Are We a Declining Race ? 



Athens that we have some knowledge of the rise 

 of the Spartans, for they would not be likely to 

 record their own history, as they made a point of 

 discouraging learning. 



Mitford says : " In England the science of 

 breeding horses and dogs of the most generous 

 temper, and highest bodily ability, has been 

 carried to an amazing perfection. Lacedaemon 

 is the only country known in history where atten- 

 tion was ever paid to the breeding of men." 



Only think of it ! The noblest specimen of 

 creation, and no attention paid to the breeding 

 of him ! More than 2,000 years have passed 

 away since the downfall of the Spartan, and 

 during that vast period we do not know of one 

 civilised nation profiting to any extent from the 

 experience of that ancient State. 



It is supposed by some that Lycurgus, the 

 traditional legislator of the Spartans, gained his 

 ideas of stirpiculture from Crete, as he had 

 visited that Island during his travels, and their 

 methods of training were similar. 



We are told of the Cretans that they were 

 celebrated throughout Greece for the education 

 of their youth. " At the age of seven the boy 

 was permitted to handle the crossbow ; from 

 that time he was admitted into the society of 

 the adults, where he continued till the age of 

 seventeen. There, seated on the ground and 

 clothed in a plain coarse dress, he served the old 

 men, and listened in respectful silence to their 

 advice. He was early accustomed to arms and 

 to fatigue, and to endure excessive heat and cold, 

 to clamber and leap among hills and precipices, 



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