Having thus drawn as complete a picture as the plan of our work would permit, of the physical training of the Greeks in all its branches, comprehending Gymnastics properly so called, together with those other exercises which under the name of field-sports were enjoyed rather than studied under the lead of no master but experience, we now return to that mental discipline, which for the most part exerted its influence in the developement of the intellectual faculties at the same time that the foregoing bodily discipline brought forth all the energies of the frame. We shall thus have traversed the whole circle of Hellenic education, when we shall have exhibited the youth passing through the schools of the philosophers and sophists into the world.[794] Footnote 794: Cf. M. Ant. Muret. Orat. vii. p. 70. sqq. Their mode of teaching differed very materially from ours. It scarcely seemed an object with them to devour large quantities of learning, but going leisurely again and again over the same ground they appeared to give the lessons they received time to sink like gentle rain into their minds. Some advantage, too, arose from their method of teaching, as far as possible, orally. The master was to them instead of a library. A book has but one set of phrases for all. But the living teacher, if he found his pupils could not rise to his language, could lower it to meet them half-way, could be brief or expansive, or general or minute, as the necessities of the moment required. There was a familiarity, too, in the relation, scarcely compatible with our manners. The youth forgot he was learning, and rather supposed himself to be searching in the company of a friend for truths equally unknown to both. This appears to have been more particularly the case in their moral studies,[795] at least in the Socratic schools, where all the pomp of wisdom was laid aside that it might be the more popular. Footnote 795: Vid. Ant. Muret. Orat. iv. 43. sqq.