As it is evident whether a boy should be
first taught morals or reasoning, and whether his body or his
understanding should be first cultivated, it is plain that boys should
be first put under the care of the different masters of the gymnastic
arts, both to form their bodies and teach them their exercises.
CHAPTER IV
Now those states which seem to take the greatest care of their
children's education, bestow their chief attention on wrestling,
though it both prevents the increase of the body and hurts the form of
it. This fault the Lacedaemonians did not fall into, for they made
their children fierce by painful labour, as chiefly useful to inspire
them with courage: though, as we have already often said, this is
neither the only thing nor the principal thing necessary to attend to;
and even with respect to this they may not thus attain their end; for
we do not find either in other animals, or other nations, that courage
necessarily attends the most cruel, but rather the milder, and those
who have the dispositions of lions: for there are many people who are
eager both to kill men and to devour human flesh, as the Achaeans and
Heniochi in Pontus, and many others in Asia, some of whom are as bad,
others worse than these, who indeed live by tyranny, but are men of no
courage. Nay, we know that the Lacedaemonians themselves, while they
continued those painful labours, and were superior to all others
(though now they are inferior to many, both in war and gymnastic
exercises), did not acquire their superiority by training their youth
to these exercises, but because those who were disciplined opposed
those who were not disciplined at all.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321