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Work, then, let it be admitted, is undertaken not for work’s sake but largely for the sake of recreation. England has been made the workshop of the world, its fair fields and lovely homesteads have been turned into dark towns and grimy streets, partly in the hope that more of its citizens may have enjoyment in life. Men toil in close offices under dark skies, not just to increase the volume of exports and imports, and not always to increase their power, or to win honour from one another; they dream of happy hours of play, they picture themselves travelling in strange countries or tranquilly enjoying their leisure in some villa or pleasant garden. Men spend laborious days as reformers, on public boards or as public servants, very largely so as to release their neighbours from the prison house of labour, where so many, giving their lives “to some unmeaning taskwork, die unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest”.

Recreation is an object of work. The recreations of the people consume much of the fruit of the labour of the people. Their play discloses what is in their hearts and minds and to what end they will direct their power. Their use of leisure is a sign-post showing whether the course of the nation is towards extinction in ignorance and self-indulgence, or towards greater brightness in the revelation of character and the service of mankind. By their idle words and by the acts of their idle times men are most fairly judged.