bad physical effects of overmentalization. And college
sports have come to be almost as important as college
studies. There is one important difference, however.
College studies are a training of the mind; college
sports are not an educational training of the body.
They serve to develop muscle to some extent; but they
do so in a very primitive and ineffectual way. They
are not followed to give vigour to the personality through
the body, as they should be followed; but to dissipate
its energy. They are not an education, but a diversion,
an amusement. If colleges made it their [Page
27] object to see which men could read the
greatest number of books in a given time, or memorize
the greatest number of facts, that would be a scheme
of mental training paralleled to the physical training
we now have. And yet with a very little wise direction
of physical culture in our schools and colleges an enormous
result could be obtained in added vigour. We have, of
course, a few teachers who perceive this need, but as
yet their influence has made too little headway against
the tide of popular misapprehension on this point. It
is not generally perceived that the usual physical development
of the modern athlete is onesided and unlovely; that
his muscle is not only cultivated at the expense of
his character (or rather, I should say to the neglect
of his mind and spirit), but that even his physique
has not the grace and ease and beauty which should inherently
belong to it. The modern college man ought surely to
rival the ancient Greek for beauty, for vigour of mind
and spirit as well as of body. Instead of that, [Page
28] the average college man who has given much
time to athletics is sadly lacking in gracefulness and
poise. Our idea of the college athlete is perilously
like the figure of a well-groomed young ruffian.
Now
ruffianism is no essential part of a good physical training.
It exists in our standard of physical excellence, because
our men are badly taught — or rather because they
are not taught at all. Athletics are cultivated (as
it is called), but proper motion, proper use and control
of body, with due regard to a directing mind and an
indwelling spirit, are almost nowhere inculcated. The
result is strength, rather than vigour — ruffianism,
rather than refinement.
Yet
physical training may be made one of the most powerful
agents for the highest culture of character. [Page
29]
|
