Sport and Colonialism in 19th Century Australasia - LA84 Foundation

Such muted criticism of the internal structure of sporting
competition at Wesley might be considered minor when set
against the serious accusations made against the school, and
Adamson's operations of sport, in 1910. On this occasion the
emphasis on sport at Wesley gained the dubious distinction of
being debated in the public press. Writing in the Age on the
24 May 1910, Dr. W. Kent Hughes, a prominent Melbourne practitioner,
attacked the sporting policies at Wesley and questioned
in his Letter the ethics of keeping boys on at school until
they were nearly twenty years of age for the sole purpose of
gaining a place in a team. The denouncement carried with it
the implication that Wesley teams were indulging in practices
and attitudes that smacked of professionalism. 38
Kent Hughes
virtually stated that the Long run of success by the Wesley
crews in the Head of River regattas was due to a boat rowed by
over-age boys. Sport, and an unbridled desire to win at all
costs, was a corruption and a flagrant interference in the
Lives of boys who should have been pursuing their careers in
the community. Naturally enough Adamson was at the forefront
of the denials to Kent Hughes charges, but the whole topic of
the place of sport in the public schools became an issue in the
letters to the Age. Adamson denied the claim that boys were
deliberately kept on at Wesley for the purpose of guaranteeing
prestige from athletic glory. He accused Kent Hughes of misrepresenting
the true facts and of being a "tuppenny sportsman
who cannot take a beating decently": a plain reference to the
jealousy generated through the invincibility of the Wesley
crews at the time. 39
Quite plainly from the correspondence on the subject,
Adamson had considerable support for his position, and the evidence
he supplied to refute the charges of having an unfair
advantage over other public school crews. The conscience of
the Wesley head was clear. He had never advised boys to continue
on at school simply to gain a place in a team. There had
to be "worth-while" reasons for any boy to return to school beyond
his eighteenth birthday and the "gain" could not be measured
solely in sporting activity. 40
The issue of the balance
between "work and play" had emerged two years before Kent Hughes'
attack upon Adamson. In 1908 a leader article in the Wesley
53