HEALTH, EXERCISE, AND AMUSEMENTS
Perhaps in no other country in the world have health and exercise been
united and formed into a national institution, as they have been in
Sweden. The true Swede believes that exercise will cure everything,
and that as a preventive of disease there is nothing like it. If you
go to a Swedish physician for advice, he will invariably prescribe the
movement cure, and send you to a gymnasium or a massage establishment
instead of to a drug store. Physical exercise is therefore the
national remedy, particularly for complaints due to sedentary
employment, neglect of nature's laws, and high living. The movement
cure for invalids, which is practically the same as that we have in
the United States, is used in all the hospitals as well as in private
practice. It was invented about a century ago by Dr. Ling, a patriot,
a gymnast and a poet, who was inspired to revive the ancestral
national spirit in the Swedish people by the aid of sports and songs,
and to develop once more the great qualities of strength, courage,
and endurance which in old times distinguished the Scandinavian
race. After a hard struggle he succeeded, in 1814, in securing the
recognition of the government and founded the Royal Gymnastic Central
Institute, where all persons desiring to teach gymnastics in the
public schools or in private institutions must take a course of
training and take a degree. The Swedes are quite as particular about
this as they are about the study of medicine. No medical practitioner
can hang out a sign without a diploma from one of the universities,
and no person can teach gymnastics in that country without a similar
certificate of competency from the Royal Institute. Every officer of
the army is required to undergo a course of instruction, not only
to develop his physical constitution, but to qualify him to teach
gymnastics to his soldiers. The teachers of physical culture in the
public schools, both men and women, are obliged to take a similar
course in order to drill their pupils properly, for in every
schoolroom in the country, down to the kindergartens, daily physical
exercise upon Ling's plan is required to promote the development of
the body and improve the health. This is required in private as well
as public schools, and the methods of instruction are subject to the
inspection and approval of the Central Institute. In every town of any
size there are gymnastic clubs and associations, which are generally
guided by instructors educated at the Central Institute. They include
women as well as men in their membership, and in many of them fencing
and other sword exercises are also taught. In common with all the
gymnasiums are bath-houses. You will find them in every part of the
city of Stockholm and in other large towns. Some of them occupy entire
buildings. It is the habit of business men to go to their stores or
offices at nine o'clock in the morning and remain there until two or
three in the afternoon, when they go to their club or gymnasium and
take an hour's exercise and afterward a bath. These establishments in
the business quarter of Stockholm and other cities are considered just
as important as clubs, restaurants, or other places of resort, and
usually have connected with them reading and smoking rooms where
patrons can read the daily newspapers and current magazines and sip
coffee and smoke while they are cooling off. It would surprise a
visitor in New York or Chicago to be informed that his broker or his
lawyer or his banker or a contractor with whom he has business, had
gone to a bathhouse or gymnasium at three o'clock in the afternoon,
but in Stockholm it is a common reply to an inquiry. During winter
afternoons you can usually find anybody you want by going to his
favorite gymnasium or bathhouse, just as you would look for him at his
club in Chicago.
There is a distinctive dress for the exercise. The patrons take off
their street clothing and put on light woolen shirts and trousers, and
canvas shoes on their bare feet, and, standing in rows, go through a
series of motions under the command of their instructor to exercise
the arms, legs, neck, and every other part of the body, gently, not
violently. The idea is movement, not exertion, and the muscles are
restrained. The arm is raised slowly with self-resistance. No clubs
or dumb-bells are used, only a gentle motion like the exercise of the
children in the schools. After twenty minutes or half an hour of this
the class marches in a column, still going through the same movements;
then they run, following their leader, doing everything that he does,
until at the end of an hour the body is in a glow, the blood is
pulsating in every vein, the perspiration is oozing from every pore,
every muscle is limbered up and strengthened, and every nerve tingles.
There is regular gymnasium apparatus for those who like more violent
exercise. Then a bath is taken, followed by a cold plunge and violent
rubbing with massage, after which a man is in shape to go home to his
dinner with a good appetite.
In October every year the Scandinavian Gymnastic Instructors'
Association meets in Stockholm for several weeks, at which lectures
are delivered, papers are read, and discussions are held upon all
branches of their work. These meetings are quite as important as
annual conventions of the bar or medical associations, and are not
only attended by gymnastic instructors, but by physicians generally,
for every Swedish physician must be well versed in medical gymnastics,
particularly in what is known as _kinesitherapym_ or movement cure,
which embraces active, passive, and resisting movements, as well as
massage, for the latter is the basis of medical gymnastics.
The Swedes have accepted this treatment as a specific for nearly
all diseases, deformities, and weaknesses of the body; for internal
complaints, for the lungs, the heart, and the digestive organs. It
removes superfluous tissue, and this is the reason you see so few fat
men in Sweden, notwithstanding their beer-drinking propensities, and
why the women keep their youthful shape until old age.
It is a spectacle to witness in some of the gymnastic institutes
venerable and dignified gentlemen going through comical motions and
assuming ridiculous postures with great activity and zeal, keeping
time to the music of a band in the adjoining café.
In Sweden doctors never send bills to their patients, but trust
entirely to their generosity. Each family has an attending physician,
who expects them to pay him by the year for his services, according to
their wealth and the amount of attention they receive. Ten dollars a
year in our money is a good fee; one hundred dollars is princely. At
the beginning of the year you put the amount in an envelope and send
it to the doctor by a messenger with your card. He sends back his card
with an acknowledgment of thanks and the compliments of the season. It
is very bad form to talk about it, although grateful patients often
write their physicians affectionate letters of gratitude for his
devotion and the benefit he has brought them. It is a good deal
like the relation between a minister and his parishioners in other
countries, and the annual contribution for the support of the doctor
is just as voluntary as the contribution to the treasury of the
church. If there is any reason why one should feel grateful to the
doctors; if you or your children have suffered a severe illness and he
has pulled you through, he expects a present in addition to the annual
honorarium, just as you would send the minister a present after a
marriage or a funeral or some other special occasion at which his
services are required. The amount you pay depends upon your ability
and the value of his services, but it is a violation of the
most sacred canon of professional etiquette for a doctor to ask
compensation or question the amount he receives. He keeps no accounts
of his visits and no books. If a stranger or an acquaintance who does
not contribute regularly makes one call or two upon the doctor to ask
his advice or a prescription, he leaves something on the table, but it
would be equivalent to an insult if he should ask for a bill.
When a person is very sick, he is taken to a hospital. Sweden has some
of the best hospitals in the world. His own doctor looks after him
there, assisted by the house physician and nurses, who expect fees,
but the regular doctor gets none. He supervises the treatment and acts
as adviser to the house physician.
The government pays subsidies to doctors in remote parts of the
country, just as it pays the salaries of the ministers where the
people are so poor that they can not support a doctor and a parson.
In fact, all the clergymen of the established church are paid by the
government and are government officials. The members of their parishes
give them presents, something on the donation party order, because
their salaries are small, and if there happen to be rich men in the
parish, it is their custom to send around a handsome present to the
minister's wife or to himself on Christmas Day.
The Swedes have a short summer, and so far as possible spend it in the
open air. Every citizen of Stockholm who can afford it has a place in
the country, no matter how humble or primitive it may be, and if he
can not afford a cabin, he pitches a tent in the woods under the pine
trees, and if necessary cooks his own meals. The banks of the lakes
and rivers throughout the entire kingdom--and there are more than
1,400 lakes in Sweden and 1,700 islands in the Stockholm Skärgard--are
surrounded by such dwellings and camps, for the Swedes love the water.
Those who are compelled to remain in town take their meals and spend
their evenings at the open-air cafes, which are found in every part of
the city with bands of music, and take daily excursions on the boats
which ply through the fjord and the lakes which encircle the town.
In the suburbs are circuses, open-air theaters, concert gardens, and
other forms of entertainments, simple and serious. A number of fine
restaurants are maintained in the parks, where people can get a good
dinner and spend the evening under the cool foliage, listening to
an orchestral concert or a band. Every form of outdoor amusement is
furnished, and the people eat, drink, and are merry, making the most
of their time from June to September before the long and dreary winter
comes upon them.
The working classes have their simple amusements also, and during the
summer evenings in every village there is music and dancing, even if
an accordion or jewsharp is the only instrument to be obtained. The
national dances are quite energetic, and furnish a form of exercise
which lazy people would not admire, but both the men and women of
Sweden are famous for their muscular strength, and the young woman who
can dance down her companions is as much of a hero as the champion
wrestler of the town. Those who can not enjoy the opportunity of
visiting rural Sweden will find in the suburbs of Stockholm, at the
favorite resort and place of amusement of the common people, a perfect
representation of Swedish country life. It is called Skansen, and
is rural Sweden in miniature. It is a patriotic and scientific
enterprise, conceived and undertaken by the late Dr. Artur Hazelius,
an eminent ethnologist, for the purpose of preserving the habits and
customs of the Scandinavian races. In no country of Europe, excepting
perhaps Russia and Turkey, have the people adhered to the manner and
costumes of their fathers so tenaciously as in Sweden, and the life of
past generations is preserved in its picturesqueness. The conservatism
of the people, their tenacious preference for their own ways and means
has kept out innovations, and very few changes have been made since
the beginning of the eighteenth century. But fearing that the peasants
of Sweden, like all other peoples, would sooner or later surrender to
modern fashions, Dr. Hazelius attempted to collect at Skansen actual
types representing every industry, activity, and national trait. His
thought was expressed in a motto inscribed over one of the gates of
this outdoor museum:
"The day will come when all our gold will not be sufficient to buy an
accurate picture of the times long past."
He procured from the king a rocky plateau on the edge of a royal park
known as _Djurgarden_, covered with crippled pines and resembling the
wild, uncultivated, neglected landscape in Dalecaria or Norrland,
the two most interesting portions of Sweden. By careful landscape
gardening, without destroying its natural beauty, he introduced broad
paths, restaurants, cafes, band stands, and other places for the merry
to meet and hold their festivals, and for the students to sing their
songs, and he reserved a part of the grounds in its natural condition,
where the lovers of nature can find a quiet retreat among the gloom
of a pine grove. It has become the most popular resort in Sweden,
particularly in the long summer evenings, and when a man can not reach
the country, Skansen is never too far. It is accessible by street-cars
and by boats, and is not more than half an hour's walk from the
palace.
Here the "folk festivals," for which the Swedish poets have composed
their most beautiful songs, are held every spring; here the national
holidays are celebrated as in olden times, both in summer and
winter, and national customs are preserved with great care and amid
surroundings that give them a realistic tone, like the true thing. Dr.
Hazelius secured original types of peasant houses from every part of
the country where they have individual or unique character. From the
huts of the fishermen on the south coast of the Scandinavian peninsula
to the camps of the Lapps in the frozen zone, every feature of
Swedish country life is represented. The Lapps brought their dogs and
reindeer, and live exactly as they do upon the snowy plains of the
polar regions.
With the forty acres that compose the park are about one hundred and
twenty-five people, living exactly as their forefathers lived and
practicing the primitive customs that prevailed two centuries ago
in the agricultural districts of the kingdom. They wear the same
costumes, eat the same kind of food, use the same kind of dishes, and
preserve so far as possible every feature of their daily life. Every
one of the provinces of Sweden which has a distinctive dress or unique
custom is represented by the actual people who have always lived that
way. Every man and woman continues their former occupations. There
is no theatrical business about it, no imitations on the grounds;
everything is genuine.
Three or four times a week at sunset, after their daily work is done,
the peasants gather for a dance at a central place, which is always
surrounded by a large crowd of spectators, and is the greatest
attraction of Skansen. On alternate nights the dancing is by the
children, of whom there are thirty-seven under fifteen years of age
living in the cabins with their parents, dressed just like their
great-great-grandfathers and grand mothers when they were of the
same age. The music for the dancing is furnished by old-fashioned
instruments, and none but old-fashioned tunes are allowed. There is a
society in Sweden known as _Svenska Folkdansens Vänner_ for preserving
the Swedish national peasant dances and for encouraging their use in
the higher circles of society in preference to the French dances.
There are several fine museums and picture galleries in Sweden. The
national gallery in Stockholm, which is across the bay from the royal
palace, and the Northern Museum founded in 1872 by Dr. Hazelius. Then
there is the Royal Opera and the National Theater, so that the people
of Stockholm do not want for places of amusement in winter as well as
summer.
The father of athletic sports in Sweden is Lieutenant Colonel Victor
Gustaf Balck, who holds a military position in the garrison at
Stockholm. He introduced lawn tennis, cricket, baseball and football,
and has established numerous athletic clubs in different parts of the
country. Sailing is popular, there being many yacht clubs with good
houses and fleets. And swimming is a part of the national education,
nearly every man, woman, and child in Sweden taking naturally to the
water and being able to swim. Everybody can skate as well as swim. In
the cities rinks can be found with music and many conveniences. In
Stockholm there is a general skating club, with a rink large enough
to accommodate six thousand skaters, and popular fêtes given there
at intervals during the winter are attended by the royal family and
members of the court, and are regarded as important social functions.
All skating is done upon the numerous lakes, and often during the long
nights of the winter hundreds of people, young and old, will gather
at an early hour--it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon--and
spend the entire night skating by moonlight. A big fire is built in
some convenient place for the crowd, and smaller fires by individual
parties, who bring luncheon with them and have a picnic in the snow
in the winter. In various parts of the country, national and
international skating contests are held, and winners in local
tournaments, both for speed and fancy skating, are sent to Stockholm
to contest for the grand prizes against the crack skaters of Norway,
Denmark, Russia, and northern Germany.
But the national winter sport of all Scandinavia is skeeing--skimming
over the snow on snow-shoes. There is no more vigorous or exciting
exercise. In the country districts men and women alike are educated to
the use of snowshoes from childhood. As soon as boys and girls are
old enough to skate, they put on skees of a size appropriate to
their stature, and are quite as agile and daring as their elders. It
requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who
has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them. It
is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood. A skilful
"skeer" can make a mile in two minutes.
Ice yachting and sailing on skates are two of the oldest and most
popular national sports, and are practiced in both Sweden and Norway
by all classes. All the ice yachts and snow-shoes are home-made, and
in the country districts many of the skates.[p]