IV
Of those states which in our own day seem to take the greatest
care of children, some aim at producing in them an athletic habit, but
they only injure their forms and stunt their growth. Although the
Lacedaemonians have not fallen into this mistake, yet they brutalize
their children by laborious exercises which they think will make
them courageous. But in truth, as we have often repeated, education
should not be exclusively, or principally, directed to this end. And
even if we suppose the Lacedaemonians to be right in their end, they
do not attain it. For among barbarians and among animals courage is
found associated, not with the greatest ferocity, but with a gentle
and lion like temper. There are many races who are ready enough to
kill and eat men, such as the Achaeans and Heniochi, who both live
about the Black Sea; and there are other mainland tribes, as bad or
worse, who all live by plunder, but have no courage. It is notorious
that the Lacedaemonians themselves, while they alone were assiduous in
their laborious drill, were superior to others, but now they are
beaten both in war and gymnastic exercises. For their ancient
superiority did not depend on their mode of training their youth,
but only on the circumstance that they trained them when their only
rivals did not.
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