This thesis examines the origins of athleticism in England and its transfer
to Canada. During the course of the nineteenth century, the focus of the English
public schools changed dramatically. At the start of the century an English upper-class student's leisure time was largely employed in roaming the country-side, trespassing on neighboring estates and poaching. Teachers' responsibilities ended at the classroom door. Seventy-five years later an English public school student's life was focussed on games and team sports including cricket and the various types of football. Teachers
now ran all aspects of school life which was designed to instill the manly, Christian, virtues which would enable graduates to take their proper place as leaders in the British Empire. And team sports were a vehicle to
achieve that end. Team sports such as cricket and rugby, and the various
institutions that promoted them, occupied a central place in upper-class English life and became infused with what Professor Mangan refers to as the 'games ethic': the ideology of athleticism. When the British administrators, soldiers, and immigrants came to Canada they brought with them their love of games and this 'games ethic' that
was modified by Canadian experience. In England the 'ethic' was firmly
entrenched and supported by a unique class and social structure. Because that structure did not exist in Canada, the attempts of early British Canadians to instill the 'ethic' in the new country were problematic and played out in the conflict between amateurs and professionals. Although
an emerging working-class culture and an increasingly commercialized society challenged and eventually made the distinction between amateur and professional athletes irrelevant, belief in the 'games ethic' and in the instrumental value of team sports survived and continues to influence
Canadian sport policy today.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11624 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Armstrong, Peter Evans |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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