The Greeks, I suspect, would not wholly have approved of
my five French professors. Socrates, who in many ways was a tolerant man, took young Epigenes fiercely to task for his neglect of physical exercise, and Plato was most emphatic upon the necessity of " avoiding the shade and the unmanly ways of life." Yet even the Greeks were opposed to excess of athleticism, which, they well knew, " could not fatten the dark corners of a city." I should not, I feel, have enjoyed being a middle-aged Athenian, and to be a middle-aged Spartan must have been hell indeed. " In youth," wrote Euripides about the fortunate athletes, " they go about in splendour, the admiration of their city, but when bitter old age comes upon them, they are cast aside like worn-out coats." We, in our ate, are kinder to the elderly. We send them to Buxton and to Bath.
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