Turning first to physical education at Sparta, the earlier type, we find that the state began its efforts to secure a sound body of citizens by carefully regulating the life of the women, and formed an exception to the statement just made in that it prescribed for girls a course of gymnastic exercise. There was need of vigorous mothers for the sturdy race which public welfare demanded. As a further precaution, the new-born infant was brought before a council of old men, whose decision whether or not he should be raised was based upon his physical condition and promise, and was final. The first six years were passed in the home, but at the age of seven the boy was taken away from his parents, to be placed in public quarters. Here he slept and ate in company with a large number of other boys, and shared with them a common discipline at the hands of state officials who shaped every detail with reference to his future career as a citizen-warrior. He spent the night in a room open to the sky, without the luxury of bedclothes, on a pallet of hay or straw, exchanged when he was older for one of rushes which he had gathered himself along the river banks. He went summer and winter clad in a single scanty garment, unshod, bare-headed and with close-cropped hair. The food, of the plainest sort, was hardly sufficient to satisfy the cravings of hunger. The amount might be eked out by theft, however, but with the understanding that anyone so indiscreet or maladroit as to be detected in the act would receive prompt and severe punishment. Indeed, the rod and lash were freely applied, by public officers or by any offended citizen, upon the least provocation, and as a necessary part of the regular discipline, since it accustomed the future soldier to the endurance of pain. There were even what might be considered periodical tests of this capacity to endure, for at one of the annual festivals the flogging of youths was an essential feature, often carried to the drawing of blood, it is said. Like the Indian under torture, the victim was expected to give no signs of suffering.