820 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



paramount to all else ; to lier, strength of limb and elasticity of move- 

 ment meant migiitj warriors and national supremacy. At Athens 

 physical and intellectual training were given equal attention, though 

 brain was always superior to brawn. The national games at the 

 great festivals, which crowned the victors with divine honors, kept 

 religion and sports so intimately connected that obedience to the 

 gods could not be separated from devotion to the state and duty to 

 one's self. 



Though American rush and push have made our country first 

 in the contest of the nations, hurry may be the bane as well as the 

 boon of our civilization. Bodily weakness and hereditary disease 

 have followed in the wake of material wealth and intellectual vigor. 

 Generations of overworked and unexercised men have left us the 

 legacy of shattered nerves and enfeebled hearts; with characteristic 

 vigor we press on till a little extra strain on this already overstrained 

 system destroys the life that a little daily exercise might have saved 

 for years of usefulness. 



At the first school day the physical training in the yalcBsira, 

 under special instructors, was begun, and never ceased till old age 

 called a halt. The palcestra was for boys, and was purely a private 

 enterprise, while the gymnasium was under state control and fre- 

 quented by the youth and older men. No outsiders were allowed at 

 either the boys' or men's gymnasium. Every day the boy was trained 

 in one or more of the so-called " five exercises," which included leap- 

 ing, running, throwing the discus, casting the spear, and wrestling. 

 Bars of iron with knobs at the ends like our dumb-bells were used to 

 aid in leaping. Before wrestling, the body was well rubbed with olive 

 oil, to which sand was added to afford a good hold. A flesh-scraper 

 removed the oil after the contest. Boxing, and boxing and wrestling 

 combined, were deemed necessary only for the professional athlete, 

 and were not taught to boys, as likely to disfigure their faces and create 

 quaiTels and ill will. Outside of Sparta we hear very little of outdoor 

 sports, as hunting and riding, but probably owing to the fact that else- 

 where Greek life was essentially " town life." Boys are always 

 attended by overseers in their games, and seem never to have indulged 

 in those sports in which they elect and obey their own leader and 

 fight out their own battles. In all the schoolboy's physical training 

 the motto was " Health, not display." 



Unfortunately, the Greek schoolmaster, at least in the common 

 schools, was neither held in high repute nor very well paid. The 

 teacher's income depended on the number of pupils enrolled; though 

 the tuition was probably due monthly, there was great irregularity 

 in its pajTnent. Demosthenes, in the noted case against his guardians, 

 accuses them of letting his teachers go unpaid during the whole of 



