Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/287

 they do this with great emulation, the boys performing mock-fights adapted to their age, and the young men the so-called manly fights. In like manner throughout the whole of life their pleasure at feasts and entertainments consists, not in listening to singers hired for the purpose, but in singing themselves in their turns when called upon. For, although a man may decline any other performance on the ground of inability and may thereby bring no imputation on himself, no one can refuse to sing, because all have been obliged to learn it, and to refuse to take a part, when able, is deemed disgraceful. The young men also unite together to perform in order all the military steps and motions to the sound of the pipe, and at the public expense they exhibit them every year before their fellow-citizens. Besides these ballets, marches, and mock-fights, the men and women unite in great public assemblies and in numerous sacrifices, to which are to be added the circular or choral dances by the boys and virgins." Polybius adds, that these musical exercises had been ordained as the means of communicating softness and refinement to the otherwise rough and laborious life of the Arcadians, and he warns them by the example of the half-savages of Cynæthæ never to abandon such wholesome institutions . With how great benefit to our own social character might we adopt this counsel! How greatly might we contribute both to the innocent enjoyment and to the more improved and elevated tastes of our rustics and artisans, if well-regulated plans were devised, by which graceful recreations, providing at the same time exercise for the body, amusement for the imagination, and employment for the finer and more amiable feelings, were made to relieve the degrading and benumbing monotony of their protracted labors, whether in the factory or in the field!

It will be readily perceived, that the education here described, and the tastes and habits which it produced, were immediately associated with the popular religion, and especially with the notions and rites entertained towards the peculiar god of the shepherds. Other deities indeed, such as Apollo, Diana, and