Note 17 — Chapter III · SCHOOL DAYS—THE PHYSICAL SIDE.

It is a perpetual and perhaps now ineradicable mistake, because we cannot see the real Athenians or Spartans of classical days, to imagine them in general like the ideal statues of the Greek artists. We find it even generally stated that beauty was the rule and ugliness the exception among them, in spite of Cicero’s complaint, when he was disillusioned by a visit to Athens: “Quotusquisque enim formosus est? Quum Athenis essem e gregibus epheborum vix singuli reperiebantur.”