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§ 13. The most striking difference between early Greek education and ours was undoubtedly this, that the physical development of boys was attended to in a special place and by a special master. It was not thought sufficient for them to play the chance games of childhood; they underwent careful bodily training under a very fixed system, which was determined by the athletic contests of after-life. This feature, which excites the admiration of the modern Germans, and has given rise to an immense literature, is doubtless all the more essential now that the mental training of our boys has become so much more trying; and we can quite feel, when we look at the physical development of ordinary foreigners, how keenly they must envy the freedom of limb and ease of motion, not only as we see it suggested by Greek statues, but as we have it before us in the ordinary sporting Englishman. But it is quite in accordance with their want of practical development, that while they write immense books about the physical training of the Greeks, and the possibility of imitating it in modern education, they seem quite ignorant of that side of English education at our public schools; and yet there they might see in practice a physical education in no way inferior to that described in classical authors. I say it quite deliberately—the public-school boy, who is trained in cricket, football, and rowing, and who in his holidays can obtain riding, salmon-fishing, hunting, and shooting, enjoys a physical training which no classical days ever equalled. The athletic part of this training is enjoyed by all boys at our public schools, though the field sports at home only fall to the lot of the richer or more fortunate.

§ 14. When we compare what the Greeks afforded to their boys, we find it divided into two contrasted kinds of exercise: hunting, which was practised by the Spartans very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and Arcadians, as may be seen from Xenophon’s “Tract on [Hare] Hunting;” and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were carried on in the so-called palæstra, a sort of open-air gymnasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were to their ordinary schoolmaster.[11] We find that the Spartans, who had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens and coverts of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exercises of dexterity in the palæstra, just as our sportsmen would think very little of spending hours in a gymnasium. But those Greeks who lived in towns like Athens, and in the midst of a thickly populated and well-cultivated country, could not possibly obtain hunting, and therefore found the most efficient substitute.

Still, we find them very far behind the English in their knowledge or taste for out-of-door games, such as cricket, football, hockey, golf, etc.—games which combine chance and skill, which combine strength with dexterity, and which intensely interest the players while keeping them in the open air. Yachting, though there were regattas, was not in fashion in ancient Greece. Rowing, which they could have practised to their heart’s content, and which was of the last importance in their naval warfare, was never thought gentlemanly, and always consigned to slaves or hirelings. There are, indeed, as above quoted from Pollux, descriptions of something like football and lacrosse, but the obscurity and rarity of any allusions to them show that they are in no sense national games. Running races round a short course was one of their chief exercises, but this is no proper out-of-door game.

§ 15. Accordingly, the Germans, in seeking to base their physical education on Greek lines, seem to make the capital mistake of ignoring that kind of exercise for boys which vastly exceeds in value any training in gymnasia. The Eton and Harrow match at Lord’s is a far more beautiful sight, and far better for the performers, than the boys’ wrestling or running at Olympia. And besides the variety of exercise at a game like cricket, and the various intelligence and decision which it stimulates, a great part of the game lies not in the winning, but in the proper form of the play, in what the Greeks so highly prized as eurythmy—a graceful action not merely in dancing and ball-playing, but in the most violent physical exertion.

But the Greeks had no playgrounds beyond the palæstra or gymnasium; they had no playgrounds in our sense; and though a few proverbs speak of swimming as a universal accomplishment which boys learned, the silence of Greek literature on the subject[12] makes one very suspicious as to the generality of such training.

With this introduction, we may turn to some details as to the education of Greek boys in their palæstra.

§ 16. In one point, certainly, the Greeks agreed more with the modern English than with any other civilized nation. They regarded sport as a really serious thing. And unless it is so regarded, it will never be brought to the national perfection to which the English have brought it, or to which the Greeks are supposed to have brought it. And yet even in this point the Greeks regarded their sports differently from us, and from all nations who have adopted Semitic ideas in religion. Seriousness of the religious kind is with us quite distinct from the seriousness of sport. With the Greeks it was not, or rather seriousness was not with them an attribute of religion in any sense more than it was of ordinary life. They harmonized religion and sports, not by the seriousness of their sports so much as by the cheerfulness—a Semite, ancient or modern, would say by the levity—of their deities; for the gods, too, love sport (φιλοπαίγμονες γὰρ καὶ οἱ θεοί), says Plato in his “Cratylus,” a remarkable and thoroughly Greek utterance. The greatest feasts of the gods were celebrated by intensifying human pleasures—not merely those of the palate, according to the grosser notion of the Christian Middle Ages, but æsthetical pleasures, and that of excitement—pleasures, not of idleness, but of keen enjoyment.

§ 17. The names applied to the exercising-places indicate their principal uses. Palæstra means a wrestling-place; gymnasium originally a place for naked exercise, but the verb early lost this connotation and came to mean mere physical training. We hear that a short race-course (δρόμος) was often attached to the palæstra, and short it must have been, for it was sometimes covered in (called ξυστός), probably with a shed roof along the wall of the main enclosure.

There is no evidence to decide the point whether the boys went to this establishment at the same age that they went to school, and at a different hour of the day, or at a different age, taking their physical and mental education separately. And even in this latter case we are left in doubt which side obtained the priority. The best authorities among the Germans decide on separate ages for palæstra and school, and put the palæstra first. But in the face of many uncertainties, and some evidence the other way, the common-sense view is preferable that both kinds of instruction were given together, though we know nothing about the distribution of the day, save that both are asserted to have begun very early. Even the theoretical schemes of Plato and Aristotle do not help us here, and it is one of those many points which are now lost on account of their being once so perfectly obvious and familiar.

We here discuss the physical side first, because it is naturally consequent upon the home games, which have been described, and because the mental side will naturally connect itself with the higher education of more advanced years. And here, too, of the great divisions of exercises in the palæstra—wrestling and dancing, more properly exercises of strength and of grace—we will place athletics first, as the other naturally leads us on to the mental side.

§ 18. In order to leave home and reach the palæstra safely as well as to return, Greek boys were put under the charge of a pædagogue, in no way to be identified (as it now is) with a schoolmaster. The text “The law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ” has suffered from this mistake. The Greek pædagogue means merely the slave who had the charge of bringing his master’s sons safely to and from school, and guarding them from mischief by the way. He was often old and trusty, often old and useless, always ignorant, and never respected. He was evidently regarded by young and gay boys as a great interference to enjoyment, insisting upon punctual hours of return, and limiting that intercourse with elder boys which was so fascinating, but also so dangerous, to Greek children.

The keeper of the palæstra and trainer (παιδοτρίβης) was not appointed by the State, but (as already mentioned) took up the work as a private enterprise, not directed by, but under the supervision of, the State, in the way of police regulation. We have, indeed, in the speech of Æschines “Against Timarchus,” very stringent laws quoted to the effect that no palæstra or school might be open before or after daylight; that no one above boys’ age might enter or remain in the building; and the severest penalties, even death, were imposed on the violation of these regulations. But we know that, even if true, which is very doubtful, the text of the laws here cited became a dead letter, for it was a favorite resort of elder men to see the boys exercising. Restrictions there were, of course; a fashionable lounge could in no way serve as a strict training-school, and we know that at Sparta, even in the gymnasia, the regulation strip or go was enforced to prevent an idle crowd.

§ 19. There is figured on many vases, often in brilliant colors, the interior of the palæstra. It is denoted by the bearded Hermes—a rude bust of the patron god. A middle-aged man in a short mantle, or chlamys, with a rod or wand in his hand, is watching and directing the exercises of the boys, generally a wrestling-match. We know also, from the pentathlon being once introduced at Olympia for boys, that its five exercises were those in which they were usually trained—leaping, running, throwing the discus, the spear, and wrestling. For elder boys, boxing and the pancratium were doubtless added, if they meant to train for public competitions, but ordinary gentlemen’s sons would never undergo this special training and its hardships. Indeed, the Spartans strictly discountenanced such sports, both as likely to disfigure, and as sure to produce quarrels and ill-will. The lighter exercises were intended to make the frame hardy and the movements graceful, and were introduced by a thorough rubbing of the skin with olive oil, which, after the training, was scraped off with a special instrument, the στλεγγίς, as may be seen in the splendid Vatican statue of the athlete scraping his arm, the so-called Apoxyomenos, referred to as an original of Lysippus. In luxurious days they also took a bath, but this was hardly the case with ordinary boys—indeed, the water supply of Greek towns was probably scanty enough, and the nation not given to much washing.

§ 20. There remain little or no details as to the exact rules of training practised in the ordinary palæstras, but we may fairly assume them to have been the same in kind (though milder in degree) as those approved for formal athletes. If we judge from these, we will not form a high idea of Greek training. Pausanias informs us that they trained on dry cheese, which is not surprising, as they were (like most southerns) not a very carnivorous people. But when a known athlete (Dromeus[13]) discovered that meat diet was the best, they seem to have followed up the discovery by inferring that the more of a good thing the better; and so athletes were required to eat very large quantities of meat, owing to which they were lazy and sleepy when not engaged in active work.[14] We need not suppose that the diet of ordinary boys was in any way interfered with, but this particular case shows the crude notions which prevailed, and the trainer came more and more to assume the part of a dietetic doctor, as is stated by Plato.

§ 21. So much as to the conditions of good training; as to the performance, there are points of no less significance. All the learned Germans who write on these subjects notice that the Olympic races were carried out on soft sand, not on hard and springy ground, so that really good pace cannot have been a real object to Greek runners.[15] But, what is worse, they praise their zeal and energy in starting (as we see on vases) with wild swinging of their arms, in spread-eagle fashion, and encouraging themselves with loud shouts.[16] This style of running may seem very fine to a professor in his study, but will only excite ridicule among those who have ever made the least practical essay, or seen any competitions. But possibly the Greeks were not so uniformly silly in this respect as they are now represented by commentators, for there is preserved on the Acropolis at Athens one little-known vase on which a running figure has the elbows held tightly back in the proper way. We may also have grave suspicions about Greek boxing, from the facts that they weighted the hand heavily with loaded gloves, and that boxers are described as men with their ears, and not with their noses, crushed. We cannot but suspect them of swinging round, and not striking straight from the shoulder. This is further proved by the use of protecting ear-caps (ἀμφωτίδες) in boxing, a thing which no modern boxer would dream of doing.

§ 22. All these hints taken together make us reasonably suspect that, as athletics, the training of the pædotribes was not what we should admire. But, on the other hand, the picturesque and enthusiastic descriptions of beautiful and well-trained Greek boys, coupled with the ideal figures which remain to us in Greek sculpture, prove beyond any doubt that they knew perfectly what a beautiful manly form was, and by what training it could be produced. Let us, however, not exaggerate the matter. Very few boys really equalled the ideal types of the sculptor; and if we make allowance for this, we may conclude that the finest English public-school boy is not inferior to the best Greek types in real life.[17] Perhaps some advantage may have resulted from the greater freedom of limb obtained by naked training and rubbing with oil; but the advantage of this over a modern flannel suit or tight athlete’s dress is very small. Nevertheless, the English schoolboy is physically so superior to the schoolboys of other European nations that we may count him, with the Greek boy, as almost a distinct animal.

What surprises us is that by regular training in the simplest exercises, such as running, leaping, wrestling, and throwing the discus or dart, such splendid results were ever attained. Or shall we say that it was not the wrestling but the dancing side of Greek training which was of chief importance? We may dismiss with a word the fabulous stories of athletic feats at Olympia, where a certain Chionis, a Spartan of early date (Ol. 28–31, cir. 660 B.C.), was said to have leaped fifty-two feet, and afterwards Phayllus of Croton fifty-five feet. We may infer, too, from the use of weights (ἁλτῆρες), that the jump was a standing one. Happily these assertions are only made by late grammarians, and though some German critics are inclined to extend their adoration of Greek training to this point, it will rather, with practical readers, tend to discredit other statements made by the same authority. As we do not hear of a running jump, so we do not hear of a high jump either, at least in public games. Both may have been practised in the palæstra. The distance for a sprint-race for men was two hundred yards, and somewhat shorter for boys. Their longest race at Olympia was twenty-four stadia (4800 yards, 2⅔ miles), which the professors, without any knowledge of the time in which it was done, think more wonderful than the fifty-five-feet jump, but which is equalled in many English sports of the present day.

§ 23. Apart from the doubts here raised as to the perfection of Greek training, let us revert, in conclusion, to the absence among elder boys of those out-of-door games, like cricket, which are so valuable for developing mental, together with physical, qualities. There is one feature in these games which the Greeks seem to have missed altogether, and which appears to be ignored in most German books on the reform of physical education in schools. It is that forming of clubs and teams of boys, in which they choose their own leaders, and get accustomed to self-government and a submission to the superior will of equals, or the decision of public opinion among themselves. Plato saw long ago that the proper and peculiar intention of boys’ sports was more mental than bodily improvement. But he confined himself to that part of the question which advocates the cultivation of spirit in boys as better than that which cultivates strength only. This is perfectly true, and no game is worthy the name in which spirit and intelligence cannot defeat brute strength. But there is little trace, save at Sparta, of any free constitution in boys’ education, in which they manage their own affairs, fight out their own quarrels, and praise or censure according to a public opinion of their own. No Greek educator seems to have had an inkling of this, and the foreign theorists who have discussed educational reforms on the Greek models seem equally unaware of its importance. Yet here, if anywhere, is the secret of that independence of character and self-reliance which is the backbone of the English constitution and the national liberty. The Greeks were like the French and the Germans, who always imagine that the games and sports will not prosper or be properly conducted without the supervision of a Turnlehrer, or overseer; and they give great exhortations to this man to sympathize with the boys and stimulate them. In England the main duty of such people is to keep out of the way and let the boys manage their own affairs. The results of the opposed systems will strike any one who compares, on the one hand, the neat and well-regulated French boys of a boarding-school, walking two-and-two, with gloves on and toes turned out, along a road, followed by a master; on the other, the playgrounds of any good English school during recreation time. If the zealous and learned reformers who write books on the subject in modern Europe would take the trouble to come and see this for themselves, it might modify both their encomia on Greek training and their suggestions for their own countries.