§ 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.