[*] Mahaffy, translator. Another very characteristic lament for the passing of youth is left us by the early elegiac poet Mimnermus. 145. The Greeks unite Moral and Physical Beauty.—But here at the Academy, this spirit of beautiful youth, and the “joy of life,” is everywhere dominant. All around us are the beautiful bodies of young men engaged in every kind of graceful exercise. When we question, we are told that current belief is that in a great majority of instances there is a development and a symmetry of mind corresponding to the glory of the body. It is contrary to all the prevalent notions of the reign of “divine harmony” to have it otherwise. The gods abhor all gross contradictions! Even now men will argue over a strange breach of this rule;—why did heaven suffer Socrates to have so beautiful a soul set in so ugly a body?—Inscrutable are the ways of Zeus! However, we have generalized and wandered enough. The Academy is a place of superabounding activities. Let us try to comprehend some of them. 146. The Usual Gymnastic Sports and their Objects.—Despite all the training in polite conversation which young men are supposed to receive at the gymnasium, the object of the latter is after all to form places of athletic exercise. The Athenians are without most of these elaborate field games such as later ages will call “baseball” and “football”; although, once learned, they could surely excel in these prodigiously. They have a simple “catch” with balls, but it hardly rises above the level of a children’s pastime. The reasons for these omissions are probably, first, because so much time is devoted to the “palæstra” exercises; secondly, because military training eats up about all the time not needed for pure gymnastics. The “palæstra” exercises, taught first at the boys’ training establishments and later continued at the great gymnasia, are nearly all of the nature of latter-day “field sports.” They do not depend on the costly apparatus of the twentieth century athletic halls; and they accomplish their ends with extremely simple means. The aim of the instructor is really twofold—to give his pupils a body fit and apt for war (and we have seen that to be a citizen usually implies being a hoplite), and to develop a body beautiful to the eye and efficient for civil life. The naturally beautiful youth can be made more beautiful; the naturally homely youth can be made at least passable under the care of a skilful gymnastic teacher.