GREAT MEN'S BODIES
the next athletic meet, and find better if you can. That foot; that leg, had seen much work.
It says so all over them. Those hours and days and years of Peripatetic work had carved their story; and his legs talk as well as his face—a clean-cut, closely knit, wiry man.
ALEXANDER (356–323 B.C.)
President Garfield once said that Mark Hopkins upon one end of a bench and you upon the other meant a liberal education.
But upon a bench in old time sat a greater teacher than President Hopkins; and beside him a greater man than Garfield. Son of a famous soldier-king; of a mother fiery and ambitious; he early showed the traits of both in boundless ambition, coupled with sober wisdom in dealing with whatever arose. His father secured as his tutor the renowned Aristotle, who "withdrew him to a distance from the Court, and instructed him in every branch of human learning, especially what relates to the art of government; while, at the same time he disciplined and invigorated his body by gymnastic exercises." (And, by-the-way, how could Aristotle teach him gymnastics, if he did not know them himself?)
In recent years, we have seen a small band of Japs going where they liked in mighty China; and her hundreds of millions could not stop them. So this lad, with scarce 35,000 men, went through army after army; and province and satrapy and nation; bearing all before him, till at thirty-two, he had conquered not one nation; or one continent only; but the whole known world; and sighed because he had not more worlds to conquer. Who before or after him ever did that?
And did the body of this war-genius match his mind? It must have, or he could not have stood the pace. And it did. He was a boy of extraordinary promise. He said himself: "I am not one of those who will look on at the struggle. But I am one of those who will perform valiant deeds at the contest. And though I be little and short in stature; yet I am mighty in chariot-races, and I will defeat the proud."
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