courses for men and women teachers who wish to prepare themselves as
playground leaders. By the end of 1904, _i.e._, in fifteen years if we
include the Görlitz courses of 1890 and 1891, a total of 175 courses
for men had been held in 54 different places, with 5805 participants,
and 74 for women in 20 places, with 2814 participants. For the entire
period 1890-1911 the totals were 409 courses to 14,269 men, and 206
courses to 6287 women.[110] In general the Görlitz pattern, as already
described, was followed. There were no fees for instruction, and the
persons in charge of the work gave their services in every case. Since
1905 the Prussian school authorities have also offered playground courses
(about 60,000 teachers had been trained in them up to the time when von
Schenckendorff wrote his review), and others have been given at the
various state normal schools of gymnastics. Next in importance to the
demand for competent leaders was that for authoritative descriptions
of the most important games, with the rules which govern them. The
technical committee met this need by issuing and frequently revising a
series of pocket-size booklets, in board covers, which sell for about
five cents each and have become the standard guides on nearly all the
German playgrounds. By 1912 there were twelve of these little volumes,
covering sixteen games. The Central Committee has also published ten
booklets (“Kleine Schriften”) containing information and suggestions on
such subjects as how to set about introducing games into a community, the
management of competitive and other exercises for public exhibitions,
active games for girls, games at the German universities, winter sports,
excursions on foot, _Geländespiele_, games for use in the army, etc.
_Indirect Measures._ For a number of years the Committee worked
energetically to bring about the inauguration of periodical German
_Nationalfeste_, which should serve as an inspiration and pattern
for smaller public exhibitions (_Jugend- und Volksfeste_) all over
the country, and at the same time stimulate national spirit. Growing
opposition on the part of the German _Turnerschaft_, which saw in such
occasions a menace to the success of its own quadrennial _Turnfeste_,
together with other difficulties, finally led to the abandonment of the
plan. The Committee now seeks to work from the bottom up, by encouraging
regular exhibitions with competitive sports in separate localities. The
conviction that national efficiency (_Volkskraft_) and national defense
(_Wehrkraft_) are merely different expressions of the same thing, and
that whatever promotes or disturbs the one affects the other similarly,
has led to careful study of the latter question. A volume of some size
(“Wehrkraft durch Erziehung”), published in 1904, in place of the usual
year-book, sets forth educational measures which foster _Wehrkraft_ by
increasing _Volkskraft_, and a special “Committee of Defense” (Ausschuss
zur Förderung der Wehrkraft durch Erziehung) has met repeatedly to
discuss the subject, with representatives of the Prussian war ministry
and the head of the general staff present on one occasion (March 12,
1911). Games were incorporated in the course of military gymnastics
by imperial order of May, 1910, and the Committee’s special manual
(“Militärisches Spielbuch”) is now in use everywhere.
Looking back over twenty years of effort along these varied lines of
activity, von Schenckendorff is forced to admit that much remains to
be accomplished. In the schools, while play-afternoons with voluntary
attendance have spread widely, the obligatory play-afternoon on a par
with required instruction in gymnastics has been introduced only here
and there. Brunswick, Württemberg, Baden, and Saxony are farthest
advanced in this respect. The continuation schools have taken only the
first step looking toward physical development. At the universities
there is increased interest in gymnastics and athletic sports, but
facilities for their practise are still inadequate. The state has not
met its responsibility in the matter of building gymnasia, fitting up
playgrounds, and providing the means for swimming, rowing, and the like.
Von Schenckendorff, the foremost figure in the German playground
movement, died March 1, 1915, and was succeeded as chairman of the
Central Committee by Dr. F. A. Schmidt of Bonn, the former vice-chairman.
Of the other members of the original board of directors Raydt died
December 6, 1914, Koch April 13, 1911, Eitner September 4, 1905, and
Hermann February 20, 1906. The board in 1915 was constituted as follows:
Chairman, Schmidt; corresponding secretary, Kohlrausch of Hannover (since
Raydt’s death); treasurer, Dominicus of Berlin-Schöneberg (following
Koch); and Hagen of Schmalkalden, Sickinger of Mannheim, and Neuendorff
of Mühlheim-on-the-Ruhr.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] Born in Brunswick, attended for eight years the Gymnasium
Martino-Katharineum, where his father was one of the teachers, studied
classical and German philology at the universities of Göttingen, Berlin,
and Leipzig, 1864-1867, and for the rest of his life taught Greek, Latin,
middle high German, and history at the Gymnasium Martino-Katharineum,
becoming _Oberlehrer_ in 1874 and Professor in 1886. Consult _Jahrbuch
für Volks- und Jugendspiele_ 1912, pp. 238-245; _Monatsschrift für
das Turnwesen_, =1=, 97-104; =30=, 241-245. For Hermann consult
_Monatsschrift für das Turnwesen_, =6=, 321-329; =25=, 130-137; _Körper
und Geist_, =14=, 421-427.
[90] When Thomas Arnold’s fourteen years as head master at Rugby
Public School were ended by his death in June of 1842, cricket was the
recognized summer sport at the English public schools and at Oxford and
Cambridge universities; rowing was firmly established as a fall and
spring exercise at Eton College, and the Oxford-Cambridge boat race was
an annual affair; football was regularly played at Rugby and others of
the public schools; and continuous records of the “big-side runs” of
the Rugby School Hare and Hounds—forerunners of the later track and
field athletics—were already five years old. By the time Thomas Hughes
published his “Tom Brown’s School Days,” fifteen years later (April,
1857), all of the public schools had adopted football as the chief winter
game, and the first steps looking toward organized track and field
athletics as a recognized branch of public school and university sports
had been taken. The annual track meets between Oxford and Cambridge
date from 1864. The first of the annual Cambridge-Oxford contests in
Rugby football was held in 1872, and two years later a similar series
in the Association game began. (“Association football” dates from the
publication of rules by the London Football Association, December 1,
1863. The Rugby Football Union was organized in London, January 26, 1871).
[91] Berlin, R. Gaertner, 1900.
[92] Consult the _Deutsche Turn-Zeitung_, 1876, pp. 305-310 and 313-319;
and _Neue Jahrbücher für die Turnkunst_, 1876, pp. 94-95, 145-150,
163-186, 241-247.
[93] Düsseldorf, L. Voss & Co. Second edition, enlarged, 1882.
[94] Consult _Monatsschrift für das Turnwesen_, 1887, pp. 29 and 30, and
_Neue Jahrbücher für die Turnkunst_, 1887, pp. 14-24.
[95] Hartwich’s addresses were collected and published by M. Eichelsheim,
city _Turnlehrer_ in Düsseldorf, in 1883 under the title “Reden über die
vernachlässigte leibliche Ausbildung unserer Jugend von Emil Hartwich”
(Düsseldorf, L. Schwann). A second edition, enlarged, was published in
1884.
[96] Opened June 21, 1882. See _Neue Jahrbücher für die Turnkunst_, 1882,
pp. 248-249, and _Monatsschrift für das Turnwesen_, 1882, p. 206.
[97] The letter is published in _Neue Jahrbücher für die Turnkunst_,
1888, pp. 242-252.
[98] For reports of the convention consult _Neue Jahrbücher für
die Turnkunst_, 1881, pp. 97-105, 208-212, 273-276; and _Deutsche
Turn-Zeitung_, 1881, pp. 190, 257-260, 281-284, 301-304, 325-330.
[99] Printed in full in _Neue Jahrbücher für die Turnkunst_, 1882, pp.
409-412; _Monatsschrift für das Turnwesen_, 1882, pp. 321-325; Neuendorff
and Schröer, “Verordnungen und amtliche Bekanntmachungen das Turnwesen in
Preussen betreffend” (Berlin, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912), pp. 56-61.
[100] Consult _Jahrbuch für Volks- und Jugendspiele_, 1915, pp. 1-26;
_Körper und Geist_ =16=, 33-41, and =24=, 4-16; and _Monatsschrift für
das Turnwesen_, 1912, pp. 201-208, and 1915, pp. 129-137, 193-200.
[101] Consult Eitner’s own account in _Jahrbuch für Volks- und
Jugendspiele_, 1892, pp. 59-61 and 79-82.
[102] “Die Jugendspiele. Ein Leitfaden bei der Einführung und Übung von
Turn- und Jugendspielen, verfasst von Dr. Eitner, Gymnasialdirektor in
Görlitz.” Kreuznach und Leipzig, R. Voigtländer, 1890.
[103] “Ein gesunder Geist in einem gesunden Kröper. Englische Schulbilder
in deutschem Rahmen nach einer Studienreise aus der Bismarck-Schönhausen
Stiftung geschildert von H. Raydt, Subrektor in Ratzeburg.” Hannover,
Carl Meyer, 1889.
[104] “Die deutschen Städte und das Jugendspiel. Nach den amtlichen
Berichten der Städte bearbeitet von Konrektor H. Raydt in Ratzeburg.”
Hannover-Linden, Karl Manz, 1891.
[105] This summons, and von Schenckendorff’s account of the formation
and plan of organization of the Central Committee, are contained in
the first year-book of the Committee (“Über Jugend- und Volksspiele,”
Hannover-Linden, 1892), pp. 103-111. The minutes of the Berlin meeting
were printed in _Körper und Geist_, =16=, 41-47 (May 21, 1907).
[106] _Jahrbuch für Volks- und Jugendspiele_, 1912, pp. 1-11. Printed
also in _Monatsschrift für das Turnwesen_, 1912, pp. 201-208.
[107] Ten volumes appeared under the latter title, and volume =11=,
beginning April 1, 1902, bears the new name.
[108] _Jahrbuch für Volks- und Jugendspiele._ The first number is that
for 1892. Both organs are published by B. G. Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin.
[109] (2) Munich, July 10-13, 1896; (3) Bonn, July 2 and 3, 1898; (4)
Königsberg, June 25 and 26, 1899; (5) Nuremberg, July 7 and 8, 1901;
(6) Dresden, July 5-7, 1903; (7) Frankfurt, September 15-18, 1905; (8)
Strasburg, July 6 and 7, 1907; (9) Kiel, July 19-21, 1908; (10) Gleiwitz,
July 2-5, 1909; (11) Barmen, July 1-4, 1910; (12) Dresden, July 1 and 2,
1911; (13) Heidelberg, June 28-July 1, 1912; (14) Stettin, June 28-30,
1913; (15) Altona, June 19-22, 1914.
[110] These are the official figures. Dr. F. A. Schmidt, in a review
of “Zwanzig Jahre Spielkurse” on pp. 143-152 of the 1911 _Jahrbuch für
Volks- und Jugendspiele_, gives the totals as 14,301 men and 6233 women.
CHAPTER XV.
PER HENRIK LING, FATHER OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN SWEDEN.
For more than a century gymnastics in Sweden has been undergoing
development along three more or less distinct lines, educational,
military, and medical, _i.e._, as an integral factor in school life,
as an agent in the training of men for the army and navy, and as a
therapeutic measure. The Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics at
Stockholm, where teachers of these various branches receive their
preparation, was opened in 1814, and its originator and first director
(1814-1839) was Per Henrik Ling. He was born November 15, 1776, in
Småland, one of the southern provinces, where his ancestors had lived for
seven generations or more. Up to the time of his grandfather, Mathias
Månsson (1687-1748), they had belonged to the peasant class; but this
man, taking the name Ling, prepared himself for the ministry and married
a clergyman’s daughter. His son, Lars Peter Ling (1723-1780), who
followed the same calling, was settled in the country parish of Ljunga,
in Kronoberg county, and died there when Per Henrik, the youngest of
six children, was only four years of age. A year and a half later the
mother, a great granddaughter of the famous Swedish author Olof Rudbeck
and herself a woman of superior intelligence, married the new pastor, but
died in 1789.[111]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.—Per Henrik Ling (1776-1839).]
These early bereavements, acting on the serious, sensitive, and
affectionate nature of the boy, and in spite of his stepfather’s watchful
care, gave a touch of sadness to the whole period of his childhood, to
which he rarely referred in later years, and then only in the fewest
possible words. The romantic scenery about his home must have heightened
this effect, besides producing others of its own. The church and
parsonage stood near the border of a lake encircled by forests, and all
around stretched desolate heath, a strange jumble of hills and broken
rocks, swamps and reedy lakes, and forests of pine and deciduous trees
with here and there a cleared space in their midst. In 1784 he left these
scenes to attend the _läroverk_ (higher classical school) in Vexiö,
capital of the same district, where the botanist Linnæus had studied
sixty years before. Here he gave evidence of rich mental gifts, a strong
will, and a fondness for independent and original thinking and acting;
but in November of 1792, taking part in certain boyish pranks, he broke
a pane of glass in the rector’s house one Sunday morning, and left the
school rather than accept the harsh terms imposed as the condition of his
reinstatement. In February of the next year, however, upon furnishing
proof of repentance, continued progress in his studies, and good conduct
meanwhile, he received from the rector a certificate admitting to the
university in Lund.[112]
The young Ling was registered as a student in the Småland _nation_ at
Lund—the “nations” are provincial clubs at the Swedish universities, and
each student is expected to enroll himself in one of them, according to
his birthplace—on April 19, 1793, and remained there during the spring
and fall semesters. In September of 1796 he wrote to Lund from Stockholm
requesting a university certificate, and on the 22nd of the following
November applied for a clerkship in one of the city offices at the
capital, where an older brother, Carl, was already installed in a similar
position. Two days later he received the appointment. April 9, 1797, in
a letter to his stepfather, he refers to “these years” in Stockholm,
and tells of private lessons in French and German which he is giving to
bookkeepers outside of office hours. Although he registered with the
Småland nation at Upsala December 21, 1797, and took out his certificate
there on June 5, 1799, he seems never to have attended that university
through an entire semester, and there is no record of the theological
examination which he is reported to have passed on the former date.[113]
It will be seen that not much is definitely known, then, regarding
his life in the years 1794-1799. It was plainly a time of poverty and
struggle, and it is not strange that even the members of his own family
and his nearest friends learned little or nothing of its secrets from
his lips. By the time he left Stockholm for Copenhagen, in the summer
of 1799, he was able to speak French, German, and English,—the first
of the three with especial ease—and this fact alone may explain the
legend of extensive wanderings on the Continent and in England. He
possessed, however, a quick mind and undoubted talent for language, and
was a diligent and enthusiastic student of any subject that aroused his
interest. Moreover, it was not necessary to leave Sweden in order to find
natives of those countries with whom he might converse, and it now seems
probable that he resided at first near Stockholm as private tutor and
later in that city itself as clerk during most or all of the period in
question. Although there is nothing impossible in the frequently repeated
story of travel and military service in foreign parts, but very little
direct evidence has been urged in its support.[114]
In July of 1799 Ling arrived at Copenhagen, and remained in the Danish
capital for more than five years, until September or October of 1804.
According to his own statement he entered the university there March 27,
1801. Although he was voluntarily enrolled on the side of the Danes when
Nelson and his English fleet, by the battle fought in Copenhagen harbor
April 2, 1801, broke up the Northern Alliance, the company to which he
belonged was not brought into action on that occasion. Linguistic studies
continued to engross his mind at first. He worked diligently in the Royal
Library, took every opportunity to extend his knowledge by conversation
with foreigners, and acquired complete mastery of the Danish language,
both written and spoken. Afterwards his attention became transferred from
language to literature. Schelling, the distinguished Jena professor and
the favorite philosopher of the Romantic school of writers in Germany,
was then at the height of his fame. Among his enthusiastic auditors had
been a young Norwegian, Henrik Steffens, who appeared in Copenhagen in
1802, full of the new doctrines, and began to lecture there on philosophy
and on Goethe. Through him Oehlenschläger, soon to be hailed as Denmark’s
foremost poet, caught the spirit of the Romantic movement and began to
breathe new life into the old Norse mythology, rousing in the breasts
of his countrymen a feeling of Scandinavian nationality. These men
introduced Ling to the treasure-house of the Eddas and the Northern
sagas, whose gods and heroes were thenceforth never absent from his
thought. After composing short poems in French, German, and Danish, and
translating into Swedish the “Balders Död” (Balder’s Death) of Johannes
Evald, the chief lyric poet of Denmark, he wrote himself, in Danish,
a three-act comedy, _Den Misundelige_ (The Envious Man), which was
published in Copenhagen in 1804. Here also he conceived the plan of his
later dramatic works, designed to set forth momentous epochs in Swedish
history. “Eylif the Goth,” printed in Stockholm in 1814, was written at
this period, and reveals his desire to revive in the rising generation
the old Norse vigor.
Perhaps it was the opportunity afforded for practice in a foreign
language that first attracted Ling to the fencing school in Copenhagen
conducted by two French _émigrés_, Beuernier and the Chevalier de
Montrichard. For three years he continued to frequent the place, and
made such progress that Montrichard gave him a paper which certified to
his great skill with the foil and his ability to give instruction in the
art. There is a story that Ling had suffered from gout in the arm, as
one result of the privations to which he was constantly subjected, and
finding the case much relieved by his fencing, was thus led to study
the effects of exercise in general. At any rate, he visited the private
gymnasium which Nachtegall had started in Copenhagen in the fall of 1799
(see page 179). GutsMuths’s “Gymnastics for the Young” appeared in 1793
and Hjort’s translation into Danish six years later, and two volumes of
Vieth’s “Encyclopedia of Bodily Exercises” were published at this time;
but how much Ling was indebted to these German sources for inspiration
and suggestion is purely a matter of conjecture.[115]
In the fall of 1804 he returned to Sweden, to act as substitute for the
aged fencing-master at the University of Lund. The latter died shortly
after his arrival, and Ling, who had applied for the position December 8,
was appointed his successor, at a small salary. Writing to a Copenhagen
friend December 28th he says that the fencing-master at a Swedish
university must be able to give instruction in vaulting the horse, and he
wishes therefore to have a good vaulting buck sent him. A riding-school,
also, is about to be opened, and his assistance is wanted there. Though
he has almost entirely lost his skill in that art he is confident that
practice will to some extent restore it. At that time gymnastics proper
was unknown in Sweden, but Ling soon arranged apparatus for general
exercise, and some years later, when a new university building had been
completed, he was allowed to use an older one for this purpose and as
a fencing hall.[116] In 1806 he began to apply himself to the study
of anatomy and physiology. A year later he had worked out a system of
bayonet fencing and was practising it with his pupils. He seems to have
won the respect and esteem of teachers and students alike. The new
exercises became very popular, and it was not long before interest in his
fencing method, a simplification of the French, and in his gymnastics
as well, spread beyond the bounds of Lund. Invitations to introduce the
double art were received from Gothenburg, Malmö, and Christianstad, and
in the first and second of these cities, at least, he gave instruction
repeatedly during the course of the long summer vacations. Thus
Gothenburg papers of July 9 and 10, 1807, announce his presence there
for six weeks to give instruction “in all parts of the art of fencing
and in gymnastics;” another of July 25, 1809, informs the public that
he will remain three months to teach fencing, gymnastics, and swimming;
and again July 5, 1811, he gives notice that until the middle of August
he will receive pupils in sabre and foil fencing and gymnastics. On the
occasion of this last visit arrangements were also made to have him give
instruction in “the art of swimming and other gymnastic exercises” to
certain poor children of the city.
Ling remained eight years in Lund. In 1809 he married Sofia Maria
Rosenqvist, and a daughter, Jetta, was born April 8th of the following
year. “Agne,” a tragedy in five acts, his most successful dramatic work,
was printed there in 1812, and a year after his death was presented on
the stage in Stockholm at the opening of the new theater. The condition
of Sweden just at this time was a desperate one. Gustavus IV had allowed
intense hatred of Napoleon to draw him into the great coalition of 1805
(the third, formed by England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden), and as a
consequence French troops had occupied Swedish Pomerania and in 1807 had
taken Stralsund and Rügen, the last of the Swedish possessions south
of the Baltic. By opening his ports to English vessels the King next
incurred the enmity of Russia, whose troops invaded and conquered the
whole of Finland in 1808, and so deprived the Swedes of territory which
had been theirs for centuries. Gustavus was meanwhile deserted by his
English allies, his armies were driven back from Norway, and the Danes
invaded the southern provinces. In 1809 he was dethroned, and succeeded
by his uncle, Charles XIII. One of Ling’s poems, “Gylfe” (1810, 1812,
1816), deals with this loss of Finland, which the Swedes bitterly
deplored, and shows how intense was his patriotism and his hatred of
Russia. We have here the reason for his desire to see his countrymen
strong in body and soul, and hence prepared to meet the enemy. This was
the inspiring motive of his poems and his gymnastics alike, though in the
latter he saw a means of restoring health, as well as developing the
race and defending the fatherland. One who visited him in Lund in 1812
refers to his enthusiasm and to the system introduced into his methods
of instruction. During these eight years he had been thinking out the
principles upon which his later work was based, seeking first of all to
understand the human body and discover its needs, and then to select and
apply his exercises intelligently, with these needs in view. Nachtegall,
in Copenhagen, had already begun to train teachers of gymnastics for
the army and the schools of Denmark, and now Ling conceived the idea of
opening in Stockholm a central training school from which all Sweden
should be supplied with teachers of the new art.
With this plan in mind he went up to the capital early in 1813, applying
first for the position of fencing-master in the Royal Military Academy at
Karlberg, just outside the city to the northwest, and then, on January
29th, handing in to the recently appointed Committee on Education a
written proposal of the new institution. He refers to what he has already
accomplished in Lund, Malmö, and Gothenburg, explains his purpose in
seeking to make Stockholm a center of influence for the physical training
of the young, and asks government approval and support for the project.
To the secretary of the Committee, Jakob Adlerbeth, he brought a letter
of introduction (dated January 15, 1813) from Esaias Tegnér, at that
time a teacher in the University at Lund, who had roused the Swedes in
1808 by his “War Song for the Militia of Scania,” three years later won
for himself national fame and the great prize of the Swedish Academy by
his patriotic poem “Svea,” and was soon to receive worldwide recognition
as the author of “Frithiofs Saga” (1825). Ling was already favorably
known for his own literary labors, and appears to have been fortunate in
his Stockholm quest from the start. He was given the Karlberg position,
at a salary of 250 rix-dollars and lodging; the Committee received his
proposal February 1st, and the same day reported the matter to the King
with its strong recommendation; and a royal letter of May 5th formally
approved the plan. Ling was to receive a salary of 500 rix-dollars as
director of the school, an annual allowance of 100 more to cover the rent
of a room for his exercises, and a single grant of 400 rix-dollars for
the purchase of equipment. The salary was doubled in 1830, and before
his death was raised again to 2000 rix-dollars. The school was opened
in 1814, and at the Committee’s suggestion the King gave it some time
later the name it still bears—The Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics
(_Kongl. Gymnastiska Central-Institutet_).[117]
In the northern suburb Norrmalm, at what is now the corner of Hamn-Gatan
and Beridarebans-Gatan and on the site ever since occupied, Ling equipped
the necessary rooms—a gymnasium, a fencing hall, and others—in some old
buildings which had once belonged to a cannon-foundry. Soon considerable
improvements were possible, for in a letter dated December 13, 1815, the
King informed the Committee that a further grant of 9800 rix-dollars had
been made, in order to provide for the better housing of the Institute
and its director. The next fall means were furnished for an assistant,
and others were added from time to time until in 1830 the personnel
included, besides the director, a head teacher and two ordinary teachers.
Lars Gabriel Branting, who had already been his assistant for a year
at Karlberg, became second teacher at the Institute in 1818, and head
teacher in 1830; Carl August Georgii was made extra teacher in 1829 and
regular teacher six years later; and Gustav Nyblæus joined the staff as
assistant teacher in 1838.
Ling believed that gymnastics had a rightful place in education,
medicine, and national defence, and almost from the start instruction
was accordingly given in the three corresponding branches, educational,
medical, and military gymnastics. He continued to teach fencing to the
cadets at Karlberg until 1825, and on the 4th of December, 1821, was also
appointed instructor in gymnastics and fencing at the Artillery School
in Marieberg, about equally distant to the southwest, in the latter
capacity receiving a salary of 300 rix-dollars. In 1810 the Swedish
Diet had elected Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s marshals, to succeed the
childless King Charles XIII. He assumed the title Crown Prince at once,
and from 1818 to 1844 reigned as Charles XIV. Quick to see the importance
of Ling’s work for the army, he had officers detailed to complete the
course at the Institute and afterwards employed to teach gymnastics and
bayonet fencing to the rank and file. Soldiers from cavalry and artillery
regiments in the city were also sent to the school to receive practical
instruction in the same arts, and Branting and Ling were allowed to
introduce them among the troops assembled in the various training camps.
The later order giving these exercises a place in all Swedish regiments
did not meet with a cordial reception at the start; but afterwards, when
it was learned that French and Prussian soldiers were being drilled
in bayonet fencing, investigation and comparison led to the choice
of Ling’s method in preference to either of the others, and thus won
for it a somewhat tardy recognition. In 1836 he published a manual of
gymnastics (_Reglemente för Gymnastik_) and another of bayonet fencing
(_Reglemente för Bajonettfäktning_) for use in the army, and in 1838 a
small handbook covering both subjects (_Soldat-Undervisning i Gymnastik
och Bajonettfäktning_). In view of the general absence of well-equipped
gymnasia and teachers thoroughly trained in the system he found it
necessary to limit the exercises to simple forms, and to such as require
little or no apparatus.
Medical gymnastics he had begun to develop after the first year in
Stockholm. The new ideas not unnaturally aroused much bitter opposition
on the part of conservative physicians, but he went his way nevertheless,
and was content to let the future determine the value of his method of
treatment. His school gymnastics comprised only a few strong movements,
in which the pupil himself and his fellows constituted the most important
apparatus. Swedish educational gymnastics in its present form is a
comparatively recent growth, and its introduction in the elementary
schools of the state and in schools for girls was not brought about until
long after Ling’s death. The first law requiring physical training in the
secondary schools for boys was published in 1820.
In spite of his regular duties as director and teacher, Ling’s literary
activity was unceasing. For some years he belonged to the Gothic
Society, organized by Tegnér in 1811, and the moral support of its
distinguished members was of no slight assistance in the long struggle
to win recognition for his work at the Institute and to see it firmly
established in spite of small beginnings and scant resources. In 1816
he delivered public lectures on the Northern Myths. Three years later
appeared his “Symbolism of the Eddas, for the Unlearned,” a prose work;
and his “Asarne” (the Aesir, or Northern gods), including the entire
mythology and ancient legendary history of the Scandinavian race, first
published in 1816, was reissued in revised and more complete form in
1833, winning for him the great prize of the Swedish Academy. This august
body of eighteen scholars, created by Gustavus III in 1786 after the
pattern of the French Academy, paid him the further tribute of election
to a seat in its midst, and he was accordingly made a member by the King
in 1835. He was also given the title Professor, and decorated with the
Order of the North Star. A long series of dramatic and other poetical
works was added to those already mentioned, so that his collected
writings[118] fill three large volumes, of whose more than 2500 pages
only about 350 have to do with gymnastics.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.—Ling’s grave at Annelund, near Stockholm.]
Ling’s first wife died in 1817, and he had previously lost two sons,
leaving him only the daughter Jetta. About two years later he married
Charlotta Catharina Nettelbladt (1798-1889). Of their seven children
only five survived him, and three of these became teachers of
gymnastics—Hjalmar (1820-1886) and Hildur (1825-1884) at the Institute,
and Wendla (1834-1911) both there and at two normal schools for women.
After some years of impaired health, his own death occurred in 1839, on
the 3d of May. He was buried at Annelund, a few miles north of the city,
where he owned some property, and the grave, on a high bank overlooking
Brunnsviken, a bay of Lake Mälaren, is now marked by a memorial stone
erected by friends in 1848. Branting and Georgii were the men he
considered best fitted to carry on his work. The task of arranging his
literary remains he laid upon the latter of the two in company with
Dr. P. J. Liedbeck (1802-1876), who had been one of his pupils and
afterwards taught anatomy at the Institute and had married his daughter
Jetta in 1833. The year after his death they accordingly published,
in the incomplete and often fragmentary form in which he had left it,
his “General Principles of Gymnastics,”[119] a treatise begun as far
back as 1831. After an opening section devoted to the laws of the human
organism, the book takes up, in order, the principles of educational,
military, medical, and aesthetic gymnastics, and closes with a few pages
of miscellaneous suggestions and comment. It is a small volume of less
than 250 pages, and like the rest of Ling’s writings possesses little
of present interest to any but the student of history. As one of his
successors at the Institute has said, his greatest service to gymnastics
was the attempt to give it a scientific basis, and it must therefore
change and develop with every advance in the sciences upon which it rests.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
All the earlier sketches of Ling’s life must now be viewed in the
light of recent critical studies by Carl August Westerblad, of Upsala,
and particularly his “Pehr Henrik Ling: en lefnadsteckning och några
synpunkter” (Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1904). His later
discussion of “The Ling Gymnastics in the Days of Its Founder” (1913)
has just been mentioned in a footnote. To other articles referred to in
footnotes should be added one by Jetta Ling Liedbeck in _Tidskrift i
Gymnastik_ =3=, 870-891 (1893), originally published in _Aftonbladet_
(Stockholm) in 1852.
Massmann’s translation of Ling’s writings, and Rothstein’s version of the
Ling gymnastics, were spoken of on p. 123.
FOOTNOTES:
[111] E. Wrangel in _Lunds Universitets Årsskrift_, =9= (1913), Nr. 6;
and Richard J. Cyriax in _Svenska Gymnastiken i In- och Utlandet_, =9=,
92-94 (1913).
[112] Westerblad 1904, p. 6.
[113] Ibid., p. 7.
[114] The story appears, along with other statements unsupported or
flatly contradicted by later investigations, in Atterbom’s address before
the Swedish Academy May 29, 1840 (Proceedings =20=, 82-202), von Beskow’s
memoir of 1859 (pp. vi and vii), and Georgii’s “Biographical Sketch” of
1854 (p. 2). On the contrary see Törngren in _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_,
=4=, 415 (1896), Westerblad 1904 pp. 7-12, and Norlander in _Lunds
Universitets Årsskrift_, =9= (1913).
[115] The chief authority for this Copenhagen period is E. C. Werlauff’s
“Bidrag til P. H. Lings Biographie,” in _Frey: Tidskrift för Vetenskap
och Kunst_ (Upsala), 1848, pp. 92-105. Werlauff (1781-1871), later well
known as historian and teacher in the University, was employed in the
Royal Library at the time of Ling’s sojourn in Denmark and became his
close friend. See also Westerblad 1904, pp. 13-21.
[116] See Carl Norlander, “Per Henrik Lings första Gymnastik- och Fäktsal
med dithörande redskap” (Lund, Ph. Lindstedts Univ. Bokhandel, 1908).
[117] Kungl. Gymnastiska Centralinstitutets Historia 1813-1913. Med
Anledning av Institutets Hundraårsdag utgiven af dess Lärarekollegium.
Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1913.
[118] Samlade Arbeten af P. H. Ling. Utgifne under ledning af Bernhard
von Beskow. Stockholm, Adolf Bonnier, 1859-1866. Pp. 433-786 of vol. =3=
were also published separately, under the title “P. H. Lings Gymnastiska
Skrifter. Aftryck ur Lings Samlade Arbeten” (Stockholm, Adolf Bonnier,
1866).
[119] Gymnastikens allmänna Grunder af Ling, dels af Författaren,
dels enligt dess yttersta vilja, efter dess död, redigerade och på
trycket utgifna. Upsala, Leffler & Sebell, 1840. On Ling’s writings
see Kåre Teilnann, “Lings Gymnastik og dens udvikling,” in _Gymnastisk
Selskabs Aarsskrift_ 1912 (Copenhagen, H. Hagerup, 1913), pp. 65-134;
C. A. Westerblad, “Den Lingska Gymnastiken i dess upphofsmans dagar”
(Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1913); and also Dr. E. M. Hartwell
in the _American Physical Education Review_ =1= (1896), 1-13 (Reprinted
in Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for the year
1898-99, =1=, pp. 539-546).
CHAPTER XVI.
LING’S SUCCESSORS AT THE CENTRAL INSTITUTE IN STOCKHOLM.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.—Lars Gabriel Branting (1799-1881).]
Immediately after Ling’s death, and in accordance with his wishes,
_Branting_ was appointed Director in his stead, and retained the position
for twenty-three years (1839-1862). Born July 16, 1799, he had grown
up a weak and sickly boy, and in the very first year of the Institute
had been sent to Ling for treatment by means of medical gymnastics.
Improvement was rapid, and the master was so impressed with the evident
talent of his young patient that he offered to train him as a teacher
of the art. Thenceforth the relation between the two resembled that
of father and son. For several years Branting was a student at the
Karolinska Mediko-Kirurgiska Institut (the largest medical college in
Sweden) and attended clinics in the Serafimer-Lazarett (hospital),
receiving instruction in chemistry under Berzelius, and showing such a
fondness for anatomy and physiology that A. A. Retzius bore witness to
his skill in the former subject. He learned to speak German, French,
and English fluently, and travelled repeatedly in Germany and Austria.
For more than twenty years he had been a member of the teaching staff
at the Institute, under Ling, assisting the latter with his fencing at
Karlberg and Marieberg, successfully introducing gymnastics among the
girls at the large Hillska School, just outside the city, where he became
teacher of gymnastics and music in 1831, and applying himself with marked
enthusiasm to medical gymnastics. Ling gave him the first place among
all his pupils, and turned over to him gradually a large share of the
responsibility for both theoretical and practical instruction.
As director, Branting devoted himself chiefly to the development of
medical gymnastics in accordance with the theories of his predecessor,
and brought that branch to a high degree of perfection. He insisted that
the beneficial effects are due not alone to changes produced in the
muscular system, but mainly to the influence exerted upon the nerves
and bloodvessels—a novel view at that time. He also elaborated a rich
store of gymnastic material, and worked out a terminology which with
a few changes is still generally employed in Sweden. It was at this
period, too, that the work of the Institute began to awaken interest
in other countries. As we have seen (pp. 122 and 123), two Prussian
army officers, Lieutenants Rothstein and Techow, were sent to Stockholm
to take the regular course of instruction in 1845-1846, and Rothstein
afterwards wrote extensively on the Ling gymnastics and in 1851 became
the first director of the Berlin “Central-Institute,” founded on the
pattern of the Swedish school but without its department of medical
gymnastics. Many other foreigners came for visits of varying duration,
and physicians, especially, were attracted by the new system, among them
Drs. Eulenburg and Neumann of Prussia, Melichor of Vienna, and Mathias
Roth of London. Branting was made a knight of the orders of the North
Star and the Red Eagle (Prussian) in 1847 and of St. Olaf and Dannebrog
(Danish) in 1855, and in 1873 Commander of the Order of Vasa. After
retiring from the position of Director in 1862 he was still actively
engaged in the practice of his profession until his death, March 27,
1881.[120] During his term of office the staff of instruction was
enlarged, provision having been made for one additional teacher in 1841,
and for two more, a man and a woman, in 1848. Some of these teachers
deserve particular mention. _Carl August Georgii_ (1808-1881), trained at
the Karlberg Military Academy and made lieutenant in the army in 1836,
had entered upon his service at the Institute ten years before Ling’s
death, was chosen by the latter to edit and publish, with Dr. Liedbeck,
his “General Principles of Gymnastics,” and in 1859 married the oldest
daughter of Liedbeck and Jetta Ling. He became head teacher in 1839,
giving instruction in anatomy and in the three branches of practical
gymnastics. In 1846 he went to Paris to introduce the Swedish system,
and the next year published in French a treatise on the Ling method
of kinesitherapy and physical education. Two years later, in 1849, he
withdrew from his Stockholm position and removed to London, where for
twenty-eight years he presided over a private institution, giving lessons
in fencing and conducting school gymnastics in addition to his medical
work. His published writings in England include “Kinesipathy” (1850), a
biographical sketch of Ling (1854), a lecture on “Rational Gymnastics”
(1873), and “Kinetic Jottings” (1881). The last four years of his life
were spent in Stockholm.[121] The first woman to be regularly appointed
as teacher at the Institute was _Gustafra Lindskog_ (1790-1851), in 1848,
and at her death she was succeeded by Ling’s daughter Hildur (1825-1884).
Besides assisting in medical gymnastics they both devoted a portion of
their time to the physical training of school girls. Two other teachers,
Hjalmar Ling and T. J. Hartelius, who began their activity during this
period, will be referred to again at some length farther on.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.—Gustaf Nyblæus (1816-1902).]
Branting’s successor was Col. _Gustav Nyblæus_ (1816-1902), who filled
the position of director for twenty-five years, from 1862 until 1887. He
was trained as an officer in the army, and had been added to the staff
of instruction at the Institute during the last year of Ling’s life.
The school, which had hitherto been under the control of the Stockholm
educational authorities, was now given its own board of directors,
appointed by the King; the length of the course was increased from
one year to two years of six months each (October 1 to April 1), and a
regular course for women was opened; and the royal statutes of January 8,
1864, reorganized it into three sections, the pedagogical or educational,
the military, and the medical, each with a head teacher and a second
teacher. Provision was also made for extra teachers, both men and women,
and a sum of over 167,000 rix-dollars was granted in 1863 for remodelling
and adding to the buildings. Nyblæus himself became the head teacher
in the section of military gymnastics, and the corresponding positions
in the other sections were given to Ling’s son Hjalmar, in school
gymnastics, and to Hartelius in medical gymnastics. Nyblæus visited at
various times other European countries to study the systems of physical
training employed in their schools[122] and armies, and published several
manuals of fencing for use at the Institute and in the Swedish army, and
others of gymnastics and military exercises to meet the needs of teachers
in elementary schools.[123]
_Truls Johan Hartelius_ (1818-1896) had taken the course at the Institute
in the year 1851-1852, and began to give instruction there immediately
after his graduation. He afterwards completed a course in medicine,
became a regularly qualified physician, and held the position of head
teacher in medical gymnastics from 1864 until 1887. Finding no text-books
suitable for his classes, he prepared small manuals of anatomy,
physiology and histology, and hygiene, and wrote a larger work on medical
gymnastics which was translated into German, French, and English. When
the corps of teachers decided to start a semi-annual periodical devoted
to gymnastics in all its phases and therefore began the publication
of the _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_[124] in 1874, Hartelius undertook the
editorship, and for fifteen years served in this capacity, contributing
many articles on his own and related subjects and important biographical
sketches of fellow workers along similar lines.[125]
To _Hjalmar Fredrik Ling_ (1820-1886) Swedish educational gymnastics is
largely indebted for its present form, and the school gymnasium for the
nature and arrangement of the equipment now in common use. He also made
it possible to introduce physical training generally in the elementary
schools and in schools for girls. The only surviving son of Per Henrik
Ling, he was born in Stockholm, April 14, 1820, received an education
equivalent to that given in the Swedish secondary schools, completed
the course at the Institute (1842), and was installed as teacher there
in 1843, devoting himself to educational and medical gymnastics under
Branting’s direction, and studying anatomy with Dr. Liedbeck. In 1854
at Georgii’s suggestion he went to Paris to spend the better part of
a year in study there, paying particular attention to anatomy, both
human and comparative, but attending also Claude Bernard’s lectures on
experimental physiology and the clinics at the Hôtel Dieu, and meanwhile
acquiring a thorough knowledge of the French language and literature.
During this same period he also paid two long visits to Berlin, to
assist in introducing the Swedish method of medical gymnastics at the
institutions of Drs. Eulenburg and Neumann, and took advantage of the
opportunity to familiarize himself with the German language. From Paris
he returned to Stockholm, became head teacher under Branting in 1858, and
upon the reorganization of the course in 1864 was placed at the head of
the section of school gymnastics. This position he continued to fill for
eighteen years, until his retirement on a pension in September of 1882.
For some years he was also in charge of the physical training in one of
the city’s higher schools for boys (the Nya Elementarskola).
[Illustration: FIG. 36.—Hjalmar Fredrik Ling (1820-1886).]
Following closely the ideas of his father, and with the sole thought of
completing the latter’s work, he devised new forms of apparatus adapted
to the needs of the school and so arranged them that large numbers could
exercise at the same time, in this way greatly increasing the number
of useful exercises and bringing them all within the reach of every
pupil. Then collecting a mass of gymnastic material he selected the most
suitable exercises and arranged them in groups according to the effects
produced upon the individual, providing further an orderly progression
in each group, and combining these into a complete lesson-scheme—the
original “day’s order.” It was now possible to assign to different ages
and degrees of ability, and to the two sexes, the appropriate material
from the graded series of exercises, so that the benefits of gymnastics
could be extended to girls and younger boys.
Hjalmar Ling published two pamphlets[126] intended primarily as guides
for his students at the Central Institute, and in 1866 a work on
kinesiology (_Rörelselära_) or the science of bodily movements. He also
assisted Hartelius with the _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ and for ten years
(1874-1883) was one of its associate editors and a frequent contributor.
Although not a clear writer, he was a deep thinker and an industrious
compiler, familiar with the whole range of gymnastic literature,—German,
French, and English—as a glance at the pamphlets just mentioned will
show. He left behind a carefully arranged collection of nearly two
thousand pen-drawings of positions and movements used in gymnastics, made
by himself. These are preserved in the library of the school, and about
a quarter of the entire number appear in a book[127] since published
with the help of a gift from Mrs. Mary Hemenway, the founder of the
Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. The younger Ling died March 9, 1886,
and was buried near his father at Annelund.[128] He sought first of all
to analyze the conditions of school life and the needs of the growing
child, and then to devise forms of exercise, to select, invent, and
arrange apparatus, and to elaborate a lesson plan which should meet these
conditions and needs efficiently and with the greatest economy of time
and effort. Opinions may differ as to the merits of particular details
in the system he helped to perfect, but his method of approach to the
problem deserves ungrudging commendation.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.—Lars Mauritz Törngren (1839-1912).]
The head teachership in school gymnastics left vacant in 1882 was filled
by the promotion of Captain _Lars Mauritz Törngren_ (1839-1912), at that
time second teacher in the same section and an officer in the navy; and
he was further advanced to the position of director upon the retirement
of Nyblæus in 1887. A third year (medical gymnastics only) was now added
to the course, the school year was lengthened, and other minor changes
were made. In 1894 a grant of 80,000 kronor made possible improved
facilities for instruction and practice. Among Professor Törngren’s
earlier writings had been a book on school games (_Fria Lekar_,
Stockholm, 1879; 2d ed., 1880), the fruit of a visit to England in 1877,
and an official manual of gymnastics for the Swedish navy (1878; 2d ed.,
1879). _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ for 1890 (=3=: 145-195) contains further
observations on physical education in English public schools, based on a
second visit in 1889. In the spring of 1893 he came to the United States,
and was present at the department Congress of Physical Education and the
eighth annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
of Physical Education held in Chicago in July of that year. He was on
the editorial staff of the _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ from its beginning in
1874, assuming more direct responsibility after Hartelius withdrew in
1888, and revised and reissued the pamphlets (_Tabeller_ and _Tillägg_)
prepared by Hjalmar Ling. His last and most important book was a manual
of gymnastics[129] for use in institutions which train teachers for the
elementary schools. Major _Carl Silow_ (1846-), second teacher in the
section of school gymnastics 1883-1906, was very active and successful
in the work of his department and made further improvements in the
construction and arrangement of apparatus. The official handbook of
gymnastics for the Swedish army and navy published in 1902[130] is
largely his work. For careful arrangement of material, detailed treatment
of the different exercises, and clearness and beauty of the illustrations
it is probably the most satisfactory manual of gymnastics yet issued
anywhere.
Törngren was succeeded as director by Col. _Viktor Gustav Balck_ (1844-)
in 1907, and two years later retired from his position as head teacher
in the section of school gymnastics. Balck, who in turn gave place to
Major _Nils Fredrik Sellén_ in 1909, had been head teacher of military
gymnastics since 1887, following Nyblæus. He has been an ardent advocate
of outdoor and other sports for young and old, organizing societies
for their promotion, editing a series of a dozen volumes devoted to
the various forms,[131] and founding in 1881 the _Tidning för Idrott_
(Sporting Times). He has also done much to promote the formation and
spread of popular gymnastic societies, and to make Swedish gymnastics
known in other countries. With this object in view he accompanied squads
of fellow countrymen to _Turnfeste_ at Brussels in 1877 and 1880, and
in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Exhibitions were also given in London,
Copenhagen, and Berlin, in connection with these trips. Together with
Major Silow and other teachers he was a member of the committee which
prepared the new handbook of gymnastics for the Swedish army and navy.
THE CENTRAL INSTITUTE IN 1900
The influence of the system of school gymnastics perfected by Hjalmar
Ling and his associates and successors in the Central Institute at
Stockholm began to be felt abroad, in Europe and America, in the years
just preceding and following the appointment of Törngren as director.
For this reason, as well as its age and intrinsic merits, a description
of the institution as it was in the fall of 1900, based on first-hand
studies[132] deserves a place here.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.—The Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics.]
Leaving behind him the cluster of rocky islands which once held all
there was of Stockholm, and passing north on the mainland through one
of the linden-bordered promenades of the “King’s Garden,” the visitor
soon reaches Hamn-Gatan, its farther limit. If he turn to the left
along this busy thoroughfare his eye will be caught by a steep hill
just ahead, and at its summit a slight bend of the street to the right
reveals on the south side a low and very plain two-story building
constructed, like most of its neighbors, of large bricks coated with
plaster over the entire free surface, and painted a weather-worn buff.
From the crest of this hill the ground is seen to fall away rapidly on
the other side, so that the building gains an additional story at its
corner on Beridarebans-Gatan. The north front stretches for about two
hundred feet along Hamn-Gatan. Beridarebans-Gatan crosses this street
obliquely, the two forming an acute angle in which the property of the
Institute lies. This explains its unsymmetrical arrangement; for half
way down the Beridarebans-Gatan side, which measures about 240 feet, a
building forty feet wide has been carried in at right angles to that
street. Near the center of the Hamn-Gatan front is a large archway,
and over this in raised gilt letters are the words “_Kongl. Gymnastika
Central-Institutet_.” It leads into a triangular paved court (A)
surrounded by plain structures of plastered brick, and a second archway,
bisecting the opposite side of this court, communicates with a gravelled
yard (B) at the rear. The director and some of the other teachers make
their homes in the three-story sections C and D, which also contain
servants’ quarters and on the ground floor a few dressing-rooms. The
lower story of E is devoted to medical gymnastics for free patients,
and overhead are the library (remarkably rich in the older literature
of physical training) and a reading room, two lecture rooms, and others
for student use and for the storage of anatomical collections and the
like. A hallway starting from the east angle of the court opens into
the men’s dressing room (F), with shower baths adjoining. G and H, two
stories in height, contain on the ground floor large halls equipped for
school gymnastics and fencing, and above these two other halls intended
for patients who pay for treatment by medical gymnastics, and employed
also for school gymnastics and as classrooms. There is a small one-story
building (I) for practical exercises in anatomy, and opposite this in the
yard is a low shed (J) about 80 by 30 feet, with corrugated iron roof and
smooth concrete floor, supplied with a variety of gymnastic apparatus.
It is open except on the street side. In the narrow rooms marked KK the
schoolboys who receive their physical training at the Institute store
their slippers and hang up coats and caps.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.—The Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics.
(Diagram showing arrangement of rooms).]
The general control is vested in a Board appointed by the King and
composed of a president and three other members, of whom one must
belong to the army or navy, one must be a teacher (_skolman_), and
one a physician. The corps of instruction includes a head teacher and
a second teacher in each of the three departments, the hygienic or
educational, the military, and the medical; two women teachers, one of
them in hygienic and the other in medical gymnastics; and extra teachers,
both men and women, as these are required—a total of fifteen persons
in 1900-1901. The royal statutes provide that all who give instruction
at the school must be graduates from its courses. From among the head
teachers the King selects one to act as director of the Institute, in
immediate charge of the buildings and their contents and of the work that
goes on in the halls and classrooms. This appointment is for five years,
and is renewable.
The school year, divided into a fall and a spring semester, begins on the
15th of September and closes on the 25th of May, with an intermission of
two weeks at Christmas time. For male pupils three courses are offered.
The “Instructor’s Course,” extending through a single school year, gives
the one who completes it the right to teach gymnastics in the elementary
schools (_folkskolor_) or in one of the lower (five-year) secondary
schools (_lägre allmänna läroverk_). In the “Gymnastic Teacher’s Course”
a second year is added, and the graduate is eligible to a position as
teacher of gymnastics in any public educational institution, civil or
military, in the country. The course in medical gymnastics, leading to
the title “Gymnastic Director,” requires still another year of study
and practice, although for students of medicine the prescribed work may
be shortened. No person, unless he is himself a physician, is allowed
to give treatment by means of medical gymnastics in Sweden except in
cases where a duly authorized physician has prescribed it in writing.
Young women can complete both the gymnastic teacher’s course and that
in medical gymnastics in two years, on account of the smaller range of
practical exercises to be covered.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.—Students (men) at the Stockholm Central Institute
in 1900-1901.]
The men in attendance are for the most part young army and navy officers
who have received orders to take the course. The balance consists of
non-commissioned officers in the army and of young men in civil life. All
must have passed such an examination as would entitle them to admission
into one of the national universities; they must also possess a sound
constitution and some aptitude for gymnastic exercises, and for all
but physicians the age limit is thirty years. Young women must present
certificates which would allow them to enter the national Higher Normal
School for Women. There are no charges for tuition in any of the courses,
and foreigners are admitted to them within certain limits. The total
number of men present at any one time is commonly about sixty, and the
women, formerly not half so numerous, are now rapidly approaching the
same figure. During the autumn of 1900 there were in the student body
two men from Greece and one each from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and the
United States, while Russia, Holland, and England were represented among
the women.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.—Class of Women Students at the Stockholm Central
Institute.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.—Class of Schoolboys at the Stockholm Central
Institute.]
Work begins on Monday morning and continues through Saturday afternoon,
as in other Swedish schools, for Sunday is the only holiday. The
theoretical courses come at nine and at one o’clock, and the practical
courses at seven, eleven, and two. At ten o’clock three hundred boys
from the New Elementary School (it is a higher school, in spite of the
name) visit the Institute to receive their gymnastic lesson in three
of the large halls, affording material for practice in teaching, and
further opportunity is given at three, when two hundred more arrive
from the Jakobs Secondary School. The hours from eight to nine and
twelve to one are free, and there are no exercises after four o’clock.
The theoretical courses of the first-year men include: (1) Lectures and
recitations on the anatomy of the bones, ligaments, and muscles (three
times a week through the year); (2) the physiology of the circulation and
of the organs of nutrition, including respiration (twice a week during
the second semester); (3) the theory of school gymnastics, covering the
discussion of the various positions and movements, the commands employed
and the common faults observed, the arrangement of exercises in a lesson,
and progression in each lesson and from day to day (twice a week through
the year); (4) military gymnastics (twice a week during the first
semester), and (5) the theory of fencing (twice a week through the year).
There is one hour of practical instruction each day in school gymnastics,
another in fencing with foils, and a third in fencing with saber and
bayonet, together with daily practice in teaching under the supervision
of the director and members of his staff. The five hundred boys who come
to the Institute meet in the various halls according to school grade, and
the hundred or so in each room are subdivided into a half-dozen squads,
which exercise separately under the direction of first-year students
during part of the lesson and are watched and corrected by them when the
whole roomful is receiving commands from a single leader.
The theoretical courses of the second year include (1) the study of
anatomy three hours a week in the lecture room, and in addition two
exercises a week in the dissecting room during a large part of the year;
(2) two lectures a week on the physiology of the blood, the circulation,
respiration, digestion, and excretion; (3) lectures on kinesiology or
the theory of bodily movements (twice a week); (4) the theory of school
gymnastics (twice a week); and (5) instruction and practice in the
forms of treatment employed in medical gymnastics, followed by special
study of the class of cases likely to be met with in the schools. The
practical work, besides that just mentioned, again covers the branches
of school gymnastics, fencing with foils, fencing with saber and
bayonet, and actual teaching, the students in the two years meeting in
each case at the same hour and in the same rooms. In the hour devoted
to school or hygienic gymnastics, however, the division of the class
into two sections for exercises in hanging and climbing and in jumping
and vaulting allows some difference to be made in the work of the two
years; and in the fencing, where the men are grouped in squads, the work
of each corresponds with the stage of progress reached by its members,
and the second-year students also meet twice a week by themselves, in
the presence of their instructors, for practise in free fencing. Each
man is now required to take his turn at directing one of the classes of
a hundred or more schoolboys for a week at a time, making out his own
“day’s order” for the opening exercises, in which the entire class work
as a unit, then supervising the exercises of the different squads, and
handling the whole number again during the marching and running. One
of the instructors at the Institute is always present, but the student
assumes all the responsibility of leadership for the time being. The
second-year man is also called upon to give individual instruction in
foil fencing twice a week to men of the lower class, as assistant to
the regular instructor, and a somewhat similar plan is followed in the
courses in saber and bayonet fencing. Though swimming is not included
in the curriculum, no one can receive a certificate as graduate from
the “Gymnastic Teacher’s Course” without furnishing evidence that he
possesses a satisfactory degree of skill in that art.
Third-year pupils attend lectures six times a week in anatomy, the
physiology of the muscles and the nervous system, and pathology, are
further instructed in the theory and practice of medical gymnastics, and
assist in giving treatment to patients who visit the Institute. Women in
both courses receive separate instruction throughout, for there is no
such thing as coeducation at the school. Their theoretical work includes
anatomy, physiology, the theory of bodily movements and of pedagogical
gymnastics, medical gymnastics, and pathology; and there is practise in
pedagogical and medical gymnastics, and opportunity to teach gymnastics
daily, under supervision, at one or the other of two private schools.
PROPOSED REORGANIZATION OF THE CENTRAL INSTITUTE (1912).
On April 8, 1910, the King of Sweden appointed a special committee to
consider plans for the reorganization of the Royal Central Institute
of Gymnastics, and the provision of a new site and buildings. Their
report,[133] dated March 7, 1912, recommends numerous radical and
far-reaching changes in the venerable institution, and would substitute
civilian for military teachers of gymnastics in the great majority of
Swedish secondary schools. As was to be expected, it has called out much
discussion on either side. Whatever the outcome may be, the document
remains a memorable study of every public aspect of physical education,
and the committee has rendered a service of the very highest value, not
only to the Swedes, but to all who are confronted by the problem of
training teachers for the physical education of the people.[134]
FOOTNOTES:
[120] _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ =1=, 931-941 (1881).
[121] _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_, =1=, 989-999 (1881).
[122] See page 117 for his visit to Adolf Spiess at the Darmstadt
_Turnanstalt_.
[123] _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_, =5=, 680-687 (1904).
[124] Tidskrift i Gymnastik. Utgiven af Svenska
Gymnastikläraresällskapet. Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner. Two numbers
a year through 1904, and four numbers a year since 1905. Organ of the
Swedish Association of Teachers of Gymnastics.
[125] _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_, =4=, 449-455 (1896).
[126] Tabeller för Gymnastiska Central-Institutets Lärokurs (och för
“friskrotar” af vuxne). The first (1866), second (——), third (1869), and
fourth (1876) editions are by Hjalmar Ling. A fifth (1888) and sixth
(1897) were edited by L. M. Törngren.
Tillägg vid användningen af de Tabeller hvilka varit begagnade för
Gymnastiska Centralinstitutets pedagogiska lärokurs. The first (1869),
second (1871), and third (1880) editions are by Hjalmar Ling. The fourth
(1894) was edited by L. M. Törngren.
[127] En Samling Gymnastiska Ställningar och Rörelseformer, utgifven
af Kungl. Gymnastiska Centralinstitutet i Stockholm. Stockholm, P. A.
Norstedt & Söner, 1893. An English edition bears the title-page: “A
Collection of Gymnastic Positions. Issued by the Royal Gymnastic Central
Institute, Stockholm. Stockholm: Royal Print, P. A. Norstedt & Sons,
1893.”
[128] _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_, =3=, 365-367; =6=, 891-903, 950-952.
_Gymnastik Selskabs Aarsskrift_ (Copenhagen) 1912, pp. 93-134.
[129] Lärobok i Gymnastik för Folksskollärare- och
Folksskollärarinneseminarier. Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1905.
A German translation (“Lehrbuch der schwedischen Gymnastik”) by G. A.
Schairer was published in 1908 (Esslingen a. N., Wilh. Langguth).
[130] Handbok i Gymnastik för Arméen och Flottan, utgifven på nådigste
befallning. Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1902. Two volumes.
[131] Illustreradt Bibliotek för Idrott. Stockholm, C. E. Fritze.
[132] During three months, from September 17 to December 15, 1900, the
writer was a student at the Central Institute, in almost daily attendance
at some of its classes and a frequent visitor at others. A more detailed
description was published in the _American Physical Education Review_
(=5=, 301-311) for December, 1900.
[133] Underdånigt Utlåtande och Förslag angående Omorganisation af
Gymnastiska Centralinstitutet äfvensom rörande anskaffande af nya lokaler
för detsamma. Stockholm, Ivar Hæggström, 1912.
[134] A brief summary of the report is contained in the _American
Physical Education Review_ (=19=, 192-199) for March, 1914.
CHAPTER XVII.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN THE SCHOOLS OF SWEDEN.
In Sweden, as in Germany,[135] there are two types of public schools,
the elementary, common, or _folkskola_ (people’s school), and the
secondary, or _allmänna läroverk_, corresponding in general to the German
_Gymnasium_ and _Realschule_ and the French _lycée_. An American college
student at the end of his sophomore year has received an education
roughly equivalent to that of the graduate from a Swedish _allmänna
läroverk_. In the matter of equipment, organization, and method there
is such uniformity throughout Sweden that if allowance is made for less
favorable conditions in smaller cities and in country regions a fairly
accurate, and more definite conception of physical training in the
schools will be obtained by confining attention to Stockholm, the capital
and largest city.[136] It will be convenient to consider, in order, the
_folkskola_, the _allmänna läroverk_, the higher schools for girls, and
private schools.
Of the more than 35,000 children of school age in Stockholm over
three-fourths attend the thirty _folkskolor_. These are grouped in eight
school systems, corresponding to the parishes or districts into which
the city is divided, and at the head of every such system is placed a
“first teacher.” The different grades in a single building are cut up
into parallel sections, so that the average number of children under one
teacher does not exceed 35. The great Kungsholms _folkskola_, intended
to accommodate 3,500-4,000 children, and one of the largest school
buildings in the world, is in many ways typical of them all, in spite
of its greater size. It consists of two L-shaped portions, each four
stories high with a basement, their long arms forming the opposite ends
of a rectangular gravelled yard and separating this from the street, and
their short arms turned toward each other on one side of the yard. At the
center of this third side is an archway, flanked by one-story structures
which contain offices and the janitor’s quarters. Next to these the
loftier gymnastic halls complete the front by joining on to the ells. The
area of the yard is not far from one and a half acres. The classrooms,
ninety-four in number, occupy the entire street side of the building, and
open into long corridors which look out upon the central yard and lead
down into it. On every floor drinking fountains and stationary washbowls
supplied with hot and cold water are distributed at frequent intervals
along these passage-ways. Besides the recitation rooms there are eight
larger halls for pasteboard, wood, and metal sloyd and the sewing
classes; three rooms for the use of cooking schools; two gymnasia; two
bathing outfits, which include dressing-rooms, a hot-air chamber, shower
baths, and a pool seven by fourteen feet; steam disinfection apparatus,
laundry and drying rooms; dining rooms, and counters where milk and bread
are sold to the children; the living apartments of the First Teacher, and
a room for the use of other teachers; offices, and janitor’s quarters.
The old wing is heated by steam and the newer one by hot air. The total
cost, exclusive of the site, was over $200,000.
In the classrooms of this building the single desks are arranged one
behind the other so as to leave aisles between adjacent rows and next
to the wall at the sides and rear. Space is thus afforded for simple
marching exercises and for others which either require no apparatus or
may be practised with the help of desks and seats. The two halls set
apart for gymnastics measure about 55 by 25 feet, and have a height
considerable greater than that of the other rooms. Their side walls are
lined with stallbars, and the floor space is divided crosswise into
three nearly equal parts by two pairs of Swedish horizontal bars, when
these are set up; but the bars and central post of each pair can be
dropped below the floor and concealed from view by trapdoors when not
in use, and then the entire area from wall to wall is left free. The
remaining equipment includes Swedish ladders, climbing poles, ropes
and rope-ladders hanging from the ceiling, long benches for use at the
stallbars, and bucks for vaulting exercises. Each of the other school
districts has also its special room or rooms for gymnastic instruction.
The three lower classes of the various _folkskolor_ have marching and
other exercises without apparatus daily, in the schoolroom, the work
alternating with other instruction and directed by the same teacher. In
the case of higher classes special periods, three a week as a rule, are
set apart for the gymnastic lesson, and this is given sometimes in the
schoolroom, utilizing the desks and seats as apparatus, but at least once
a week in the gymnasium, where its duration is commonly about half an
hour. Little or no change of costume is attempted, beyond the laying off
of coats by the boys. The school report for 1898 relates that “since many
of the children wear wooden shoes, unsuitable for the gymnastic lesson,
four hundred pairs of special shoes were bought and distributed among the
districts for use in the gymnasia.”
As regards teachers in the _folkskolor_, the women outnumber the men
five to one. All must have completed a four-years’ course at one of
the twelve Swedish training colleges for this grade of instructors,
and of that course gymnastics everywhere forms a part, directed by a
graduate of the Central Institute at Stockholm and occupying three
hours a week throughout the entire four years. There is always a model
school attached, which affords the future teacher an opportunity to test
his skill and to acquire experience in this as well as other branches
of instruction. In Stockholm teachers receive additional counsel and
direction from a special instructor in gymnastics, who divides his time
among all the _folkskolor_ in the different districts; but the general
guide followed is C. H. Liedbeck’s Manual of Gymnastics.[137] Besides the
formal exercises this book contains a large number of games. These are
introduced occasionally as part of the gymnastic lesson, and are also
encouraged in the schoolyards during recess. Of the twenty-eight tables
of exercises contained in the manual only six call for no apparatus of
any sort, six can be given with nothing more than desks and seats, and
the balance require a hall supplied with stallbars, Swedish horizontal
bars, poles, ropes, ladders, benches, mats, etc.
Instruction in military tactics and target shooting is given to the older
boys in the spring and early fall, under the general direction of an army
officer who is assigned to this service in all the elementary schools of
the city. There is drill by squads in exercises for the recruit, together
with occasional company drill, a few longer marches in battalion, and
training as subalterns for the most advanced. During the summer months
pupils may also receive instruction in swimming, at a large swimming
school in Lake Mälaren, near one of the city bridges. Over 3000 boys and
2500 girls availed themselves of this privilege in 1899, and a total of
6000 in 1900. The number of these who could swim increased in the former
year from 602 at the beginning of the season to 1510 at its close.
There are seven _higher schools_ for boys at Stockholm. At two of these
the gymnasium is a separate building of brick, located at one side of a
gravelled yard at least an acre and a half in extent. Each cost about
$17,000 and consists of a lofty main hall, eighty by forty or forty-five
feet, with a wing containing dressing-rooms, the teacher’s office, and
a few shower baths. At a third school the gymnasium occupies a spacious
two-story wing which projects from the rear of the main building; in two
other cases a hall in the main building is fitted up for gymnastics,
and pupils in the remaining two schools go for their exercises to the
halls of the Central Institute. The following list of apparatus noticed
in the gymnasium of the Realläroverk (a non-classical higher school
for boys) is fairly representative: Sixty sections of stallbars, seven
Swedish horizontal bars, two vertical Swedish ladders and two horizontal
ones, eight rope ladders, twenty-four climbing ropes and eight poles,
two double inclined ropes, a few sections of stallbars continued to
the ceiling as ladders, storming boards and short benches for use with
stallbars, bar saddles, two Swedish horses, two vaulting boxes, two
bucks, jump stands with cord and pins, some thin mats about four feet
by three, and a number of cheap fencing foils. The horizontal bars are
arranged to drop beneath the floor. The inclined ropes are attached to
the ceiling at either end, and to a hook beneath the floor, when in use,
by means of a tackle block at the center. Near the ends they are crossed
by vertical ropes, used by the pupils in reaching or leaving the inclined
ropes. All of these ropes can be hoisted out of the way readily, and a
small trap door conceals the hook.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.—Rear View of a Higher School for Boys (_Norra
Latinläroverket_) in Stockholm. (The gymnasium occupies the lower half of
the projection in the foreground).]
The royal statutes require that in every public secondary school in
Sweden there shall be at least three hours a week of pedagogical
gymnastics, arranged in daily half-hour periods when possible. In
Stockholm the division into half-hour lessons is the most common one.
Less frequently there are three periods of an hour each, and in a few
cases a class meets twice for a half-hour and twice for an hour, or
fifty minutes four times a week, or forty minutes six times, or in four
one-hour periods. In a majority of cases the time chosen for exercise
lies between ten and one o’clock, though the hours from two to four in
the afternoon are used not infrequently. Military exercises take the
place of gymnastics for boys of the sixth to ninth years in the early
part of every fall semester, occupying three hours daily for twenty days
as a rule, and during this period their usual school duties are cut down
by a corresponding amount. Each of the seven schools has its special
teacher of gymnastics, and no one is eligible to such a position until he
has completed a two-years’ professional course at the Central Institute
of Gymnastics. In the fall of 1900 these teachers and their assistants
were all officers in the army, and five of the nine were on the staff of
instruction at the Institute. One had the rank of major, and the rest
were captains and lieutenants.
Occasionally a “weak section” is formed of boys selected from the whole
or part of the school, but in general the division into classes is based
upon school grade, the boys of the sixth to ninth years exercising
together as a rule, and the rest variously subdivided according to their
numbers. The size of some of these classes is noteworthy. They rarely
contain fewer than 60 or 70, while 100-125 is not an unusual number, and
150-200 are sometimes seen together under a single teacher. To facilitate
the handling of so many it is usual to separate them into squads of from
12 to 20, on the basis of physical fitness, and to place at the head
of each squad one of the best pupils, who sees that his portion of the
lines is correctly formed at the beginning of the hour, reports upon
attendance, and directs the work of his division when the teacher is not
giving commands for the whole class. Before exercising it is the practice
to remove coats, collars, cuffs, and suspenders, and the dickey, or
detachable shirt-front, if a boy has arrived at the dignity of wearing
that common article of clothing. Shoes are exchanged for rubber-soled
canvas slippers, of the sort so often seen in American gymnasia.
The ease and quickness with which apparatus is made ready or put out of
the way by pupils must strike every observer. It is this which allows
such frequent changes during a single lesson, and the great variety of
forms given to the “day’s order.” As a rule the teaching which one sees
is remarkably well done. Perfect discipline and prompt and accurate
execution of commands are secured, and yet there is no oppressive
military strictness, nor anything but the pleasantest relation between
teacher and pupils. Opportunities for relaxed attention and brief
outbreaks of high spirits are frequent, the boys take hold with a vigor
which proves their interest, and many squad leaders, even the youngest,
show uncommon earnestness and ability to direct. In a few cases it will
be found that the control over a class is less perfect and listless,
slovenly work is tolerated. Where pupils are sent to the Central
Institute for their instruction, and receive it largely from students
at that school, the frequent change of leaders and the great variety
of personality among them produce a natural mingling of good and bad
teaching.
So far as the fencing instruction given to boys of the four higher grades
was observed it formed a portion of the gymnastic lesson, and included
brief practice in the fundamental positions and movements by the whole
class, and an exchange of thrusts and parries between two opposing lines.
The military exercises of the same boys in the fall semester cover target
practice with the rifle, besides squad and company drill and the manual
of arms. The school yard serves not only for these evolutions and for
games, but part or all of the gymnastic lesson is often given outdoors
when the weather is favorable.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.—The Gymnasium of a Mixed School in Trelleborg,
Sweden.]
In all Sweden there are only two _higher schools for girls_ under state
control. These are the Royal Higher Normal School for Women (_Kungl.
högre lärarinneseminarium_), in Stockholm, and the model school
associated with it. One of the halls in the school building used by the
two in common is fitted up as a gymnasium, and except in the lowest
classes at the model school a half-hour of gymnastic instruction is
given daily throughout the entire course of study at both institutions.
In the case of _private schools_, the great majority of which are for
girls only, or admit boys to none but the lowest classes, there is no law
prescribing the amount of physical training to be given, and the practice
varies accordingly. Thus in 1899 there were 46 such schools, with a
total of 5157 pupils, and out of this number 2909, in 33 schools, were
reported as receiving instructions in gymnastics. The oldest institution
of them all, with 240 pupils, has (1900) nothing but a small room some 40
by 25 feet and 9 feet high, supplied with a Swedish horizontal bar, six
climbing ropes, three long benches with balance beams on the under side,
a vaulting box, jump stands, and a rubber ball. Most of the lower classes
exercise here for half an hour every other day, and the higher ones twice
a week, under a special teacher. Another school for girls provides for
nearly the same number of pupils a room 60 by 20 feet and of good height,
situated on the ground floor, and for its size as well equipped with
apparatus as any of the _allmänna läroverk_. Its gymnastic instruction
is in the hands of Major Silow, of the Central Institute, assisted by
students in the course for women at that school. His capacity as an
organizer and his rare talent as a teacher render the quality of work
done by these girls quite as good as the best to be seen in the boys’
schools of the city.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Dr. F. A. Schmidt of Bonn and Captain C. J. J. Lefebure of Brussels,
who visited Stockholm in 1899, have recorded their observations and
impressions in the following:
Dr. Schmidt—“Die Gymnastik an den schwedischen Volksschulen nebst einem
Anhang: Die Militärischen Übungen an den höheren Schulen in Stockholm.”
Berlin, R. Gaertner, 1900 (Reprinted from the _Monatsschrift für das
Turnwesen_ for 1900). Second edition 1909. Third edition, revised and
enlarged, under the title “Die schwedische Schulgymnastik,” in 1912
(Berlin, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung).
Captain Lefebure—“L’Éducation Physique en Suède.” Brussels, H. Lamertin;
Paris, A. Maloine, 1903. Second edition 1908 (Paris, Felix Alcan).
The Swedish Department of Church Affairs and Education (_Kungl.
Ecklesiastik-Departmentet_) publishes statistical reports covering the
work of the common schools (_Berättelse om folkskolorna_) and the higher
schools for boys (_Berättelse om Statens Allmänna läroverk för gossar_).
The board of directors of the common schools and the rectors of the
various higher schools for boys in Stockholm also prepare elaborate
annual reports which contain information regarding the physical training
of pupils.
FOOTNOTES:
[135] See footnote page 128.
[136] A description based primarily on extensive personal observation,
supplemented by interviews and the study of official documents, has so
many advantages over a compilation made at a distance that this chapter
has been left substantially in the form given to it soon after the period
of residence in Stockholm referred to on page 163. It therefore applies
to conditions as they existed in 1900. A second, briefer visit in the
spring of 1913 revealed minor changes, but the general impression given
by the article as it first appeared in the _American Physical Education
Review_ (=6=, 1-13) for March, 1901, and in condensed form in _Mind and
Body_ (=11=, 105-111) for July, 1904, remains essentially correct.
[137] Gymnastiska Dagöfningar för Folkskolan. Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt &
Söner, 1881. Second edition in 1891. A German translation by J. A. Selter
and J. H. Jarisch, under the title “Das schwedische Schulturnen,” was
published in 1907 (Marburg, N. G. Elwert).
This book has now been superseded by Törngren’s manual of 1905 (see
footnote on p. 162). Special attention should also be called to Elin
Falk’s three-volume “Dagövningar i Gymnastik för Stockholms Folkskolor”
(Stockholm, P. Palmquist, 1915 and 1916).
CHAPTER XVIII.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN DENMARK.[138]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.—Franz Nachtegall (1777-1847).]
Denmark was the first European state to introduce physical training
into its schools as an essential part of the course, and to prepare
teachers of that subject by offering systematic instruction in theory
and method of gymnastics. The leader in this movement, and its director
for more than forty years, was Franz Nachtegall (1777-1847), the son
of a Copenhagen tailor. His early education was received in a private
school, and he had begun the study of theology in the university; but
the death of his father prevented him from taking the final examination
for his degree and threw upon him the support of an invalid mother. For
a time he gave private lessons in Latin, history, and geography, but the
small pay necessitated such long hours that his health began to suffer.
From boyhood he had been interested in forms of physical activity, and
as a university student gained considerable proficiency in fencing
and vaulting. Inclination, therefore, and the reading of GutsMuths’s
“_Gymnastik für die Jugend_”[139] started him upon what was to become
a life-work. He began to teach gymnastics, first to some students at
his own home, and then, early in 1798, to a club of university students
and tradesmen which he organized and directed. This brought him, a
year later, an invitation to give lessons in the private school which
Court Chaplain Christiani had opened in May of 1795, in accordance with
the philanthropinistic ideals of Basedow and his followers. A rival
institution, the Schouboe school which Nachtegall had himself attended
as a boy, soon secured a share of his time for the same purpose. Other
schools in the city, public as well as private, followed the example of
these two, so that by 1805 at least nine were furnishing instruction in
gymnastics to their pupils.
On November 5, 1799, having definitely decided to give himself wholly
to the new calling, Nachtegall opened a private outdoor gymnasium in
the yard of number 45 Østergade, the first institution in modern times
devoted exclusively to physical training. The 5 pupils with whom he began
had increased to 25 by the end of the year, and in the winter of 1803-04
the number reached 150, both children and adults, under six teachers whom
he had himself trained. When in 1804 the King appointed him professor
of gymnastics in the university he had already given, for two years,
lectures on the history and method of physical training, with the help
of a former pupil, to an audience made up of students there and in a
college for teachers, with an admixture of military men. Meanwhile the
training of military and naval cadets and the instruction in gymnastics
given in schools for non-commissioned officers had also been entrusted
to him, and when the King established a Training School for Teachers of
Gymnastics in the Army (_det militære gymnastiske Institut_), by decree
of August 25, 1804, Nachtegall became its first director. From this as
a center the new teaching was to be spread throughout the entire army
and navy, including the Norwegian regiments. Four years later civilians
were also admitted to the courses, the institution now attempting to do
for the schools and the people at large what it had already accomplished
for the army, and to prepare instructors for teachers’ colleges and the
elementary schools especially. The usual length of the course was fifteen
to eighteen months, though the first pupil was graduated in August of
1809. By 1814 the civilian training school, caught in the stress of hard
times, had ceased to exist. Meanwhile a total of only 31 students had
completed its course, but 10 of these went out to occupy positions at
_Seminarier_ (teachers’ colleges), and so became in turn the instructors
of other teachers-to-be.
The disastrous results of collisions between Denmark and Great Britain
during the Napoleonic wars (1801-1814) and the economic distress
which followed the loss of Norway (1814) made the period 1809-1825 an
unfavorable one for educational reforms, and yet the efforts of the
Danish government to introduce gymnastics into the curriculum of the
schools did not stop altogether with provision for the training of
teachers. An ordinance of November 7, 1809, stated in general that
grammar or secondary schools (“_de lærde Skoler_”) should furnish
instruction in gymnastics “when and where it was possible” to do so.
In the school code of 1814 gymnastics was made an integral part of the
course for boys in all elementary schools (_Folkeskoler_)—nearly three
decades before any other European country took such action. Wherever
the teacher possessed the requisite ability he was to give his pupils a
daily lesson in gymnastics, outside of school hours proper, and for this
purpose every school must have the necessary apparatus and an outdoor
space of 800-1200 _Alen_ (3200-4800 square feet). At the _Seminarier_
gymnastics became a required subject under the regulations of 1818,
and in 1821 Nachtegall was appointed _Gymnastikdirektør_ (Director
of Gymnastics), with oversight of both civil and military gymnastics
throughout the state. But with here and there a notable exception, the
result of so much favorable legislation left much to be desired. Teachers
were most of them without training, hard times interfered with the
purchase of grounds and apparatus, and appreciation of the importance of
school gymnastics as a pedagogical measure was by no means general.
Beginning with the middle twenties and lasting till the death of King
Frederick VI (December 3, 1839) there was some improvement. In Copenhagen
itself gymnastics was now introduced in many public and private schools,
and some of the village schools in Copenhagen county took similar action,
assisted by the government (1826), which desired to see all the schools
in a single county reached before further statewide measures were
attempted. Within a few years this had been accomplished. November 25,
1826, a circular was sent out to the school authorities all over Denmark
urging them to do what they could to favor instruction in gymnastics.
In the summer of the next year a considerable number of teachers from
Copenhagen county came to the city for a course in gymnastics. They felt
the need of some opportunity for practice with children along with the
instruction they themselves received. At Nachtegall’s suggestion the
King therefore ordered (August 21, 1827) that 40 to 50 children from one
of the public schools should be received at _det militære gymnastiske
Institut_, for instruction in gymnastics, and that this public school
should establish such relations with the Institute that both together
would constitute a teachers’ college which might serve as a normal school
of gymnastics (_Normalskole for Gymnastikken_), where not only the
military and civil pupils at the Institute but also teachers in public
and private schools could have an opportunity to conduct classes under
supervision. The Normal School, under this new arrangement, was opened on
January 28, 1828 (at the same time a new building, at Solvgaden barracks,
was ready for use), and during that year more than 200 teachers were in
attendance, 160 boys from the garrison school coming to the Institute to
serve as a model school. In summer their place was taken by pupils from
charity schools.
June 25, 1828, the King approved the _manual of gymnastics_[140] for use
in the middle and common schools (_Folkeskolerne_) on which Nachtegall
and four other members of a commission appointed for the purpose had been
at work for a year. This was the first book of the sort to be authorized
by any European government. Copies were sent (4000 of them) at the King’s
expense to all Danish schools and school authorities. On the same day,
June 25, was issued an order which required the immediate introduction
of instruction in gymnastics in all schools throughout the state. A
city inspector of gymnastics was appointed in Copenhagen, where every
child received three lessons a week and the teachers were most of them
non-commissioned officers. It was estimated that by the end of 1830 2000
elementary schools (_Almueskoler_) were already complying with the order,
and that by the time of the King’s death 2500 out of the (approximately)
2600 public schools in Denmark were making at least some provision for
systematic bodily exercise.
The secondary schools were at first slow to take adequate measures, but
a special order of September 20, 1831, directed that this be done just
as soon as circumstances permitted. An administrative order of February
14, 1832, made the introduction of instruction in gymnastics a necessary
condition of permission to open any private school for boys. September
14, 1833, Nachtegall’s manual and regulations for secondary schools[141]
received the King’s approval, and it was published the following year.
In 1836 he was sent on a tour of inspection among the _Seminarier_, to
see what was being done in them and to give any needful counsel and
suggestions. He found the interest in gymnastics general, but lack of
sufficient apparatus in some places and in others faulty methods, and
therefore arranged to have the teachers of gymnastics at three of the
_Seminarier_ take a summer course at the Normal School in 1837. In
obedience to an order of March 7, 1838, he made a second tour, primarily
to inspect the Latin schools, but took advantage of the opportunity to
visit the _Seminarier_ again.
Hitherto it had been boys and young men alone who were reached by
gymnastics in the schools, but an order of March 28, 1838, given in
response to Nachtegall’s proposal, established an experimental school
for girls. Thirty pupils, ranging in age from six to fifteen years, were
selected from among the girls at the garrison school, and beginning in
the spring of the same year these received three lessons a week from
five teachers (three sergeants and two women) at the Military Gymnastic
Institute, under the general direction of Nachtegall and a physician.
The success of this experiment suggested a normal school of gymnastics
for women (_Normalskole for Kvindegymnastik_). An order of February 20,
1839, approved the plan, and prescribed that women teachers, and others
who wished it, should receive an opportunity at the Institute to become
acquainted with methods of teaching and that the exercises practised
there and the mode of progression adopted should serve as a model for the
schools for girls which introduced gymnastics. These latter were also put
under Nachtegall’s supervision. The number of pupils at the Normal School
now increased. In the summer of 1839 lessons in the new subject were
begun with girls in the royal navy schools (_Søetatens Skoler_), and many
other Copenhagen schools took a similar step.
After the death of Frederick VI, December 3, 1839, Nachtegall’s own
efforts (he was now sixty-two years old) began to slacken. In 1840 and
1843 he made new tours of inspection among the _Seminarier_. In 1842
he turned over to la Cour the headship of _det militære gymnastiske
Institut_, but continued to discharge the duties of _Gymnastikdirektør_
until his death, which occurred May 12, 1847. He was not the inventor of
a system of his own, but borrowed his types of exercise from Dessau and
Schnepfenthal, and used the manuals of GutsMuths as a guide. He was a
good teacher and organizer, tactfully winning the goodwill and support
of leading men, skilful in accommodating himself to actual conditions,
and indefatigable in his efforts to advance the work to which he had
committed himself with so much devotion. Denmark owes it to him that
during the first third of the nineteenth century she held the leading
place among European nations in the realm of physical education.[142]
Captain Niels Georg la Cour (1797-1876), who succeeded Nachtegall
as Director of Gymnastics in Denmark (1847-1870), met with little
success in his endeavor to improve conditions. As head of the Military
Institute he published a new manual for the army, upon which was based
his later manual for the elementary schools.[143] But interest was now
at low ebb. Beginning in 1859 it came to be the practice to supply the
need of teachers of gymnastics in the _Seminarier_ by “loaning” them
non-commissioned officers for a term of three years. (This continued
to be the rule until 1901!) In the schools of Copenhagen, also, and in
garrison towns, such instruction was in the hands of military men. But in
the army the broad educational aims of gymnastics had been subordinated
to mere attainment of skill, so that the soldier too often regarded it
with dread as a means of discipline and punishment. These officers,
too, held themselves aloof from the general school life and from the
other teachers. When la Cour, who possessed more energy than tact and
lacked Nachtegall’s conciliatory manner, called attention to neglect
or defective equipment revealed by his tours of inspection, and when
official circulars directed the school authorities to exercise a keener
and more vigorous oversight, the result in many cases was to arouse a
feeling of irritation and indignation.
Upon la Cour’s retirement from the position of _Gymnastikdirektør_
in 1870 this office was abolished, and a new one was created—that of
inspector of gymnastics (_Gymnastikinspektør_) for civil schools only.
But there was no actual separation from military control, for until 1904
it was the army which supplied candidates for the place. The first man to
fill it (1870-1886) was Col. Johann Theodor Wegener (1810-1886). He chose
for his assistant Captain (later Lieut.-Col.) Julius Amsinck (1833-1902),
director of the Military Institute[144] 1867-1885, who later became his
successor (1886-1899). Amsinck published in 1883 a manual for school use,
based on that of la Cour.
After the war of 1864 with Prussia and Austria, in which the Danes lost
Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg, there was a period of great depression,
soon followed, however, by a variety of measures looking toward national
regeneration. In two institutions which date from this time, the rifle
clubs (_Skytteforeninger_) and the people’s or folk high schools
(_Folkehøjskolerne_), gymnastics was among the means employed, as it had
been in Germany by Jahn and his followers a half-century before. For
some years before the outbreak of the war the attitude of Germany in the
Schleswig-Holstein dispute had been growing more and more threatening,
and in January, 1861, an artillery captain, Valdemar Mønster, proposed
in the columns of the Danish paper _Fædrelandet_ the organization of
voluntary clubs on the plan of the English National Rifle Association, in
order that young men subject to military service might have opportunity
to become familiar with the use of weapons and fit themselves to defend
the country’s right by force of arms. The suggestion met with general
approval, and a few months later a Central Committee, with Captain
Mønster as its secretary, was formed to guide and assist the rifle clubs
which were being started all over Denmark.[145] By the close of 1863
there were over a hundred of them in existence.
At first the _Skytteforeninger_ confined their attention to rifle
shooting and military drill, but after the war had given great headway
to the whole movement gymnastics began to be introduced as a related
activity, and gradually won for itself a more and more prominent place. A
firmer organization had now been effected, for the smaller clubs, whose
number had increased to several hundred, united into county rifle clubs
(_Amts-Skytteforeninger_). Denmark is divided for administrative purposes
into eighteen counties or _Amter_, and in 1871 the original Central
Committee was succeeded by a Board of Directors (_Overbestyrelse_)
chosen by representatives of the various units. According to information
gathered by the new _Overbestyrelse_, eleven clubs practised gymnastics
in 1872, and nine of these had 2100 members actively engaged, of whom 763
belonged in Svendborg county alone, where the efficient leadership and
persevering efforts of Captain Edvard Nielsen had contributed largely
toward such a favorable showing and had made that club a model for others.
The exercises were necessarily limited at the start to what could be
done in the open air and with little or no apparatus, or use was made of
barns or rooms for public gatherings. In 1871, at Ryslinge (island of
Fünen), the first special _Øvelseshus_ (house for exercise, gymnasium)
was erected. Other places were quick to follow the example, so that
by 1897 there were nearly 300 such buildings, provided by the club
members themselves, and in them 10,000 young countrymen were practising
gymnastics. Trained instructors could be borrowed from the army in
garrison towns and the regions adjacent to them, or school teachers were
employed or men who had returned from military service. Many clubs, in
order to secure better qualified squad leaders, organized brief teachers’
courses (_Instruktionsmøder_) in charge of army instructors. When
various people’s high schools, notably those at Askov and Vallekilde,
opened their doors for such leaders’ courses (_Delingsførerkursus_) in
gymnastics they became an important source of supply. The first course
of this kind at Vallekilde was given in 1878. A handbook of gymnastics
(“Vejledning i Gymnastik”) prepared for the rifle clubs by _Hærens
Gymnastikskole_ in 1882, at the instance of the _Overbestyrelse_, does
not appear to have been widely used, but Captain Amsinck’s manual of 1883
was made the basis of instruction.
At the general _Skyttefest_ (gathering of rifle clubs for competitive
shooting) in 1869 at Horsens the Svendborg county club, the university
club from Copenhagen, and others gave exhibitions of gymnastics which
must have contributed toward its spread, and this was still more true
of the general _Gymnastikfest_ at Svendborg in 1878 and the general
_Skytte- og Gymnastikfest_ at Nyborg in 1881, both of them arranged
by the Svendborg county rifle club. At the former there were nearly
1100 participants, who came from 16 towns and 110 country parishes.
Six hundred were from Svendborg county alone. County and lesser
_Skyttefester_ exerted a similar influence. Advantage was taken of the
interest thus aroused to seek state aid for the purchase of apparatus.
Captain Edvard Nielsen proposed such a measure at the meeting of
delegates in 1879, and a motion requesting the _Overbestyrelse_ to take
suitable steps led to an initial annual grant of 2000 Kr. from the
government, increased to 5000 Kr. in 1882 and to 6000 Kr. the following
year. Attempts to obtain similar grants to assist in the erection of
_Øvelseshuse_ and the giving of courses of instruction for squad leaders
(_Delingsførere_) met with no success at this time.
The people’s or folk high schools (_Folkehøjskoler_),[146] like the
rifle clubs, date from before the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864; but
their great popularity and rapid spread began with the period of reform
which succeeded it. They are not public institutions, though nearly
all now receive a certain amount of government aid, but are privately
owned in most cases, or belong to a self-perpetuating corporation, and
depend for their success upon the personality of the director and his
associates. The total number opened in the years 1844-1911 was 143, and
80 of these were in existence at the close of the period. The great
majority of the students are young countrymen eighteen to twenty-five
years of age, who after completing the required course at free rural
elementary schools have been engaged in practical agriculture and
household duties, either at home or on some model farm. The attendance
in the years 1864-1884 averaged about 3000 annually, but doubled in the
following decade, and in the school year 1898-1899 reached a total of
3491 young men and 2646 young women. In 1906 the numbers at the different
high schools ranged from 10 to 400; 53 per cent of the pupils were
males, and it was estimated that a third of the young people among the
rural population passed through these schools, although attendance is
altogether voluntary. A few are coeducational, but the usual plan is to
offer a winter course of five to six months (November-May) to young men,
and a summer one of three months or more to young women. An hour a day is
allotted to gymnastics as a rule.
The people’s high schools and the rifle clubs have stood in close
relation with each other, some of the former organizing clubs of their
own, or supplying leaders for neighboring clubs, and others, like
the ones at Askov and Vallekilde, arranging for teachers’ courses in
gymnastics and rifle-shooting under professional instructors from the
army. The aims of the two institutions are similar in many ways.
Although the people’s high schools all give instruction in handwork and
household economics for women and many offer courses in agriculture,
horticulture, masonry, carpentry, etc., their chief purpose is
cultural—to mold character and ideals, inspire patriotism, train the
students to think for themselves, reveal the dignity and possibilities of
country life, and lay the foundation for later work in local agricultural
schools and schools of household economics. The lecture method prevails
in the classroom. Courses in history and literature may be considered
the backbone of the curriculum, with frequent discussion periods and
much singing of folk and patriotic songs and hymns. Students room in
the school dormitories, and are thus brought into close and sympathetic
association with each other and with their teachers,—the foundation of
that spirit of coöperation which is so characteristic of rural life in
Denmark today.
The revival of general interest in physical education in Denmark had its
origin thus among young adults, and not in the schools. At first it was
the GutsMuths gymnastics as developed by Nachtegall which they practised
in the rifle clubs and the people’s high schools, with the gradual
addition of exercises borrowed from the Jahn _Turnen_; but beginning in
1884 the Ling or Swedish system was introduced, and made rapid headway
until by the close of the century it had been generally adopted in the
people’s high schools, had outstripped its Danish-German rival in the
rifle clubs, and formed the basis of a new official manual for the
schools.[147]
It was not to be expected that the friends of the GutsMuths-Nachtegall
gymnastics would watch the encroachments of the foreign system without
a vigorous protest. The struggle began as early as 1885, with army
officers almost without exception opposed to the innovation, and a few
years later was at its height. The attention of school authorities was
drawn to the subject by conflicting claims put forward in the press and
by what the followers of Ling were already accomplishing in Denmark, and
some of them recognized that with the help of the new exercises school
gymnastics might perhaps be resuscitated, especially in the country,
where conditions were quite unsatisfactory.
The most important result of all this agitation was the appointment
(April 5, 1887) of a commission of three by the ministry of church and
school affairs (_Ministeriet for Kirke- og Undervisningsvæsenet_), to
recommend improvements in gymnastics as taught in the schools and to
present plans for the founding and organizing of an institution in
which men and women should be trained as teachers of gymnastics. Its
members were Lieutenant-Colonel Amsinck, the new state inspector of
gymnastics, chairman, communal physician (_Kommunelæge_) Axel Hertel,
and Professor K. Kroman. They spent several weeks in Stockholm, at the
_Centralinstitut_ and in the schools, and then went to Berlin for a
similar purpose. Upon their return they submitted a report (April, 1888)
containing a number of definite suggestions for the better organization
of physical education, the training of teachers, and the grouping of
exercises in a lesson plan. They also proposed the appointment of a
second and larger commission which should prepare a new manual of school
gymnastics along the lines indicated. This body was accordingly named
November 30, 1889. It included the former members, with the addition of
_Kommunelæge_ Chr. Fenger, regimental surgeon (_Korpslæge_) Johan Kier,
Cand. polyt. N. H. Rasmussen, and the head of _Hærens Gymnastikskole_,
Captain L. V. Schleppegrell. The result of their labors was the “Handbook
of Gymnastics” (_Haandbog i Gymnastik_) published in 1899[148] and at
once authorized by the government for use in all schools under its
control. The new manual follows the general principles of the Ling
gymnastics and adopts practically all of the Swedish exercises, but
uses also many of the forms already current in Denmark, and introduces
exercises on the horizontal and parallel bars, flying rings, and trapeze
along with others which require the apparatus commonly found in gymnasia
in Sweden.
The commission of 1887 had proposed that the government should start an
institution for the training of men and women as teachers of gymnastics
(_Gymnastik Læreranstalt_), with a two-years course of study and
practice. But in view of the unsettled condition of the whole question
the authorities were unwilling to take such action. Professor Hans Olrik,
director of the State Teachers’ Course (_Statens etaarige Lærerkursus_,
later known as the _Lærerhøjskole_) then suggested, in 1897, that
instruction in gymnastics be included as a separate division in that
course. The government gave its approval to the plan, the _Rigsdag_ voted
the necessary funds, 13,500 Kr., and on March 30, 1898, an official
announcement of the organization and character of the new course (_det
etaarige Gymnastikkursus_) was published. It was opened September 1 of
that year in N. H. Rasmussen’s _Gymnastikhus_ on Vodroffs Vej, under
the direction of Cand. theol. K. A. Knudsen.[149] The next year (1899)
Amsinck retired from his position as state inspector of gymnastics. His
successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Ramsing (1837-1904), already over sixty
years old when he was appointed to the office, died August 18, 1904, and
now, for the first time in the history of the inspectorship, it was given
(September 2) to a non-military man, K. A. Knudsen, the director of the
one-year teachers’ course.[150]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.—Knud Anton Knudsen (1864-).]