III

There came a day when father and mother admitted, both of them, that it was time I should be allowed to see my first play. Betaking myself, one evening in late autumn, across the old campus, and up the hill by the mysterious footpath we used to call 'over the mountain,' through the dark pine woods, I felt the suppressed excitement that forebodes all great human happenings.

I recalled that mother had once told me her own first play had been the acting of Edwin Forrest in Shakespeare. But really, when you came to think of it, what was Shakespeare compared with Harriet Beecher Stowe?

The widow of Professor Lincoln lived with us for many years. Her bent figure I love to recall. I can see her trudging homeward through the deep snows of the Berkshire winter from some missionary gathering, her steps firm and determined, her mind intent on some just reported victorious skirmish in the age-long battle of the Cross against the Darkness in some far-off corner of the globe. 'Yes!' I can hear her say, as she discards her snowy overshoes, 'it was an excellent meeting.' Good and kind and keen, and very, very able, she was all her life long a spirit-passenger on the good ship Morning Star.

She must long ago have met the Pilot face to face; beyond all shadow of doubt that too was 'an excellent meeting.'

She used to be President of the Shakespeare Club, in which Charley King, the druggist, would sometimes read the part of King Lear while she herself was at her best as Ophelia.

It was a favorite sentiment of Mrs. Lincoln I had heard her express it many, many times that the plays of Shakespeare were composed to be

Conducted to a settee in the illlighted basement of the town hall, I had time to recall the fascinating scenes I had witnessed in this glorious forum. Only a month before, at a Democratic rally, I had listened to the magnificent oratory of Benjamin F. Mills, Esquire, handsome and florid headmaster of Greylock Institute, who had thrilled a handful of Irish citizens, my father, and my brothers, with a description of how Samuel J. Tilden would look on the fourth of March entering the classic portals of the White House. The peroration had been this: 'And the mocking-birds will be singing in the sweet savannahs of the South!'

But now, alas, it seemed assured that while 'the mocking-birds' would doubtless be there, the great and good Mr. Tilden would not.

The palpable odors of Town-Meeting of the preceding spring seemed to cling still to the hall. Yellowed overcoats, soaked by rain, cheap cigars, mud and tobacco juice, the hoarse cackle of Abe Bunter's laugh, the rustic solemn dignity of 'Mr. Moderator' of all these things my memory spoke.

Also I was greatly occupied by thoughts of Mary Marden. I wondered if she were sitting in the hall, but try as I would she could not be discerned through the dimness. Extending my left arm along the back of the bench so that the new cuff-button of celluloid might be properly exposed in case she

were behind me somewhere, I gave myself up to reverie.

Mary Marden was a pretty girl, 'going on twelve,' from whose broad low forehead brown hair drew away beneath a round rubber comb. She had recently recovered from a serious illness, during which my own dear sister, always my confidante in these matters, could find me no good reason why I should not pray for Mary Marden. I did pray, and earnestly, that she might come through this diphtheria 'without getting pock-marked like Mirabeau.' And my prayer had been answered.

She had a somewhat gruff voice and I thought it charming. (Satan, across the abyss of time, whispers 'adenoids.') I even admired the freckles on her nose; they really seemed to add something.

Monk Raymond, my best friend, a philosopher of thirteen summers, had been given a free ticket to the play, for he had been engaged to turn the windlass that wound up the curtain pole. He conceived his part, as always, with deep seriousness, while I fought down my envy as well as I might.

There were bloodhounds, but surely no bloodhounds could range widely on so narrow a stage as this; nor did they.

A fiercer Legree, however, never appeared on any stage. And Eliza, cons.dering that the river-scene had to be helped out by a wall map of Mesopotamia, loaned by the Methodist Church, managed the ice in the Euphrates admirably.

Monk and I walked home through the woods without saying a word. But as he bade me 'Good Night' he sighed, and observed, 'I'm going to give up the stage.'

'Why is all this, Monk?'

'Well, in the first place,' said he, 'it's a dog's life; and in the second place, I'd rather stay poor and keep my character.'

The next day, as I hurried past Mary Marden on my way home from school, she called to me.

'I caught a glimpse of you, last evening,' she said.

'Of me?'

'Yes, last evening, while I was seated at the Opera.'

The Sky Line at Wykeham! Far flight of swallows waving in evening gold, swinging, swinging to the west, follow your sky line; pray find it ever the same, little swallows, till the world's end; and be careful: 'Don't lose your balance!'

STRANGELY enough the sport that has provided the stiffest controversy over the amateur-professional status in modern times is and always has been one of the freest from professionalism. There is no recognized professional tennis, in the sense that there is recognized professional golf and cricket, sports which, while chiefly amateur, nevertheless frankly turn a professional side to the public.

Of two million tennis-players the world over, probably not more than three hundred are professionals. These are chiefly teachers who rarely attract public notice of any sort and seldom play match tennis except with amateurs preparing for important contests. There are few tournaments restricted to professionals or open to them. Moreover, these tennis-teachers would be under severe handicaps in continued match play, for the reason that they have little opportunity to become ' match-hardened' accustomed to playing before large audiences and meeting the nerve-racking concomitants of acute competition. No player, even though he be a genius, can become a champion until he has met a series. of these acid tests. Excellent players sometimes 'crack' under the strain. If they are really great they persevere to the point of becoming 'gallery-proof.' On the other hand, some players from the start find that the crowd gives them just the fillip they need in order to do their best.

Both in spirit and in fact lawn tennis is overwhelmingly amateur. In the

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whole history of the sport, professionalism has made no headway. The apprehensions culminating in this controversy are rooted in fear rather than in experience. Neither past nor present encourages the idea that tennis morale is breaking down. Moreover, the 'player-writer' criticism is leveled at a small group, not more than twenty, and including only four players of prominence. That a sport so notably amateur as tennis can be undermined by the literary activities of so few is absurd.

Nevertheless it is this, the most amateur of all sports, with the possible exception of polo, which has legislated against its greatest match player by impugning his amateurism on grounds so novel, and under definitions so fine-spun, that the tennis world stands divided against itself on the merits of the controversy. The Tilden case has become, indeed, not only a cause célèbre in tennis, but involves principles of the utmost importance in the future of amateur athletics in general.

Amateurism is one thing in play and quite another thing in work, one thing in sport, and something else in a profession or business. An amateur detective follows sleuthing as an avocation, not as a vocation, yet he does not lose caste if he accepts emoluments on occasion. The amateur printer, or photographer, or bookbinder frequently sells his work, yet continues to think of himself as amateur. There is more distinction between amateur and professional painters, actors, singers, and

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entertainers, yet it disappears quickly and without qualms of conscience or loss of prestige if the market calls loudly enough. In the traditionally learned professions amateurism is actually taboo. In most states and countries amateur lawyers and physicians have no right to practise, and amateur ministers usually receive scant consideration from the public.

The case is quite otherwise in games and sports. These are amateur, not by definition, but by right of being. Just as pedestrians are accorded priority on thoroughfares because pedestrianism is the natural state of man, so amateur sport stands on a higher plane than professional sport. The player antedated the ticket-taker, the amateur antedated the professional. Upon professionalism must ever rest the necessity for proving itself decent, whereas the amateur status is respectable per se until challenged. Indeed, in the eye of sportsmen, there is something almost sacred in that status, so that a flank attack upon it, by definition and interpretation where facts are lacking, seems not only needlessly cruel, but even to some extent unsportsmanlike.

But since, in time, professionalism was, it had to be dealt with. Then arose amateur rules or laws, selfimposed by groups of enthusiasts, to protect play from commercialism. In the beginning, no doubt, they were simple enough but, as new inhibitions and prohibitions were grafted upon them, they have become a mystery to the public, a torment to governing bodies, and a plague to the players. The amateur rule is the most troublesome of all. And yet, after playing games and studying rules for more than a third of a century, the matter seems to me simple, the definition of an amateur easy, and the enforcement of it not at all difficult. As a member of the Committee of

Seven selected to deal with the protection of amateurism in lawn tennis, I shall soon discover whether theory can be translated into action.

In my opinion, an amateur in lawn tennis is one who does not receive money or its equivalent for playing or teaching the game. Conversely, a professional is one who receives money or its equivalent for teaching or playing the game. The line of demarcation is as sharp as fresh whitewash on a grass

court.

This bald statement discards the time-honored fiction that an amateur tennis-player is one who plays the game simply or solely for the love of it. Every sport devotee knows that while love of the game attracts and holds him to his specialty, there are times when love is absent from his play and when he gets no pleasure from his mightiest efforts. Pride, the honor of club, or section, or country, the fighting spirit - these are among the mixed motives that drive one forward toward victory in the fifth set of a tennis match or in the finish of a Marathon race.

To phrase the amateur issue somewhat differently, yet still simply, if a player gains pecuniarily by his play, and plays for that gain, he is not an

amateur.

The essence of the approaching decision must be looked for in the definition. The purpose of that definition should be, not to create professionals, but to preserve amateurism. The definition, in order to win whole-souled allegiance in the world of tennis, should be a direct attack upon money-play and not an indirect attack upon personalities. Neither by word or inference should it imply inferiority in professionals. The professional in tennis can be, and frequently is, as conscientious and idealistic as the 'purest' amateur. The issue involves neither personal morals nor manners, but merely stand

ards established to keep play wholesome and the money influence out of competitions. We discriminate not for the ignoble purpose of handicapping an individual but for the lofty purpose of protecting a sport.

That, at least, is the ideal function of governing bodies in the field of sport. Such bodies are coeval with the games themselves, the inheritors of proud traditions and the bearers of high responsibilities. The Marylebone Cricket Club in England and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews are excellent examples. In England and the United States tennis-players look up to the respective Lawn Tennis Associations of those countries, without whose governance the game could hardly have grown to present proportions or come into the possession of so long and creditable a past. Twenty-three nations, each with a separate governing body, challenged for this year's Davis Cup.

Among the duties of these governing bodies is that of maintaining amateur standards. Each accepts amateurism as essential, yet they define the amateur in almost as many different ways. Among all these differences of phrase and emphasis, however, one finds the common thread of belief that the amateur is one who is not paid for playing. But maintaining amateur rules is not the whole duty of a tennis governing body. While none but amateurs may compete in official tournaments, not all amateurs may do so. There are considerations of time and space and fitness to reckon with; these are met by regulations which admit some and disbar others. These acts of disbarment are almost as important as rulings on the amateur status; yet they are separate and distinct from the cases arising from other cause and it is important that they remain so. This need is frequently lost sight of and the oversight leads to endless confusion.

To be at once fair and safe a governing body should set up a plain and unequivocal amateur rule and then, but not until then, frame regulations for the player. Under these regulations a player may not be permitted to compete in certain tournaments because his club does not belong to the governing organization in charge; or he may be barred because of unsportsmanlike conduct; or because of his age he may be kept out of a junior event. But none of these considerations impugn his amateur status, just as they are powerless to restore a professional to amateurism. Although all lawn-tennis governing-bodies the world over are dedicated to the cause of amateurism, their regulations differ widely. Nevertheless, a player may travel thousands of miles and compete under many flags without being embarrassed by strange regulations. If he measures up to the requirements established at home, he can play abroad, even though his appearance may contravene the tennis code of the country in which he is visiting. This common-sense view accepts the basic distinction between amateurism and player regulations, a distinction which should be as clearly observed at home as abroad.

The essence of the amateur rule of the United States Lawn Tennis Association is contained in Section 4, as follows:

An amateur tennis-player is one who plays tennis solely for the physical benefits he derives therefrom, and to whom the playing of the game is nothing more than a pastime.

This is a wrong and insufficient definition. The motives laid down are not always the ones at work. An amateur player, as I have pointed out, does not play solely for the pleasure and 'physical benefits he derives therefrom'; nor