gymnastiske Lærerinstitut_) founded in 1808, and the normal school
of gymnastics (_Normalskole for Gymnastikken_) opened twenty years
later were both short-lived and both had been appendages of _det
militære gymnastiske Institut_; since 1859 the teachers of gymnastics
in the _Seminarier_ had been non-commissioned officers in the army,
assigned to this duty for three-year periods only; and though the
non-military schools were given a state inspector of their own in 1870,
this position had always been held by an army officer. But with _det
etaarige Gymnastikkursus_ of 1898-1899, the _Haandbog_ of 1899, and the
appointment of Knudsen to the state inspectorship in 1904 gymnastics in
the Danish schools entered upon an independent career. This fact was
made plain by a new school law (1899) which prescribed, among other
things, that no one should be regularly employed as teacher in the public
schools unless he had received professional training in a _Seminarium_.
The _nur-Turnlehrer_ was thus to give place to the _auch-Turnlehrer_,
an integral part of the teaching staff, and payment for instruction in
gymnastics was to be at the same rate as for any other subject in the
curriculum. It was therefore chiefly _Seminarium_-trained teachers, both
men and women, who attended the one-year course, and from 1901 onward
examinations based on the _Haandbog_ of 1899 were given to all candidates
for graduation at the sixteen _Seminarier_.[151]
In the higher (secondary) schools also gymnastics was to be taken out
of the hands of special or professional teachers and entrusted to
instructors who give a part of their time to other subjects. University
graduates already occupying positions in such schools and university
students who looked forward to teaching as a profession were therefore
found among the pupils in the one-year course, and in 1905 the government
decided to permit the work of that course to be spread over three or four
years in the case of students who wished to complete it at the same time
they were carrying on their studies in the university. April 1, 1911,
the one-year course ceased to be a part of _Statens Lærerhøjskole_, and
September 1, 1911, under a new name and as an independent institution
(_Statens Gymnastik Institut_), it moved into a building of its
own.[152] Two years before this (November 1, 1909) the authorities of the
University at Copenhagen had added to the faculty of that institution,
on a six-year appointment, a _Docent_ in anatomy, physiology, and theory
of gymnastics (Johannes Lindhard, a physician), under whose direction
students who desired to add instruction in gymnastics to other teaching
after graduation were allowed to take one of their minor courses in
preparation for the final examination (_Skoleembedseksamen_) leading to
a degree, and so qualifying them to become candidates for positions in
higher schools. The instruction in practical gymnastics and games was
to be given at _Statens Gymnastik-Institut_, or under the oversight of
its director, and was to be at least equal to that given in the one-year
course.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.—Interior of the Danish Central Institute of
Gymnastics, at Copenhagen.]
The demand for teachers trained in the _Haandbog_ of 1899 could not
be met by graduates from these more extended and thorough courses of
preparation, however. For men and women already employed in the schools
who could not afford to leave their regular duties the state therefore
arranged short vacation courses of four weeks each. Thirty-four attended
the first one of these, given in Copenhagen in 1899. The next year it
was decided to move them out into the country, to _Seminarier_ and
_Folkehøjskoler_, and the numbers rose at once to 200. Between 1900 and
1911 the work thus offered was completed by 1027 men and 1680 women—an
average attendance of 225. In 1913 it reached 349. Still briefer courses,
of a single week’s duration (_Instruktionskursus_), brought a measure
of preparation to older teachers who were unable to leave their homes,
and these were often attended by the same persons for several years
in succession. Two thousand five hundred and twenty-six men and 519
women were enrolled in them in the years 1901-1911. The total number of
teachers trained in the newer gymnastics, in the state one-year course,
the university, the sixteen _Seminarier_, and the longer and shorter
vacation courses reaches therefore well into the thousands, and to these
should be added the other thousands who have attended the month-long
leaders’ courses (_Delingsførerkursus_) arranged by the rifle clubs or
their _Overbestyrelse_ since 1889.
The Danes have not been the only ones to profit by the agencies just
enumerated. Up to 1911 the one-year course had been taken by 15
foreigners (4 men and 11 women), from Norway, Finland, Poland, Germany,
Switzerland, Holland, England, and America; and 49 foreigners (25 men
and 24 women) had completed vacation courses. At the invitation of
Yorkshire school authorities _Gymnastikinspektør_ Knudsen conducted a
special vacation course for English teachers at Scarborough in 1905, and
two graduates of the one-year course, H. G. Junker and H. P. Langkilde,
were afterwards employed to train teachers in the schools of West Riding,
Yorkshire. Langkilde was engaged by the British ministry of war in 1906
to introduce the Ling gymnastics in the army gymnasium at Aldershot.
Two other graduates of the one-year course, Braae-Hansen (in 1908, as
director) and Frøken P. Brandt (in 1909), were installed as instructors
in state-supported training schools for men and women teachers of
gymnastics, organized at the Southwestern Polytechnic Institute in
London. In 1908 Junker began to give one-month courses for English
teachers at Silkeborg, in Denmark, which have been largely attended by
both men and women (more than 80 in each of the years 1910 and 1911), and
in 1910 he opened in the same place a one-year course for Englishmen.
Danish women have also served as teachers of gymnastics at various
English teachers’ colleges and in the schools of that country.
The school code of 1814 had made practice in gymnastics obligatory, in
the case of boys, at all elementary schools (_Folkeskoler_), whether
town or country. A law of 1904 extended its provisions to include girls,
as well; and within six years of that date more than 95 per cent of the
girls in town and city elementary schools and nearly 50 per cent of those
in the country were receiving such instruction. Lack of suitable rooms
was the greatest difficulty which confronted the country schools. To
meet this condition the _Rigsdag_ voted that beginning with April 1,
1907, the state should bear one-half of the expense (up to 15,000 Kr.)
incurred by any community in building a gymnasium (_Gymnastikhus_) for
its schools. Two years later the grant was increased, so as to include
town schools, and made to cover the cost of providing playgrounds also.
It became necessary to withhold state aid after April 1, 1911, on account
of financial stringency, but up to that time nearly 300 gymnasia had been
erected in the country regions, at an average cost of about 5000 Kr. By
the following year (1912) 488 country schools had gymnasia of their own,
and 559 others were using rented gymnasia, usually those which belonged
to rifle clubs. The other two-thirds of the 3500 or more country schools
were obliged to content themselves with exercise out of doors on the
playgrounds, which are gradually being equipped with such gymnastic
apparatus as stall bars, Swedish horizontal bars, bucks, vaulting boxes,
etc.
Not content with merely providing facilities for physical education, the
_Rigsdag_ also appropriated funds sufficient for the appointment of 17
_Gymnastikkonsulenter_ (14 men and 3 women, most of them trained in the
one-year course) or assistants to the state inspector of gymnastics,
who are able to visit nearly 900 schools a year, arousing interest in
teachers, pupils, and parents, demonstrating the proper handling of
a class, meeting the teachers for conference and suggestions, and in
general working for a better understanding of the object and means of
physical education and greater uniformity in methods. A step which has
done much to improve the standing of gymnastics in higher schools was the
decision to grade pupils on their work in this subject, in connection
with two of their public examinations (the _Mellemskoleeksamen_, since
1907, and _Realeksamen_, since 1908, but not yet in the final or
_Studentereksamen_), and to give to such a grade (_Aarskarakter_) equal
value with those secured in any other branch of study or practice.
Starting thus among young adults in the people’s high schools and
rifle clubs, the newer gymnastics has made its way into the elementary
schools and the _Seminarier_ and thence into the higher schools and the
university. In contrast with what one sees in Sweden, the instruction is
almost wholly in the hands of civilians, regular members of the teaching
staff who give only a portion of their time to this branch; the average
number of pupils in a class is only about 30, instead of the 150 or even
200 sometimes led by a single teacher across the Sound; and the rooms
provided for exercise are smaller and more numerous—so frequently two
for a single school that this may be considered the rule. On the other
hand the Danish teacher receives at most a ten-months’ course of special
training, in contrast with the two years usually spent at the Stockholm
_Centralinstitut_.
It is now more than a hundred years since Denmark made gymnastics an
essential part of the curriculum of its public schools, antedating
Prussia in the step by over a quarter of a century; but her German
neighbor, on the other hand, takes precedence in the matter of
systematic efforts to foster games among school children. Minister
von Gossler’s playground order was issued in 1882, fourteen years
before its Danish counterpart, and the German “Central Committee for
the Promotion of Games,” formed in Berlin in 1891, was six years old
before a corresponding body was organized in Copenhagen. The beginnings
of the movement, in each country, reveal the influence of English
customs, and the ball games of the English schoolboy were among the
first forms introduced. In certain of the higher schools of Denmark,
particularly in boarding schools located in the country, open-air games
were already firmly established when in 1891 the Copenhagen Playground
Association (_Legepladsforening_) first undertook to bring them within
the reach of children in public elementary schools (_Folkeskoler_), by
opening playgrounds in various sections of the city and organizing the
play-life there. This attempt suddenly took on national proportions when
Wilhelm Bardenfleth, Minister of Church and School Affairs, on August
31, 1896, sent out his “Circular to all school authorities regarding
the introduction and regular use of games for children in the public
schools.”[153]
Games which require agility and strength, the Minister said, deserve a
place side by side with formal gymnastics, not only as healthful forms of
recreation, but because they train the players to make decisions promptly
and carry them out energetically, rouse a feeling of responsibility,
require subordination and coöperation, and play a large part in the
development of personality. Hitherto this valuable educational agency,
which supplements, but should not replace, gymnastics, has been left
too much to the initiative of the young themselves and the results
have been largely a matter of chance. School authorities should make
it their business to provide playgrounds of sufficient size and
conveniently located. Teachers must interest themselves in the matter,
joining the pupils in their sports, preserving order, and supplying the
necessary supervision and direction, and a place ought to be found in
the curriculum for such activities, in addition to voluntary practice
outside of school hours. The Minister announces his readiness to render
assistance in furthering the movement, by including the subject of
organized play in the annual vacation courses for teachers. Attention is
called to a list of books containing directions for a variety of games.
The Commission of 1889, appointed to work out a new manual of gymnastics,
was also preparing a brief guide to the use of appropriate games,[154]
and this, it was hoped, could be sent out to all public and private
schools.
On December 1, 1896, three months after the appearance of the Bardenfleth
circular, the Copenhagen Playground Association proposed to the ministry
an annual grant from state funds to be used in making it effective,
and offered to form a committee which should undertake to manage the
practical details of the project. The suggestion was approved, the
_Rigsdag_ voted an appropriation of 5000 Kr. a year for three years,
and the expenditure of the fund was entrusted to a group of men and
women from all parts of the country who met in Copenhagen April 11,
1897, at the invitation of the Playground Association, and constituted
themselves a National Committee for Promoting Group Games among School
Children.[155] The original membership included Fru Rigmor Bendix,
Copenhagen, chairman; school principal Emil Slomann, Frederiksberg,
vice-chairman; wholesale merchant Carl H. Melchior, Copenhagen,
treasurer; Dr. med. H. Forchhammer, Copenhagen, secretary; district
physician Axel Hertel, Copenhagen, and school director Joakim Larsen,
Frederiksberg, additional members of the executive committee; and fifteen
other persons residing in various parts of Denmark, among them Professor
Poul la Cour of the Askov people’s high school, and Cand. theol. K. A.
Knudsen, then living in Frederiksberg.
The regulations adopted at the time of organization have governed the
operations of the Committee ever since. They define its object as the
furtherance of group games in the open air. Among the means employed are
lectures and the distribution of pamphlets explaining its work, guidance
in the use of games, the training of teachers, grants of money to help
in procuring apparatus and hiring teachers, and assistance in securing
and equipping playgrounds. As a rule it is expected that in each case
the community concerned, or private individuals, will provide an amount
equal to that furnished by the Committee from the funds placed at its
disposal. The Committee also reserves the right to supervise activities
toward which it contributes, and to require annual reports regarding
them; but local organizations are independent in matters of detail. It
does not solicit contributions outside of the state grant, although it
has a small income from other sources. Effort has been largely centered,
from the start, on two lines of work, the preparation of teachers to act
as play leaders in the schools, and the furnishing of expert advice and
direct assistance in particular cases where these are requested.
Minister Bardenfleth, in his circular of 1896, had offered to include
instruction and practice in group games in the annual vacation courses
for teachers conducted by the state. Special courses of this sort, under
the direction of the secretary of the National Committee, were therefore
provided for men in the summers of 1897-1900, and for women in 1898
and 1899, and the subject of games was added to the vacation course in
gymnastics for women in 1897 and 1898. Since the fall of 1898 group games
have been taken up as a regular part of the state’s one-year course in
gymnastics. In the spring of 1897 and again in 1898 the Committee offered
short courses of its own for women teachers, especially those in the
Copenhagen schools. With its help group games were made a part of various
teachers’ courses organized primarily for other purposes, and later it
arranged a long series of special courses, beginning and repetition,
term-time and vacation, for men, for women, and for both sexes.
The usual length of these special courses has been three weeks. Men have
devoted four or five hours daily to the work, or a total of eighty to
ninety hours, and most of it has been practical, with chief emphasis on
the more complicated games, such as _Langbold_ (a Danish-Norwegian ball
game), cricket, football, and hockey. The aim has been to give a complete
understanding of the theory of each game, and enough practice in it to
make the teacher a capable guide for his pupils. Not much time has been
allotted to the simpler games. In the early courses for women instruction
was more elementary, and limited at first to a total of eighteen to
twenty-four hours, since most of the participants were quite unused to
strenuous bodily exercise. _Langbold_ was the favorite game, but later
football was found to be excellent for young girls up to the age of
puberty, and hockey after that period. The amount of time given to daily
practice was also increased, until it reached three or four hours, and
the total advanced from between thirty and thirty-five hours to between
fifty and sixty. Hockey steadily gained in popularity, but children’s
games received relatively more attention than was the case in courses
for men. Fr. Knudsen, secretary of the National Committee, has published
a handbook of games, a guide to hockey, and with Ahrent Otterstrøm a
football manual.
The demands upon the National Committee in its other field of effort,
the giving of expert advice and direct assistance in particular cases,
have been numerous and constant from the start. In 1897 help was given
to 43 schools or communities; 64 others were added to the list the
following year, and 120 in the period 1890-1901, and since that time the
additions have averaged about 25 a year, so that by the end of 1913 a
total of 532 had received aid. The needs of public elementary schools
(_Folkeskoler_) have naturally been the first to receive attention, but
a few _Realskoler_ and _Højskoler_ in the provinces are included in the
number. Experience demonstrated the importance of competent oversight,
and since April 1, 1901, assistance has been granted in new cases only
when a professionally trained teacher of gymnastics is employed, or a
graduate of one of the state or Committee courses in group games. Tours
of inspection are made by the secretary of the National Committee, who
visited 387 schools or communities in the years 1900-1913. Other trips
were made to give advice or help in the laying out of playgrounds.
Commonly the Committee first suggests the games which seem most
appropriate in the locality concerned, and then sends on the necessary
apparatus (for _ball_ games, exclusively), except such as can be bought
on the spot without much expense. A sum of money to be used in procuring
or improving playgrounds is sometimes added; but the original idea of
providing compensation for teachers has not been carried out.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The chief sources of information have already been given in the
footnotes. Others will be found in the chapter as originally published in
1918 (see page 178).
FOOTNOTES:
[138] This chapter is condensed from one of two “Studies in the History
of Physical Education” published for the author by the Society of
Directors of Physical Education in Colleges, in 1918.
[139] See page 77. An abridged translation of this book, by V. K. Hjort,
curate at Holmens Kirke, was published in Copenhagen in 1799 (see page
79).
[140] “Lærebog i Gymnastik for Almue- og Borger-Skolerne i
Danmark. Kjøbenhavn 1828. Trykt hos Andreas Seidelin, Hof- og
Universitets-Bogtrykker.” A German translation was published: “Lehrbuch
der Gymnastik für Volks- und Bürgerschulen. Aus dem Dänischen übersetzt
von C. Kopp, Gymnastiklehrer am Königl. Schullehrer-Seminar in Tondern,
Dannebrogsmann. Mit vier Steindrücken. Tondern 1831. Gedruckt in der
Königl. privilegirten Buchdruckerey der Wittwe Forchhammer.” Tondern was
then a Danish town, but the German language was used in the _Seminarium_.
State aid was given toward the publication of the book.
[141] “Lærebog i Gymnastik til Brug for de lærde Skoler i Danmark.
Ved F. Nachtegall, Direkteur for og Professor i Gymnastikken; Ridder
af Dbr. og Dbm. Kjøbenhavn. Trykt i det Poppske Bogtrykkeri. 1834.”
Bound with the above: “Regulativ for den gymnastiske Underviisning ved
de lærde Skoler i Danmark.” Of this book also a German translation
appeared: “Lehrbuch der Gymnastik zum Gebrauch für die gelehrten Schulen
in Dänemark. Von F. Nachtegall, Directeur und Professor der Gymnastik,
Ritter von Dannebrog und Dannebrogsmann. Aus dem Dänischen übersetzt
von C. Kopp, Gymnastiklehrer am Königl. Schullehrer-Seminar in Tondern,
Dannebrogsmann. Tondern 1837. Gedruckt in der Königl. privilegirten
Buchdruckerei der Wittwe Forchhammer.” Bound with the above: “Regulativ
für den gymnastischen Unterricht bei den gelehrten Schulen in Dänemark.”
[142] Sources for Nachtegall and his time:
1. Joakim Larsen, “Gymnastikundervisningen i Danmark paa Nachtegalls
Tid (Foredrag ved Gymnastiklærermødet i Stockholm 1895; her meddelt i
en noget udvidet Skikkelse).” In _Vor Ungdom_ (periodical, Copenhagen),
1895, pp. 465-512.
2. Joakim Larsen, article “Nachtegall” in C. F. Bricka’s “Dansk
Biografisk Lexikon,” =12= (Copenhagen, 1898).
3. Joakim Larsen, “Gymnastikundervisningens Indførelse i vore Folkeskoler
for 100 Aar siden.” In Gymnastisk Selskabs Aarsskrift 1913-1914
(Copenhagen, 1914), pp. 5-28.
4. K. A. Knudsen, article “Gymnastik” in “Salmonsens store illustrerede
Konversationsleksikon,” =8= (Copenhagen, 1898).
5. K. A. Knudsen, “Gymnastikken i Danmark i hundrede Aar 1814-1914.”
Foredrag ved de baltiske Lege i Malmö 1914. Copenhagen, 1914.
6. Jens Bergmann, “Hærens Gymnastikskole og Skolegymnastikken.” In
Gymnastisk Selskabs Aarsskrift 1904.
7. Illeris og Trap, “Grundtræk af Gymnastikkens Historie” (Copenhagen,
1909), pp. 72-79.
[143] “Lærebog i Gymnastik for Borger- og Almueskoler.” Copenhagen, 1856
(1855?). Second edition 1860. There was also a “Tillæg til Lærebog i
Gymnastik for Borger- og Almueskolerne.” Copenhagen, 1869.
[144] Now known as the “Army School of Gymnastics” (_Hærens
Gymnastikskole_).
[145] For the history of the Rifle Clubs consult Lieut.-Col. Peter
Ramsing’s “Gymnastiken i de danske Skytteforeninger,” published in the
“Beretning om det skandinaviske Gymnastiklærerselskabs femte almindelige
Møde i København den 12-14. August 1899” (Copenhagen, 1902), pp. 48-73;
and Kristen A. Lange’s “Den Lingske Gymnastik i Danmark 1884-1909”
(Copenhagen, 1909), pp. 60-87.
[146] Sources: “Le Danemark. État actuel de sa civilisation et de son
organisation sociale. Ouvrage publié à l’occasion de l’exposition
universelle de Paris 1900 par J. Carlsen, H. Olrik, C.-N. Starcke”
(Copenhagen, 1900), pp. 180-190; Harold W. Foght, “The Educational System
of Rural Denmark” (U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin 1913, No. 53.
Washington, 1914); L. L. Friend, “The Folk High School of Denmark” (U. S.
Bureau of Education Bulletin 1914, No. 5. Washington, 1914); and Kristen
A. Lange’s “Den Lingske Gymnastik i Danmark 1884-1909” (Copenhagen,
1909), pp. 14 and following.
[147] For the history of the Ling gymnastics in Denmark consult: Ramsing
1899 (as above, under rifle clubs); Knudsen 1914 (as above, under
Nachtegall), pp. 12-30; Kristen A. Lange’s “Den Lingske Gymnastik i
Danmark 1884-1909” (Copenhagen, 1909); Kåre Teilmann’s “Den Lingske
Gymnastik i Danmark,” in _Gymnastisk Selskabs Aarsskrift 1913-1914_
(Copenhagen, 1914), pp. 94-142; “Haandbog i Gymnastik” (Copenhagen,
1899); Prof. K. Kroman, “Den nye danske Skolegymnastik,” in “Beretning
om det skandinaviske Gymnastiklærerselskabs femte almindelige Møde i
København den 12.-14. August 1899” (Copenhagen, 1902), pp. 20-30 (see
also pp. 31-40); “Die Leibespflege in Dänemark: Bericht über eine
einjährige Studienreise von Turnlehrer Otto Plaumann (Beilage zu dem
Jahresbericht des Reform-Realgymnasium zu Kiel.” Kiel, 1910. 48 pages);
“Leibesübungen in Dänemark: Bericht über eine einjährige Studien-Reise
von J. B. Masüger, Turnlehrer an der Kantonsschule in Chur” (Chur, 1912.
104 pages).
[148] Copenhagen, J. Frimodt.
[149] Born at Orte, Island of Fünen, August 21, 1864, and graduated from
the Latin school in Odense in 1883. He had completed his theological
studies in Copenhagen in 1889, and the two-years course at the Stockholm
_Centralinstitut_ in 1891, taught in the Ryslinge (Fünen) people’s high
school 1891-1895 (and during this time was active in spreading the Ling
gymnastics in the Svendborg and Odense county rifle clubs), and besides
practising medical gymnastics had been connected with Frøken Natalie
Zahle’s school and the Rasmussen gymnasium in Copenhagen 1895-1898.
[150] Inspector Knudsen has written the following, all of them published
in Copenhagen, “i Hovedkommission hos J. Frimodt”:
1. “Grundsætninger for Gymnastikundervisning.” 1897. Fourth edition, 1908.
2. “Øvelselære. Forklaring af typiske gymnastiske Øvelser.” 1900. Fourth
revised edition 1911. A German translation (_Turnerische Übungslehre_) by
Ana Iversen, was published by B. G. Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin, in 1915.
3. “Timesedler til Brug ved Gymnastikundervisning for mandlige Elever.”
1900. Fourth edition, 1912.
4. “Timesedler til Brug ved Gymnastikundervisning for kvindelige Elever.”
1900. Fifth edition, 1912.
5. With Sigrid Nutzhorn, “Legemsøvelser for Pigeskolen, ordnede efter
Skoleaar.” Udgivet med Understøttelse fra Ministeriet for Kirke- og
Undervisningsvæsenet. 1913.
6. “Lærebog i Gymnastik for Seminarierne.” 1916. An English translation
(“A Text-book of Gymnastics”) by Ruth Herbert and H. G. Junker was
published in 1920 (London, William Heinemann; Philadelphia, J. B.
Lippincott Co.).
[151] For the later history of physical education in the Danish schools
consult Knudsen in “Salmonsens store illustrerede Konversationsleksikon,”
=19= (Copenhagen, 1911), pp. 631-634; his “Gymnastikken i Danmark
i hundrede Aar 1814-1914” (Copenhagen, 1914), and “Beretning om
Statens Kursus i Gymnastik og om Gymnastikkens Tilstand i de danske
Skoler i 1911” (Copenhagen, 1912); Docent J. Lindhard, “Akademiske
Gymnastiklærere,” in _Gymnastisk Selskabs Aarsskrift_ 1912, pp. 169-177;
and Kristen A. Lange, “Den Lingske Gymnastik i Danmark 1884-1909”
(Copenhagen, 1909).
[152] Temporary quarters, on rented land in a corner of the University
Ball Club’s grounds (_Akademisk Boldklubs Bane_), out Tagensvej near
the corner of Jagtvej. On April 1, 1921, the _Rigsdag_ voted the sum of
500,000 Kr. for new buildings.
[153] “Circulære til samtlige Skoledirektioner om Indførelse af ordnede
Lege for Folkeskolens Børn.” The circular is given in full in the
appendix to the first report (Første Beretning, 1897-1899) of _Udvalget
for danske Skolebørns Fælleslege_ (Copenhagen, 1899).
[154] “Lege, Boldspil og anden Idræt. Kort Vejledning til Brug for
Skoler udarbejdet af Gymnastikkommission.” Copenhagen, 1897. The same
material, somewhat modified, is contained on pp. 275-404 of the “Haandbog
i Gymnastik” of 1899.
[155] _Udvalget for danske Skolebørns Fælleslege._ The Committee, whose
headquarters are in Copenhagen, at Holsteinsgade 11², has issued six
reports, covering respectively the years 1897-1899, 1899-1902, 1902-1905,
1905-1908, 1908-1911, and 1911-1914.
CHAPTER XIX.
GREAT BRITAIN.
While the _Turnverein_, or popular gymnastic society, was spreading
over Germany, and systems of school gymnastics were being developed in
that country and in Sweden, a variety of sports and organized games had
become an established feature of life in the English public schools and
universities.[156] As might be expected, these different types or phases
of physical training have later begun to react upon each other, and
each has been copied in more or less modified form in other countries.
Most European states now have societies modelled after the German
_Turnverein_, and the gymnastics of Spiess won friends among educational
authorities far beyond the bounds of Switzerland and Hesse. We have found
the playground movement making headway in Germany and Denmark, but shall
also see the Swedish system of school gymnastics gain a foothold in
England, as it had already done in Denmark.
In the first chapter of his “Athletics and Football” (The Badminton
Library of Sports and Pastimes) Montague Shearman has reviewed the
history of athletic sports in England. He attempts to show “that
competitions in running, jumping, and hurling of heavy weights are
not only indigenous to the land, but have been one of the chief
characteristics of both town and country life in England as far back as
chronicles will reach; and that athletic sports, though they have had
their days of waxing and waning, have always been a feature of life in
‘Merrie England.’” Young Londoners in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189)
practised “leaping, wrestling, casting of the stone, and playing with the
ball,” together with other exercises, in open spaces set apart for their
use near the city. We have seen (p. 55) that Sir Thomas Elyot, in _The
Boke_ published in 1531, refers to lifting or throwing the heavy stone or
bar, wrestling, running, swimming, handling the sword and the battle-axe,
riding, vaulting, and shooting in a long bow. Some idea of the universal
prevalence of vigorous forms of recreation in the early part of the
seventeenth century we gain from a passage in Robert Burton’s _Anatomy
of Melancholy_. Writing of exercise as a cure (Partition 2, section 2,
member 4), he first considers hunting and fishing, and then goes on to
say that “many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as
ringing, bowling, shooting (archery), which Ascham recommends in a just
volume (_Toxophilus_, 1545) ...; keelpins, tronks, quoits, pitching bars,
hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming,
wasters (fencing with wooden swords), foils, football, balloon, quintain,
etc., and many such, which are the common recreations of the country
folks; riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments,
horse-races, wild-goose chases, which are the disports of greater
men....” The ordinary occasions for the pastimes of the common people
were Sundays and church festivals, and the numerous country fairs. Joseph
Strutt’s volume on “The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,”
published in 1801, gives an entertaining description of town and country
recreations practised “from the earliest period to the present time,” and
it also reflects the general interest in such matters at the opening of
the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.—Eton College: The Wall Game (From “Football, the
American Intercollegiate Game,” by Parke H. Davis).]
When we come to the particular forms of active sport or pastime which
have been popular in Great Britain at one time or another we are amazed
at their number and variety. Activities once practised as a necessary
part of daily life survive in the sports of hunting, shooting, falconry
or hawking, fishing with rod and line, and archery, and the same is true
of walking, mountaineering, rowing and sailing, swimming, skating, and
the like. The primeval joy of combat has been furnished by wrestling,
boxing, fencing with foil and sabre, single-stick and quarter-staff. Man
has matched himself against man in foot-races, broad and high jumping,
weight-throwing and putting the stone or shot, the hammer-throwing and
caber-tossing of the Scottish highlands, and the pole-vaulting which
probably had its origin in contests between messengers whose calling
required them to cross ditches and hedges with the help of jumping-poles.
The game of bowls has been traced back to the thirteenth century or
farther, and curling has been popular in Scotland for three centuries or
more. Skittles, quoits, and hockey or shinny (shinty) have been played
time out of mind. Golf was a formidable rival of archery in Scotland as
far back as the middle of the fifteenth century; but English interest
in the sport is comparatively recent. Polo was not introduced from the
East until about fifty years ago. Tennis and fives, racquets and squash
racquets have long had their devotees, and lawn tennis is now added to
the list. Cricket, while it existed in England as long ago as 1600, did
not become widely popular until towards the middle of the next century;
but football “is undoubtedly the oldest of all English national sports.
For at least six centuries the people have loved the rush and struggle of
the rude and manly game” (Shearman).
[Illustration: FIG. 49.—Football at Rugby School (From H. H. Hardy’s
“Rugby.”)]
Certain ones of these sports are common to several or many countries,
and no nation has a monopoly of games; but Great Britain has been
preëminently the home of such pastimes, and nowhere else have they won
such an enthusiastic following among all classes of society or affected
so large a part of the population. In variety of sports cultivated,
elaborate attention to details, and the perfection of play attained in
games like cricket and football she was long without a rival. Price
Collier, in the chapter on sports in his “England and the English from an
American Point of View” (New York, 1909), quotes some figures which “an
accepted authority upon all matters of sport in England has compiled as
to the investment and expenditures upon sport by the forty odd millions
of inhabitants of Great Britain. His estimates, when they have been
criticized, have been criticized mainly because they were too low.” From
these figures Collier concludes “that some $233,066,250 are invested
permanently, and $223,887,725 spent annually for sport.” He goes on to
say: “Travel by train or motor anywhere in England and you see games
being played—particularly if it be a Saturday—from one end of the country
to the other. The open spaces of England seem to be given over to men and
some women batting, kicking, or hitting a ball. The attendance at games
on a Saturday is very large.... Even at the beginning of the football
season the gate receipts show an attendance of more than 200,000 people.
When the big and final games take place, I have calculated that out
of the male adult population of England and Wales on a great football
Saturday one in every twenty-seven is in attendance at a game of some
sort, and this leans to the error of being too few rather than too many.”
[Illustration: FIG. 50.—Oxford University: The “Eights” on the Thames.]
Foreigners visiting England, and particularly men interested in education
and brought into contact with the athletic life of the great public
schools and Oxford and Cambridge Universities, could not fail to be
impressed by such facts as we have mentioned, and to report them in the
books which were the outcome of their travels. The influence of English
practices on Koch, Hermann, and Hartwich, pioneers of the playground
movement in Germany, and Raydt’s journey of 1886 and the volume embodying
the result of his observations (1889) have been already cited (Chapter
XIV). Professor Törngren, from the Central Institute of Gymnastics in
Stockholm, visited England in 1877 and published a volume on school games
shortly after (p. 162). The results of a later visit (1889) are reported
in the _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ for 1890 (3: 145-195). English customs,
also, seem to have been partly responsible for starting the playground
movement in Denmark (p. 194). Paschal Grousset, the French journalist,
recorded his impressions in “La vie de collège en Angleterre” (Paris, J.
Hetzel, 1880), writing under the _nom de plume_ “André Laurie.” Pierre
de Coubertin, who began his visits to England in 1884, has done the same
in his “L’éducation en Angleterre: collèges et universités” (Paris,
Hachette, 1888). Chapters II-IV in the volume on Physical Education of
the Young by Professor Angelo Mosso, the Turin physiologist (German
translation, 1894; French translation, 1895) reveal his indebtedness to
English experiences. In the United States we have had Caspar Whitney’s
“A Sporting Pilgrimage” (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1894), and John
Corbin’s “School Boy Life in England” (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1898)
and “An American at Oxford” (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1902).
[Illustration: FIG. 51.—Oxford University: The “Eights” Passing the
College Barges.]
To an outsider, attempting to review the earlier history of physical
education in England, it seems that apart from her outdoor sports, in
the form they have assumed at the public schools and universities, her
greatest contribution has been made through the teaching and writings of
Archibald Maclaren, for many years proprietor of a gymnasium at Oxford.
He was born in 1819 or 1820[157] at Alloa, a seaport on the north bank of
the Forth, in Scotland. His daughter writes that she believes his father
was the minister of a neighboring kirk, and the boy was brought up a
Presbyterian. At the age of sixteen or a little older he went to Paris,
and for some years was a student of fencing and gymnastics there. He
also studied medicine; but was most interested in physical training, and
determined to reform gymnastics, make a real science of it, and put it on
a plane where it belonged as a part of education. He therefore settled in
Oxford, and opened a fencing school in Oriel Lane, afterwards converting
it into a gymnasium. In 1858 he erected a building of his own, the
University Gymnasium, on Alfred Street at the corner of Bear Lane.[158]
[Illustration: FIG. 52.—Archibald Maclaren (C. 1820-1884). Copied from a
portrait made about six years before his death.]
An interesting sidelight on Maclaren’s qualities of mind and heart is
afforded by certain events which belong to this period. William Morris
and Edward Burne-Jones, poet- and painter-to-be, entered Exeter College,
at Oxford, in January of 1853, and both young men soon began to frequent
the fencing rooms on Oriel Lane. J. W. Mackail[159] recalls how “between
them and Maclaren himself, a man in the prime of life, cultivated and
full of enthusiasm, a mutual intimacy and liking sprang up, and grew
into a warm friendship. Three or four times in the term they would go
and dine with him in Summertown....” And Lady Burne-Jones[160] speaks
of Maclaren as a “man of the highest character and with warmth and
tenderness underlying reserve of manner. His home at Summertown, then a
small village separated by a stretch of country road from Oxford, was a
sanctuary seldom opened to the outer world.”[161] She calls him one of
the truest friends her husband ever had, and one whose eyes discerned his
pupil’s genius from the first.[162]
[Illustration: FIG. 53.—Maclaren’s Oxford Gymnasium (From frontispiece to
his “A System of Physical Education,” 1869).]
About 1860 Maclaren was asked to work out a system of physical education
for the British army. The result was “A Military System of Gymnastic
Exercises for the Use of Instructors” (London, H. M. Stationery Office,
1862), “approved by the General Commanding in Chief and to be adopted
at all stations where the means of carrying it out may be provided,”
according to a general order issued in February, 1862. Already, in
1861, a gymnasium built on the plan of the Oxford one had been erected
at Aldershot, and Maclaren himself has described[163] the next step in
carrying out the plan of the military authorities. “Two detachments
of non-commissioned officers, under the command of the officer (Major
Hammersley) selected by the authorities to direct its introduction
(_i.e._, the Maclaren system) and conduct its future extension—an
officer specially selected for his high qualifications for the difficult
work of introducing into the Army a new and hitherto entirely untried
institution—were sent to Oxford to be qualified as instructors, and
thence removed to Aldershot to form a normal school for the preparation
of other teachers, and form the center of the military gymnastic system.
“The first detachment of non-commissioned officers, twelve in number,
sent to me to qualify as Instructors for the Army were selected from all
branches of the service. They ranged between nineteen and twenty-nine
years of age, between five feet five inches and six feet in height,
between nine stone two pounds and twelve stone six pounds in weight, and
had seen from two to twelve years’ service. I confess I felt greatly
discomfited at the appearance of this detachment, so different in
every physical attribute; I perceived the difficulty, the very great
difficulty, of working them in the same squad at the same exercises; and
the unfitness of some of them for a duty so special as the instruction
of beginners in a new system of bodily exercise.... But I also saw that
the detachment presented perhaps as fair a sample of the army as it was
possible to obtain in the same number of men, and that if I closely
observed the results of the system upon these men, the weak and the
strong, the short and the tall, the robust and the delicate, I should be
furnished with a fair idea of what would be the results of the system
upon the Army at large. I therefore received the detachment just as it
stood, and following my method of periodic measurements, I carefully
ascertained and registered the developments of each at the commencement
of his course of instruction, and at certain intervals throughout its
progress.”[164]
To this period belong Maclaren’s article on “National Systems of Bodily
Exercise,” published in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ for February, 1863
(VII: 277-286), and another on “Military Gymnasia” which appeared in
Volume VIII of the _Journal of the Royal United Service Institution_
(Oxford, 1864). He also compiled “A System of Fencing, for the Use of
Instructors in the Army” (London, H. M. Stationery Office, 1864). A
general order of July 31, 1864, states that this system, “having been
approved by the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief, is to be adopted in
the Military Gymnasia, and at other stations where the means of carrying
it out may be provided.”[165] The next volume, “Training in Theory and
Practice,”[166] reveals Maclaren at his best. He centers his remarks
about a single exercise, rowing, and “in a great measure the mode in
which that exercise is practised at our Universities and Public Schools.”
This selection is made because he believes rowing to be “the exercise
most susceptible of being influenced by a judicious system of bodily
preparation, being at once an art of considerable intricacy, demanding
long and assiduous practice, and an exercise of considerable difficulty,
involving the possession—although not in an equal degree—of both muscular
and respiratory power, to promote which is the object of all training.”
Exercise (pp. 2-59), diet (60-119), and sleep, air, bathing, clothing
(120-158) are discussed in turn in a clear, sane, and masterly fashion,
with frequent sharp and skilful thrusts at time-honored customs and
beliefs. Fourteen appendices contain diagrams and tables relating to
boats, diet, training systems, etc. It remains today one of the most
valuable books of its class. A second edition, in 1874,[167] is enlarged
by the addition of a practical course of training for the several kinds
of boat-races practised at the university (pp. 119-160), a review of J.
E. Morgan’s “University Oars” (161-192), reprinted from _Nature_,[168]
and an appendix on the subject of the sliding seat.
Outside of England, at least, Maclaren is best known through his latest
volume, “A System of Physical Education, Theoretical and Practical,”
published in 1869.[169] The book is arranged in three parts: (1) Growth
and Development (pp. 3-101), (2) Practical System of Gymnastic Exercises
(105-472), and (3) Appendices A-K (475-518). While the second part, which
makes up nearly three-quarters of the volume, is not without interest as
a manual of gymnastics embodying the author’s ideas and the results of
his long and varied experience,[170] it is the first hundred pages and
certain of the appendices which have raised it to the rank of a classic
in its field. After pointing out that “exercise alone of all the agents
of growth and development can be regarded in an _educational_ light—alone
is capable of being permanently systematized and administered as a
means of progressive bodily culture,” he proceeds to discuss its nature
and effects in terms of the physiological science of his day, much of
it now outgrown. Health, rather than strength, should be the aim, he
says. “Scholarships Junior and Senior, Examinations, open Fellowships,
speculations, promotions, excitements, stimulations, long hours of work,
late hours of rest, jaded frames, weary brains, jarring nerves—all
intensified and intensifying—seek in modern times for the antidote to be
found alone in physical action.” School-games, sports and pastimes he
finds, “from their very nature, are inadequate to produce the uniform and
harmonious development of the entire frame, because the employment which
they give is essentially partial.... Recreative exercise in sufficient
amount is usually in itself sufficient to maintain health and strength
after growth and development are completed, but it does not meet the many
wants of the rapidly-changing and plastic frames of youths spending a
large portion of their time in the constrained positions of study.”
He dwells at length upon conditions in the army, the attempt which he
had made to meet them with his military system, and the results secured
(pp. 64-94). “Now if all this arrangement and method were considered
necessary in the organization of the bodily exercise of full-grown
men—men of mature frame and hardy habit, and at the period of life when
all the physical energies are at their highest point of power, at least
as much precaution and forethought and method, it would be expected,
would be adopted on its administration with boys and lads at school,
whose frames are all incomplete and impressionable in the highest degree;
capable of being affected for good or evil by every surrounding agency.
But what are the facts? Except the two Military Colleges of Woolwich
and Sandhurst, and Radley College, not one of our large educational
establishments is provided with a regularly organized Gymnasium
with properly qualified teachers.... In our day if gymnastics mean
anything,—that is, anything worth the serious thought of parent, teacher,
or pupil,—they mean a gradual, progressive system of physical exercise,
so conceived, so arranged, and so administered, that it will naturally
and uniformly call forth and cultivate the latent powers and capacities
of the body, even as the mental faculties are developed and strengthened
by mental culture and mental exercise.”
In the appendix Maclaren illustrates certain forms of growth and
development, regular and irregular, at different ages (A. Figs. 1-14);
gives tables showing the state of growth and development between the ages
of ten and eighteen years (B), and of men on arriving at the University
(C); one which shows the influence of systematized exercise, extending
over periods of several years, on boys of different conditions of growth
and development, and on men of different degrees of physical power (D);
and others containing measurements of non-commissioned officers before
and after their course of training under him (E), and corresponding
figures for youths at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (F), and for
two pupils of his own (G); explains his system of measurements (H), goes
into some detail regarding the construction and requirements of gymnasia
(I), and closes with tables of best performances at certain athletic
meetings (K). It is this practical demonstration of what regular exercise
will accomplish, as well as his impressive setting forth of the need for
it, that has caused his book to be so often quoted and makes it one of
permanent value.
The first trace of the Ling system of medical gymnastics in England we
find in 1838, when Lieutenant Govert Indebetou (the name is also written
_In de Betou_), after completing the course at the Central Institute of
Gymnastics in Stockholm, moved over to England and began the practice
of that art in London. His work was continued for a time by an English
physician, John W. F. Blundell. Another Swede, Lieutenant C. Ehrenhoff,
settled in London for the same purpose in the early forties. Much more
significant was the arrival of Carl August Georgii from Stockholm,
where he had been a teacher at the Central Institute since 1829 and head
teacher after 1840. He opened a private institute in London in 1850,
and continued in active practice and teaching there until 1877. One of
his pupils was the English physician M. J. Chapman, and another was Dr.
Mathias Roth.[171] All of these men published pamphlets or more elaborate
treatises on the subject. Of the Swedish system of school gymnastics,
originated by P. H. Ling, but given its present form by his son Hjalmar
in the years 1864-1882, we hear first in 1878. Dr. Roth had interested
Mrs. Alice Westlake, a member of the London School Board, in this form
of physical education, and in that year she persuaded the Board to
engage Miss Concordia Löfving, a graduate of the Central Institute in
Stockholm in 1870, to give a course in the theory and practice of Swedish
gymnastics to women teachers under the Board, leading to a special
certificate.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.—Martina Bergman Österberg (1849-1915).]
In 1881, at the end of the summer term, Miss Löfving withdrew from the
service of the Board, and Miss Martina Bergman (later Mme. Bergman
Österberg)[172] was appointed superintendent of physical exercise in
girls’ and infants’ schools. Within the next six years, under her
direction, the system was introduced into 300 schools, and 1000 teachers
were trained. September 23, 1885, Miss Bergman opened a Training College
for (women) Teachers of Physical Education at Reremonde, Broadhurst
Gardens, Hampstead, N. W. (a borough of London), removing it ten years
later to Kingsfield, Dartford Heath, Kent, and in her thirty years at
the head of this school she built it up into an institution of more than
national influence and importance. In 1893 she was present at the eighth
annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of
Physical Education and the Congress of Physical Education in Chicago, and
in 1900 she attended the International Congress of Physical Education
in Paris and gave a demonstration there with her pupils.[173] Captain
J. D. Haasum, graduated at the Stockholm Central Institute in 1872 and
teacher there since 1873, spent six months in London in 1884 and gave the
first training course in Swedish gymnastics to a number of men teachers
under the School Board, with the help of a gymnasium fitted up at the
Crampton Street schools, Walworth. This work was continued by Allan
Broman (Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics 1883), who at a later
period (October, 1911) opened in London a “Central Institute for Swedish
Gymnastics, for Men Students of Physical Training.”
How the Swedish system was introduced into the British Navy and
substituted, in large part, for the Maclaren gymnastics in the Army,
may be told in a few words. Commander N. C. Palmer of the Navy spent
some weeks in Stockholm in the autumn of 1902, in order to study the
organization and management of instruction in gymnastics there, and upon
his return set in motion plans for the training of instructors from
among officers and non-commissioned officers. In the summer of 1903
Allan Broman was put in charge of the first course at Portsmouth, given
to sixty officers in the British Navy. That same year a _Handbook of
Physical Training_, published by authority of the Lords Commissioners
of the Admiralty, was issued.[174] Part I (pp. 4-73) is evidently based
upon the Swedish Army and Navy Manual of 1902 (see p. 163), in both
text and illustrations. A new Handbook, much enlarged and altogether
Swedish, was published in 1910, the work of Lieutenant Lockhart Leith,
who during a winter in Stockholm had taken part in the exercises at the
Central Institute of Gymnastics. In 1906 the Army authorities decided
to introduce the same system, but instead of going to Sweden they
applied to the Danish government for a man capable of teaching it at the
Aldershot training school for instructors. H. P. Langkilde (p. 192) was
selected for the task. He began a course with the sixteen teachers at
the school in August, and the next month a regular four-months’ course
with non-commissioned officers. By the first of the next year (1907)
the transition to the new system was complete. A _Manual of Physical
Training_, worked out by Major Moore in collaboration with Langkilde on
the basis of the Danish _Haandbog_ of 1899, the Army and Navy Manual
(Danish) of 1905, and the books of Knudsen was published in 1908.[175]
March 31, 1902, King Edward VII appointed a commission of nine “to
enquire into the opportunities for physical training now available in
the State-aided schools and other educational institutions of Scotland;
and to suggest means by which such training may be made to conduce to
the welfare of the pupils; and further, how such opportunities may be
increased by continuation classes and otherwise, so as to develop, in
their practical application to the requirements of life, the faculties
of those who have left the day schools, and thus to contribute towards
the sources of national strength.” This commission reported under date
of March 14, 1903,[176] and perusal of the second volume shows the
Swedish system still in use in elementary schools for girls under the
London School Board, and in two Merchant Company’s higher schools for
girls in Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Ladies’ College and George Watson’s
Ladies’ College. Having regard to the findings of this Royal Commission
an “Interdepartmental (_i.e._, English and Scotch) Committee on the
Model Course of Physical Exercises,” under date of March 10, 1904,
presented to both Houses of Parliament a report directed to “the Right
Honorable the Lord President of the (English) Board of Education and
the Right Honorable the Vice-President of the Committee of the Privy
Council on Education in Scotland.”[177] On pp. 10-49 is the proposed
Syllabus of Physical Exercises, based in general on the Swedish system.
In consequence of this report the English Board of Education published
its first official “Syllabus of Physical Exercises for Use in Public
Elementary Schools” in 1904.[178] The next year it was reprinted, with
slight alterations; but the third edition,[179] four years later,
contains “further amendments and extensive revisions, which are based
upon experience.... Speaking generally the new Syllabus, like its
predecessor, is based on the Swedish system of educational gymnastics
which has been adopted in several European countries, and is now the
basis of physical training in the Army and Navy in this country” (p. vi).
The part played by Denmark in this transplantation of an alien system to
British soil has been already indicated (p. 192). Even in the endowed
Public Schools, the very strongholds of athletic sports, we find it
introduced as a general requirement, to supplement the effects of
outdoor recreation. Lieutenant F. H. Grenfell, who had taken work at the
Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics, brought it to Eton College in
1907, and Captain E. C. Brierly, of the Army, undertook a similar task
at Rugby in September of 1911. Harrow and Winchester, at least, among
the other public schools, also possess gymnasia in addition to their
extensive playgrounds.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.—Eton College: The Gymnasium (1913).]
[Illustration: FIG. 56.—Rugby School: The Gymnasium (From H. H. Hardy’s
“Rugby”).]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.—Dunfermline College of Hygiene and Physical
Education: The New College and Clinics Building.]
To this fragmentary review of certain phases of physical education
in Great Britain a paragraph on the Dunfermline College of Hygiene
and Physical Training should be added. The Carnegie Dunfermline Trust
was formed in August of 1903, and in the hands of its Trustees Andrew
Carnegie placed a princely fund to be used for the benefit of the town
of his birth. A gymnasium was opened October 21, 1904, and the New Baths
March 31, 1905. Physical training was introduced into the schools soon
after the Trustees came into office, and medical inspection of school
children was begun in 1906. October 4, 1905, a College of Hygiene and
Physical Training (for women) was opened, offering a two-year course and
housed at first in the Gymnasium and Swimming Pool, on Pilmur Street.
Three years later a men’s department was added, and the two departments
were united in 1911. By the next fall 75 students had received diplomas
for the full course. Meanwhile, in July of 1909, the Trustees learned
that the College had been recognized by the Scotch Education Department
as a Central Institution for the purpose of the Education (Scotland) Act
of 1908, _i.e._, for the training of teachers for the schools of that
country; and by an arrangement approved in 1912 the services of certain
teachers on the college staff are available for the work of inspecting
the teaching of physical exercises in schools throughout Scotland.
Venturefair Park, seven acres in extent, was leased for the games of the
College students and opened July 27, 1909, and in September of 1914 a new
building, the foundation stone of which had been laid by Mr. Carnegie two
years before, was occupied by the College and the School Clinics. Early
in 1911 the original gift to the Trust had been increased by one half,
raising the fund to $3,750,000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes (London: Longmans, Green &
Co.; Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 28 volumes, 1885-1896) is unique in its
field. Robert Scott Fittis, in “Sports and Pastimes of Scotland” (Paisley
and London, Alexander Gardner, 1891), offers some material of historical
interest. Other sources have been mentioned or suggested in the text.
FOOTNOTES:
[156] See footnote, page 133.
[157] He died February 20, 1884, at the age of sixty-four.
[158] Described in the _Deutsche Turn-Zeitung_ for January, 1860 (V: 8).
[159] In “The Life of William Morris” (London and New York: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1899).
[160] In “Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones” (New York, The Macmillan Co.,
1904).
[161] “Mrs. Maclaren was the daughter of D. A. Talboys, the Oxford
printer, and under her father had been trained as a first-rate classical
scholar” (Charles L. Graves, in “Life and Letters of Alexander
Macmillan,” London, Macmillan & Co., 1910).
[162] The first step in the artistic life of Burne-Jones, she says, “was
a series of pen-and-ink designs made at the suggestion of his friend Mr.
Maclaren. These drawings were intended for illustrations to a volume of
Ballads upon the Fairy Mythology of Europe, which Maclaren had written
with the intention of publishing immediately.... The scheme included a
frontispiece, title-page, illustrations and ornamental letters. They were
begun early in 1854 and carried on for about two years and a half, and in
the series may be traced his development from the time that he first went
into the Wytham woods to draw leaves and branches until the day when he
discovered that the human form was the alphabet of the language which he
was henceforth to use.” The frontispiece, title-page, and a tail-piece on
page 279 are all that appear in “The Fairy Family: a Series of Ballads
and Metrical Tales Illustrating the Fairy Mythology of Europe,” which
Maclaren published anonymously in 1857 (London: Longman, Brown, Green,
Longmans, and Roberts). A second edition, published in 1873, bears
Maclaren’s name on the title-page and is dedicated “To my daughter Mabel”
(London, Macmillan & Co.).
[163] In his “System of Physical Education,” 1869, pp. 72, 73 and 93.
[164] Maclaren’s “system of measurements to determine the rate of growth
and development” is given in Appendix H of the volume just quoted.
Appendix E contains a “table of measurements of first detachment of
non-commissioned officers selected to be qualified as military gymnastic
instructors,” showing increases for the seven and a half months between
September 11 and April 30; and a similar table of measurements of the
second detachment, with increases for the period extending from October
27, 1862, to July 12, 1863.
[165] In September of 1864 Mrs. Maclaren opened at Summertown a private
school intended to prepare boys for the (endowed) public schools. The
venture proved a very successful one from the start, and was continued
by her son-in-law. Alexander Macmillan, one of the founders of the
publishing house which bears that name, had made the acquaintance of the
Maclarens in the summer of 1864, and by his efforts did much to enlist
the interest of influential patrons, in addition to sending his own son
George and two nephews. See pp. 225-227 in the “Life and Letters of
Alexander Macmillan,” by Charles L. Graves (London, Macmillan & Co.,
1910).
[166] London, Macmillan & Co., 1866.
[167] London, Macmillan & Co.
[168] Vol. =7=, 397-399, 418-421, and 458-460 (March 27, April 3 and 17,
1873).
[169] Oxford, Clarendon Press. A second edition, unchanged, was issued
the year after the author’s death (Oxford, 1885), and a third, reëdited
and enlarged by his son, Wallace Maclaren, appeared ten years later
(Oxford, 1895).
[170] “The system which I advocate is the result of my professional
life—developed and matured by every means which I could bring to bear
upon it by physiological theory or practical test. The period of its
preparation extends over nearly a quarter of a century, for during that
period I have been, as it were, standing in the midst of a living stream
of men and boys flowing in from every school, public and private, in the
kingdom; youths possessing every degree of physical power—presenting
every phase of physical weakness. On these, _by_ these, every exercise
in the system has been tested; its nature, its character defined and its
results ascertained, its place in the progressive courses slowly and
carefully determined” (pp. 89 and 90).
[171] Born in Kassa (Kaschau), Hungary, in 1818; studied in Vienna and
Pavia, and won his medical degree at the latter university in 1839; took
part in the Hungarian War of Independence (1849), and afterwards made his
way to England as a political refugee. See _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_ =2=,
225-235 and =9=, 293-297.
[172] Born in Skåne, south Sweden, October 7, 1849; graduated from the
Central Institute of Gymnastics in Stockholm in 1881; died July 29, 1915.
[173] See _Tidskrift i Gymnastik_, =6=, 687-694 (1908).
[174] London, H. M. Stationery Office.
[175] London, H. M. Stationery Office.
[176] Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland),
presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty.
Edinburgh, H. M. Stationery.
[177] London, H. M. Stationery Office.
[178] Ibid.
[179] The Syllabus of Physical Exercises for Schools. 1909. London, as
above.
CHAPTER XX.
INTERNATIONAL GATHERINGS.
The types or systems of physical training found in Europe can all be
reduced to three elemental forms, illustrated by the _Turnverein_ or
popular gymnastic society of Germany, the athletic sports and active
games of the English public schools and universities, and the school
gymnastics of Germany and Sweden. Corresponding to each of these, in
a way, there have been international gatherings of three sorts in
recent years, _i.e._, conventions and competitive meets of the European
gymnastic federations, “games” and congresses held under the auspices of
the International Olympic Committee, and a series of congresses organized
with a view to better understanding of the principles and methods of
physical education.
In 1881 Nicolas Jan Cupérus of Antwerp, president of the _Fédération
belge de Gymnastique (Belgische Turnbund)_, proposed an association
of the various national organizations of popular gymnastic societies
in Europe. Preliminary conventions were held at Liège on July 23d
of that year and again on August 14-16, 1896, and arrangements were
completed in Brussels, July 3-5, 1897. A permanent committee (_Bureau_)
was appointed, with Cupérus as president. The articles of agreement
provided for an exchange of publications and official documents,
established rules governing invitations to national meets and conditions
of participation in them, recognized only such national organizations
as held themselves aloof from political and religious controversies,
and stated the attitude of the union towards professionalism and in
regard to the sort of prizes which should be awarded in competitions.
The following federations subscribed to these articles: the Belgian,
Czech, French, British (the National Physical Recreation Society, Amateur
Gymnastic and Fencing Association, Irish Amateur Gymnastic Association,
Scottish Amateur Gymnastic Association, and later the Welsh Amateur
Gymnastic Association), Italian, Luxemburg (Grand Duchy), Hungarian,
Netherlandish, Norwegian, and Swedish. The Danish federation was added
later, but the German _Turnerschaft_ and the Swiss _Eidgenössischer
Turnverein_, together with smaller organizations in Austria, the Balkan
States, Russia, Finland, and Portugal have never become affiliated. Seven
statistical “Annuals”[180] have been published under the editorship of
Cupérus. Since 1897 conventions have been held at Antwerp (August 14,
1903), Berne (July 14, 1906), Prague (July 1, 1907), Paris (November 21,
1908), and Luxemburg (July 21, 1909); and there have been international
meets for competition at Antwerp (1903), Bordeaux (1905), Prague (1907),
Luxemburg (1909), Turin (1911), and Paris (1913).
[Illustration: FIG. 58.—Pierre de Coubertin (1863-).]
The story of the modern Olympic Games, and the events which led up to
them may best be told in the words of Dr. Albert Shaw[181] and Professor
William Milligan Sloane.[182] Its central figure in the early years is
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, scion of an old French family, born January 1,
1863, and educated in the schools of Paris. “It was in 1884, when only
twenty-one years of age,” says Dr. Shaw, “that M. de Coubertin began
his visits to England, with the prime object of acquainting himself
intimately with the life of the great public schools,—Rugby, Eton,
Harrow, and the others of that type. He had become strongly convinced
that there was an element in English education that was sadly lacking in
the French schools. Obviously and conspicuously, the English training in
athletics, and the English devotion to outdoor sports and exercises, were
almost totally unknown in the French lyceums and collegiate institutes.
But Coubertin clearly perceived that something even more serious was
concerned than the mere question of physical culture. He understood that
in the rowing, football, and cricket of the English schools, and all
their other games, contests, and field-day exercises, there was involved
an element of moral discipline and strength that supplied in some sense
a key to the secret of England’s power. Not merely a manliness expressed
in muscular force and physical bearing was developed in the English
arena of school sports or neighborhood contests and pastimes, but also
a fine spirit of fair play, a hatred of meanness, lying, and all forms
of deceit, and that fundamental kind of honor and integrity of character
that causes Englishmen to be trusted and respected, even if not greatly
beloved, by all races, in all lands. Furthermore, this love of hardy
games and contests seemed to Coubertin the best sort of protection to the
young men of our times from the temptation to unworthy indulgences that
tend to undermine personal vigor and thereby to diminish the vitality of
the nation.
“The drift in France among young men of education was towards softness
and overrefinement, and the vices that are somewhat dangerously akin to
certain phases of aesthetic development. The ideals of youth in England
seemed, as compared with those of France, to make for the clear eye,
the steady hand, the firm will,—in short, for self-control and the
conservation of energy. It was, therefore, with no mere boyish fondness
for the excitement of athletic contest, considered as a thing desirable
in itself, that M. de Coubertin devoted himself to the development or
the revival of a high type of manhood among French students.... He was
ready at length in 1888, at the age of twenty-five, to publish his book
_L’Éducation en Angleterre_ (see p. 202), an account of school life in
England, which, while valuable on any account, was of particular use
in the advancement of the cause to which all his efforts were really
devoted. The book attracted very favorable attention in France, and its
success gave the young author and reformer prestige enough for the public
launching of his practical movement, this taking the form of a ‘committee
for the propagation of sports and physical exercises in education,’ with
that eminent statesman, scholar, and educational authority, Jules Simon,
as president of the committee.”
In 1889, in connection with the Paris Exposition, he organized a congress
on physical education, and that autumn visited the United States, under
commission from the National Department of Public Instruction, to study
the organization, work, and life of American colleges. “Meanwhile,”
continues Shaw, “all this work for the encouragement of the athletic
spirit in the French institutions had begun to tell strongly; and
in the season of 1891-1892 it was possible under M. de Coubertin’s
leadership to organize what is now the well-known _Union des Sociétés des
Sports Athlétiques_. This central body is a confederation of about two
hundred French athletic clubs and societies, half of which are in the
universities and colleges. With a view to keeping the French student’s
interest from flagging, M. de Coubertin endeavored to make some plans for
English and American competitions. Thus, in 1892, international football
matches were begun between French and English teams, Lord Dufferin
himself presiding over the first one held at Paris. M. de Coubertin
also succeeded in securing the recognition of the French Union by the
Henley Regatta Committee, and the admission of French rowing crews to the
university contests on the Thames. Again, in that same season, he secured
the visit to Paris of a team of American university athletes, as the
result of the efforts of an American committee which he had organized and
in which his friend Professor Sloane, then of Princeton University, was
especially active....
“To crown the work of the year, M. de Coubertin, at the end of November
(1892), gave a lecture in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne, in which
he disclosed his plan for the reëstablishment of the Olympic games.
The enlistment of American interest in this ambitious project for a
modern quadrennial tournament of games and sports that should be open to
amateurs—particularly those of the student class—from all nations, was
much facilitated by M. de Coubertin’s second visit to the United States,
which occurred in 1893.... Before leaving this country in the autumn of
1893 he had aroused a very general interest, especially in the college
world, in his plan for the Olympic games. A little later, in the early
weeks of 1894, he was actively at work in England holding conferences and
forming his committee for the promotion of the idea of the quadrennial
athletic tournament. In June of that year the subject was taken up by a
great conference or congress, held at the Sorbonne in Paris (June 16-24),
a dozen or more nations being represented. King George of the Hellenes
sent his best wishes; and the eight-day conference, with its accompanying
fêtes and sports in the Bois du Boulogne, was fairly successful,
resulting in the formation of an international committee to carry the
Olympic plan into effect.”
[Illustration: FIG. 59.—The Stadium at Athens (1906).]
So far Dr. Shaw. Professor Sloane quotes from a preliminary circular of
January 15, 1894, the final sentence of which reads as follows: “The
reëstablishment of the Olympic Games on a basis and under conditions
conformable to the needs of modern life would bring together every
four years representatives of all nations, and it is permissible to
suppose that these peaceful and courteous contests would supply the
best of internationalisms.” “To this circular,” he says, “came a very
irregular and scattering response. The German federations took no notice
whatever, the gymnastic element in France was hostile, the British were
lukewarm, the Belgians frankly and actively embattled. They had always
held and still were of the opinion that gymnastics and sports were two
inimical things and would always combat the latter as opposed to the
former. Italy, Spain, Greece and above all Sweden sent regular delegates.
Somehow or another seventy-nine persons representing something or another
appeared at the congress. The many sessions were well attended, the
accompanying festivities were dignified and inspiring. No one present
can ever forget the great assemblage at the Sorbonne, the inspiring
address of Courvel, the superb poem of Sicard, the wonderful execution
of the hymn to Apollo, recently discovered at Delphi, nor the enthusiasm
of the closing banquet. These were but a few of the notable events of
the week. The climax of the proceedings was a unanimous vote for the
reëstablishment of the Olympiads with the opening of the new century; but
second thoughts were even more enthusiastic than first and it was finally
determined to hold the first one at Athens in 1896.
“Greek royalty was already enrolled among the patrons of the scheme,
Greek patriotism might be relied upon for material and effective
support. Such at least was the opinion of M. Bikelas, the Greek member,
the greatest modern Greek man of letters, exerting by the charm of his
manner, the weight of his character and the gifts of his liberal hand,
such an influence on the evolution of modern Greece as no other single
man has been able to deploy. The event showed the correctness of his
judgment and the weight of his personal influence. The president of the
International Committee was received in Athens with enthusiasm, a wealthy
Greek merchant of Alexandria, M. Averoff, caused the ancient Stadium to
be restored and newly lined with Pentelic marble at his personal cost. A
princely gift of a million drachmæ, other lavish personal contributions,
and what amounted to a subsidy from the Greek Government completed the
necessary fund. A very considerable legacy to the state from the brothers
Zappas, designated for the furtherance of physical culture, was through
the untiring persistency of M. de Coubertin, aided by two devoted Greek
friends, M. Antonopoulo and Alexander Mercati, appropriated by government
consent for Olympic purposes. The enterprise was therefore brilliantly
launched.
“The succession of Olympic Games is well known: after Athens in 1896,
Paris in 1900, St. Louis in 1904, London in 1908, Stockholm in 1912,
Berlin (designated for 1916 and actually prepared but lapsed owing
to war) and Antwerp in 1920. Each has been more amazing than its
predecessor: in the number of nations represented, in the number and
quality of competitors, in the greater perfection of preparation for each
sport, in the number of sports clustered around the Olympic week of field
and track events, in the social arrangements for better acquaintance
among competitors and the ever-growing throng of visitors, and above all
in the passionate interest of all peoples in all lands.... While track
and field sports are the nucleus of the sport-plexus, they are not the
whole of it. Nor is sport in the narrow sense the whole of it. All kinds
of outdoor exercises and games have attached themselves to the Olympic
week of track and field athletics—central and focal in modern as in
ancient Olympiads—to such an extent that no national Olympic council
can provide for all in the arrangements for the Olympiad to be held.
Instead of an Olympic week we already have Olympic months and a very
powerful movement was started some years ago to include winter sports of
every kind, and expand into an Olympic year. It has become absolutely
necessary, if there are to be Olympiads, that contraction should be
substituted for expansion in the number of admitted sports or games
represented by federations, national or international.
“Furthermore, the Olympic idea comprehends something, yes much, quite
aside from contests of foremost experts in sport and play. For the
Antwerp Olympiad arrangements included lectures, preliminary in the not
too distant future to contests in belles lettres and the fine arts. Such
competition is already in evidence as actually existent though still
inchoate. In particular, however, and poignantly the Olympic idea as
represented by its carriers proposes ‘all sports for all’ in the literal
sense of the words. The Committee hopes that the day is not far distant
when through its moral influence, orient as well as occident may be
nationally organized for competition and that the benefits of ‘play for
country’ as well as for self may by such organizations be alluringly
offered to youths and adults of both sexes in every walk of life. To
this end its plans are already laid, and already great portions of the
globe hitherto inert athletically are girding themselves for Olympic
organization. The field therefore of the Olympic idea is not merely
sportive and social, it is educational and sociological as well. The
intercourse of athletes and their friends makes for reciprocal goodwill
and international peace; but in its largest aspect the idea makes for
the general uplift and personal purity of untold millions....”
[Illustration: FIG. 60.—The Stockholm Stadium (1912).]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.—Stockholm, 1912: The Swedish Gymnasts Marching
into the Stadium.]
[Illustration: FIG. 62.—Stockholm, 1912: Swedish Women on the Long
Horizontal Bar (_Bom_).]
[Illustration: FIG. 63.—Stockholm, 1912: The Danish Gymnasts.]
[Illustration: FIG. 64.—Stockholm, 1912: The Finnish Gymnasts.]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.—Stockholm, 1912: Finnish Women on the Ladders.]
The first international congress for the promotion of physical education
was held at Paris, June 8-15, 1889, in connection with the Universal
Exposition. Its organizer and general secretary was Pierre de Coubertin,
and the presiding officer was Jules Simon. At the same time came the
fifteenth annual fête (_Turnfest_) of the _Union des Sociétés de
gymnastique de France_, attended also by representatives from gymnastic
societies in Belgium, Holland, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the three
Scandinavian countries, Bohemia, and Switzerland. The Scandinavians
did not take part in competition, but the delegations from each of the
three countries went through their exercises separately in front of the
tribune. In addition the group of Stockholm gymnasts, under the direction
of Captain Viktor Balck of the Central Institute, appeared before the
international congress on the 14th, at the Nouveau Cirque, rue St.
Honore, in another exhibition of the Swedish system. A second _Congrès
international de l’Éducation physique_ met in Paris August 30-September
6, 1900, during the progress of the _Exposition universelle_ of that
year, with M. Georges Demeny (1850-1917) as general secretary.[183]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.—Georges Demeny (1850-1917).]
Demeny, at first won over to the Swedish system by what he saw and heard
at Paris in 1889 and during a mission to Sweden with Dr. Fernand Lagrange
(1845-1909) in the autumn of 1890, afterwards withdrew from association
with men like Dr. Philippe Tissié who advocated the Ling gymnastics for
French schools, and sought to build up an eclectic (“French”) system
of his own. Both parties were represented at the _Congrès Olympique
international de Sport et d’Éducation physique_ in Brussels June 9-14,
1905, and the _Deuxième Congrès international de l’Éducation physique de
la jeunesse_ at Liège, August 28-September 1 of that year,[184] and there
were preliminary skirmishes at the latter; but the first real battle
was fought a few weeks later, at the _Congrès international d’Expansion
économique mondiale_, in Mons (September 24-27). Five years later each
group organized its own congress, the friends of the Swedish system a
_Congrès international de Gymnastique pédagogique, militaire, médicale
et esthétique_, which met in Brussels, August 4-6, 1910,[185] and Demeny
and his followers a (third) _Congrès international d’Éducation physique_
in the same city a week later (August 10-13).[186] A Danish committee
representing friends of the Ling system organized another international
congress, which held its sessions in Odense, Denmark, July 7-10,
1911.[187] The last congress to be called together before the outbreak
of the Great War met in Paris under the auspices of the _Faculté de
Médecine_, March 17-20, 1913.[188]
FOOTNOTES:
[180] Annuaires des Fédérations Européennes de Gymnastique, 1898 (14
pages), 1899 (16), 1900 (21), 1901 (47), 1902 (32 pages of text and
17 plates containing portraits), 1906 (49), and 1913 (? Not seen, but
reviewed in _Deutsche Turn-Zeitung_ 1913, pages 138 and 141).
[181] In “The Evolution of France under the Third Republic,” by Baron
Pierre de Coubertin. Translated from the French by Isabel F. Hapgood.
Authorized edition with special Preface and Additions and Introduction by
Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor of _The Review of Reviews_. New York and Boston,
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1897. See Introduction, pages iii-xxiii.
[182] First American member of the International Olympic Committee.
Quoted from his chapter (pages 71-83) in “Report of the American Olympic
Committee, Seventh Olympic Games, Antwerp, Belgium, 1920.”
[183] See his “Procès-verbaux sommaires,” Paris, Imprimerie Nationale,
1900.
[184] See the _Règlement et rapports préliminaires_ and the _Compte
rendu_ of the second congress (Nivelles, Lanneau & Despret).
[185] See the _Rapport-général_, Brussels, 1910.
[186] There is a report by the delegates from the United States in the
Bureau of Education Report for 1910 (I: 598-601).
[187] See “Procès-verbal du Congrès international de l’Éducation physique
à Odense (Danmark)” (Copenhagen, J. H. Schultz, 1911).
[188] “Congrès international de l’Éducation physique (programme and
announcement), Paris, Faculté de Médecine, 17-20 Mars 1913.”
PART II.
UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE JAHN GYMNASTICS INTO AMERICA.
The different systems or sorts of physical training which were brought
forward for trial and the agencies which promoted its spread in the
United States during the nineteenth century fall into three groups,
centered about 1830, 1860, and the decade from 1880 to 1890. The first
group includes Captain Alden Partridge and his military academies;[189]
the introduction of the Jahn gymnastics and the opening of school,
college, and city or public outdoor gymnasia under the direction of the
German refugees Beck, Follen, and Lieber; the attempt to provide manual
labor as a system of exercise in educational institutions;[190] and the
use of “calisthenics” for girls and women, by Catharine Beecher in her
schools in Hartford and Cincinnati.[191] Space limits have prevented the
discussion of any but the second member of this group in the present
volume.
The first school, college, and public gymnasia in the United States—all
of them outdoor ones of the early Jahn type—were opened in the years 1825
and 1826 in Massachusetts, at Northampton, Cambridge, and Boston. All
three were laid out and directed by university trained Germans, who had
been active participants in the Jahn gymnastics in their student days
and had left their native land for the United States in order to escape
arrest or constant persecution under the reactionary policy adopted by
the Holy Alliance.
One of these men was Charles Theodore Christian Follen (German, _Karl
Follenius_ or _Follen_), born September 4, 1796, in Romrod, a market-town
north of the Vogelsberg. His father was counsellor at law and judge
at Giessen, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and he received his own early
training at the classical secondary school and the university in that
city. When the German War of Liberation broke out, in 1813, like most of
the Giessen students he joined the army, with his brothers August (later
called Adolf Ludwig) and Paul, but was taken sick with typhus fever
within a few weeks, and though he returned to his regiment afterwards
he was never under fire. When peace was concluded (1814) he resumed the
study of jurisprudence at Giessen, and in March of 1818 received his
diploma from the university as doctor of the civil and ecclesiastical law.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.—Charles Follen (1796-1840).]
Like many another German student, Follen had come back from the war
filled with ideas of moral and social reform. In place of the provincial
clubs (_Landsmannschaften_), with their carousing and the duel as their
only arbiter of quarrels, he desired to see the entire student body
united in one Christian brotherhood, with no distinctions of class or
rank, ruled by the will of the majority determined in open assembly after
free discussion, and settling all disputes according to the principles
of right and justice. The purity of his own life and the moral greatness
of his character, the eloquence with which he urged his views, and his
confident enthusiasm soon won a following of like-minded friends, in
whose eyes he took on the dignity of a very prophet. The first motion
toward union was taken in the late summer of 1816. A few days after
the following Christmas, at a general gathering of students, a formal
“code of honor” (_Ehrenspiegel_), Follen’s work in great part, was
proposed. A majority of those present evinced their hostility to the
project by withdrawing at once; but about sixty who remained organized
themselves into an association, under Follen’s leadership. Looked upon
with suspicion by the authorities on account of their liberal tendencies,
hated and proscribed by a majority of the students, who nicknamed
them “Blacks” (_Schwarzen_) from the dark clothing they affected and
their somber demeanor, the reformers became only more extreme and
uncompromising in their attitude. Reaching far beyond the bounds of
the university, their plans already contemplated a great Christian
republic formed of freed and united Germany. Tyranny was to be met with
resistance, and Follen now taught that armed insurrection, and even
perjury and assassination, were justified when other measures failed in
the struggle for popular freedom. Some of the Blacks drew back at this,
but others, known as “Unconditionals” in contrast with the “Moderates,”
were undismayed at the radical doctrines of their revered leader.
Development of the physical powers formed an essential part of
the program of the Giessen “Blacks,” just as in the case of the
_Burschenschaften_ at other universities. In the summer of 1816 a
gymnastic society was formed, enrolling boys in the secondary school,
young merchants and others, as well as university students. Here
again the leadership fell to Follen, who is described as an excellent
gymnast, a skilful hand with the broadsword, and a powerful swimmer. The
“Deutsche Turnkunst” of 1816 was the guide in Giessen, as elsewhere, and
Jahn’s rules formed the basis of order during the exercises. National
anniversaries were celebrated, a _Turnfest_ was held at the end of July,
1818, excursions were organized, and trips were taken with companions
from Darmstadt, Heidelberg, and other places. Upon leaving Giessen
students transferred their membership to _Turnvereine_ in the new home,
or sought to form such societies where they did not already exist. The
efforts of Karl Völker at Tübingen have already been mentioned (p. 98) in
describing Jahn’s life and work.
Upon completing his courses in jurisprudence Follen remained at the
University as _Privat-docent_, studying at the same time the practice of
law in his father’s court. Early in the fall of 1818 he undertook the
cause of several hundred communities in the province of Upper Hesse which
desired to remonstrate against a government measure directed against the
last remnant of their political independence, and drew up a petition to
the Grand Duke in their behalf. It was printed and widely circulated, and
aroused public opinion to such a pitch that the obnoxious measure was
repealed; but it also brought upon its author such unrelenting hatred on
the part of the influential men whose selfish plans were thereby thwarted
that any thought of a further career in his home city became impossible.
He therefore accepted an invitation from Professor Fries to lecture
on the Pandects as _Privat-docent_ in the University of Jena, and left
Giessen in October of 1818.[192]
An attempt to force upon the Jena Burschenschaft his radical views
regarding moral and political reform excited the opposition of all but a
small minority. Friends, even, were alienated by his stern, intolerant
attitude, and by the charge of weakness or cowardice with which he met
dissent from the extremities to which he pushed his principles; so that
the number of “Unconditionals” at Jena was never more than a small
handful. One of these, however, was Karl Sand, whose murder of Kotzebue
on March 23, 1819, was the logical outcome of Follen’s teaching, acting
upon a mind unbalanced by fanatical zeal in the cause of popular liberty.
To the authorities all student associations became objects of suspicion,
and under the reactionary measures that followed the Giessen “Blacks” and
the _Burschenschaften_ at Jena and other universities suffered alike.
Follen was forbidden to lecture any longer at Jena, and he therefore
returned to his home in Giessen.[193] Here, however, he found himself
a proscribed man. Learning that the government intended to send him to
prison, he left Giessen for Strasburg in the winter of 1819-20, visited
for a time in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Lafayette and,
through him, of other distinguished men, and in the summer of 1821
settled in Basel, as public lecturer on jurisprudence and metaphysics in
the recently organized University.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.—Charles Beck (1798-1866). (From a Portrait in the
Library of Harvard University).]
Among the German refugees whose friendship Follen enjoyed during his
three years at Basel were the distinguished theologian De Wette, and
his stepson Charles (German, _Karl_) Beck. Beck was born in Heidelberg
August 19, 1798. His father, a merchant, died when the boy was still
young, and his mother afterwards became the wife of Wilhelm De Wette,
professor in the university of Heidelberg. In 1810 the family removed to
Berlin, whither De Wette had been called to fill the chair of theology
in the new Prussian university. There, as a student in the Werder’sche
_Gymnasium_, Beck soon came under Jahn’s influence, began to frequent
the Hasenheide Turnplatz, and owing to his natural robustness of body,
and the enthusiasm with which he applied himself to the exercises,
developed more than usual proficiency in all the arts of the _Turner_.
After the assassination of Kotzebue in 1819, De Wette, who had long been
a friend of the Sand family, wrote a letter to the mother, in which he
endeavored to console her with the thought that her son’s act, though
wicked, arose from a mistaken notion of duty. The Prussian authorities,
upon learning of this letter, accused the eminent teacher of seeking to
excuse the crime, and in token of their displeasure deprived him of his
chair and even banished him from the kingdom. After several years in
retirement he accepted, in 1822, the professorship of theology in the
University of Basel, and passed the remainder of his life in that city.
Beck, meanwhile, had become an accomplished classical scholar at the
University of Berlin. He afterwards studied theology, was ordained to the
Lutheran ministry at Heidelberg, July 7, 1822, and the next year obtained
his doctor’s degree in theology from the University of Tübingen. He had
been active in the movement for a true Christian _Burschenschaft_, and
finding that his republican sentiments stood in the way of a successful
career in Germany, he, too, removed to Switzerland and joined the rest
of the family at Basel, where he found an opportunity to teach the Latin
language and literature.
Meanwhile the allied sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia had
requested repeatedly that Follen be surrendered to them for trial on
the ground of complicity in revolutionary movements, and acting on the
advice of friends he left the city for a few months, seeking concealment
in Baden at first, and in the spring of 1824 revisiting Paris. Here he
again saw much of Lafayette, who introduced him to the American Minister
(James Brown) and sought his company on an approaching visit to the
United States. Although longer residence in Basel appeared unsafe, he
returned to his duties in the university; but on October 27, 1824 he
again left the city, and three days later, travelling by mail-coach and
provided with a false passport, he reached Paris. Here he found Beck, who
had already left Switzerland a few days in advance, convinced that even
this asylum was no longer free from danger for Germans known to cherish
liberal opinions. The two men went at once to Havre, engaged passage
on the vessel “Cadmus,” and sailed for the United States on the 5th of
November.
They reached New York December 19. Three days later Follen wrote to
General Lafayette, who was then revisiting this country at the invitation
of Congress and receiving everywhere a welcome which gave to his
movements the character of a triumphal procession. Acting at once on his
suggestion that they go first of all to Philadelphia, they reached that
city on January 12, and were soon busily engaged in the study of English.
Letters from Lafayette secured them a kind reception and introduction to
agreeable and influential men, among others to Duponceau, a prominent
lawyer of French descent, who had been his friend for more than half a
century. George Ticknor, professor of the French and Spanish languages
and literature and of belles-lettres at Harvard University 1819-1835,
was then visiting in Washington. Lafayette sought to interest him in
the two German refugees, and on his return through Philadelphia, early
in February, Ticknor accordingly hunted them up, and found in Follen’s
possession a letter from Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, a friend of the
Follen family and one of the son’s favorite teachers in Giessen, and
afterwards professor in the University of Göttingen, where Ticknor, a
student there in the years 1815-1817, had made his acquaintance.[194]
Ticknor’s letter to George Bancroft, to whom De Wette had already
directed a letter recommending his stepson, secured for Beck an
immediate appointment as instructor in Latin and gymnastics at the Round
Hill School, Northampton, Massachusetts, and by the middle of the month
(February, 1825) he had left Philadelphia to take up his new duties.
Except for a visit to Beck at Northampton the next summer, Follen
continued to reside in or near Philadelphia, applying himself with
diligence and success to his English studies, and preparing a course of
lectures on the civil law, which he hoped to deliver in the following
fall and winter. He had also enrolled himself with Duponceau as a law
student and was reading Blackstone. But in November, owing to the efforts
of Professor Ticknor, Duponceau, and others, Harvard University offered
him the position of Instructor in German, at a salary of $500—the first
time that subject had been included in its curriculum. Expecting to add
to his income by lectures on the Roman law, to be delivered in Boston,
he at once accepted the offer, visiting Beck once more on the way, and
before Christmas was settled in Cambridge.
One of the most important and successful educational innovations of its
time was the Round Hill School, opened on the first of October, 1823,
by Joseph Green Cogswell (1786-1871) and George Bancroft (1800-1891). A
descriptive circular issued a year after Beck’s appointment—it is dated
March 25, 1826[195]—reveals the serious purpose with which they undertook
the introduction of gymnastics and other forms of physical training.
“It may be impossible,” they say, “to engraft on any modern nation a
system of education corresponding to that which prevailed in ancient
Greece. But something must be done. Food, sleep, and exercise must be
regulated, purity protected, life guaranteed against casualties, and
temperance and exercise be set, even in the dawn of existence, to keep
watch over health. Games and healthful sports, promoting hilarity and
securing a just degree of exercise, are to be encouraged. Various means
of motion are to be devised and applied; and where these are regularly
used everything is done to assist nature in strengthening the youthful
constitution. If in addition to regularity in the use of exercise,
the kinds of it are so arranged that the several powers of the body
may successively be brought into action and gradually led to greater
exertions, it will not be long before the physical being assumes a new
appearance, and in addition to the acquisition of a control of the body,
beneficial results will be visible in general industry, deportment,
and morals. The attempt, therefore, to provide the various means for
gymnastic exercises merits to be encouraged; and whether the methods are
by turns strange or common, complicated or simple, the best that are
known should be employed. We are deeply impressed with the necessity
of uniting physical with moral education; and are particularly favored
in executing our plans of connecting them by the assistance of a pupil
and friend of Jahn, the greatest modern advocate of gymnastics. We have
proceeded slowly in our attempts, for the undertaking was a new one; but
now we see ourselves near the accomplishment of our views. The whole
subject of the union of moral and physical education is a great deal
simpler than it may at first appear. And here, too, we may say, that we
were the first in the new continent to connect gymnastics with a purely
literary establishment.”
Of the nature of this “first gymnasium on this side of the Atlantic,”
and the work done in it, not much direct evidence has come down to
us. One former pupil (Thomas G. Appleton)[196] writes: “‘Pitching the
bar’ was generally done near the schoolhouse; but the regular exercise
of gymnastics was upon a plateau just below the hill, where gymnastic
appliances, then freshly introduced from Germany, were in abundance.”
Dr. George C. Shattuck, another “Round Hiller,” is quoted by Dr. E. M.
Hartwell[197] as follows: “Dr. Beck, the teacher of Latin, afterward the
professor of Latin in Harvard University, was the teacher of gymnastics.
A large piece of ground was devoted to the purpose and furnished with
all the apparatus used in the German gymnasia. The whole school was
divided into classes, and each class had an hour three times a week for
instruction by Dr. Beck.” A newspaper article copied in the _American
Journal of Education_ for July, 1826, states that classes begin at 5:30,
others at 6:15, and breakfast comes at 7; from 7:30 till 9 the only
exercises are in declamation and dancing, 9 till 12 other classes, 12
until 1 rest, dinner at 1, 2 until 5 more classes, 5 until 7 “exercise
and amusement. At this time the classes in gymnastics have their
instruction, when the weather permits.” The evening meal follows, and
devotional exercises are held at 8, after which the smaller boys go to
bed, and the rest study for an hour longer.
Indirect proof that the Round Hill “gymnasium” was only a miniature
Hasenheide _Turnplatz_ is abundantly furnished by the “Treatise on
Gymnasticks, taken chiefly from the German of F. L. Jahn,” a translation
of the “_Deutsche Turnkunst_” of 1816, which Beck completed and turned
over to the publisher in January, 1828.[198] In the preface he tells us
that “The same causes which occasioned the publication of the original,
in Germany, about twelve years ago, render a translation desirable
in this country.... The school of Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft, in
Northampton, Mass., was the first institution in this country that
introduced gymnastick exercises as a part of the regular instruction,
in the spring of 1825. Since that time, the interest for this branch
of education has been rapidly increasing, and frequent inquiries have
been made respecting a subject much esteemed for its expected salutary
effects, but little known as to its particulars.... Wishes were expressed
to me, by several of the most zealous and able friends and advocates
of physical education, to translate a work which would be suitable ...
or compile one.... I did not doubt to which of the two ways proposed
to give the preference. I fixed upon the treatise of Jahn, for reasons
contained in the preceding lines.” Jahn’s preface and Part V (containing
the bibliography) are omitted altogether by the translator; Parts III and
IV have been transposed, a chapter on dumb-bell exercises is introduced
in Part I, and there are a few other omissions and additions suggested by
recent experience. Plates VII and VIII are reproductions of the two in
the original, but the sixty-three figures in the remaining six plates are
new.
Leaving Beck at work in the first school gymnasium established in the
United States, we have now to return to Charles Follen, waiting in
Cambridge, in late December of 1825, to begin his duties as first teacher
of the German language in Harvard University. Within a year he also was
introducing the Jahn gymnastics in his new field, and had opened the
first college gymnasium this country had seen, at Harvard University, and
the first public gymnasium, in Boston. He had visited Beck at Northampton
in July of 1825 and again early in December, and on March 5 of the next
year, only a little more than two months after his arrival in Cambridge,
used these words in a letter to his friend: “I expect our University
will particularly apply to you on the subject of gymnastics. I have
commenced gymnastic exercises with the students. The College furnishes
the implements, and will give us a place. At present I use one of the
dining-halls. All show much zeal. In Boston a gymnasium is soon to be
established.”[199]
The third instalment of “Reminiscences of Harvard, 1822-26,” by Rev.
Cazneau Palfrey, printed in _The Harvard Register_ of October, 1880,
contains this passage: “The first movement in the direction of gymnastics
made in college was made in my senior year.... The medical professors of
the College published an appeal to the students, strongly recommending
to them the practice of gymnastic exercises; and a meeting of all the
classes was held in the College chapel (such a meeting as I do not
remember hearing of on any other occasion), at which a response was
made to this appeal, and resolutions passed expressing our readiness to
follow the suggestions made in it. One of the unoccupied commons halls
(on the first floor of University Hall) was fitted up with various
gymnastic appliances; and other fixtures were erected on the Delta, the
enclosure now occupied by Memorial Hall. But Dr. Follen did not confine
his operations to these two localities. One day he was to be seen issuing
from the College yard at a dogtrot, with all college (the total number of
undergraduates at that period was not more than two hundred) at his heels
in single file, and arms akimbo, making a train a mile long, bound for
the top of Prospect Hill. Great was the amazement and amusement of all
passersby. I was one of the bobs of that living kite; but, as I dropped
prematurely, I cannot speak confidently of the end....”
Anyone familiar with the appearance of a German _Turnplatz_ of the Jahn
type will readily understand the allusions made by Thomas Wentworth
Higginson in his chapter on “The Gymnasium, and Gymnastics in Harvard
College,” in the second volume of “The Harvard Book” (Cambridge, 1875).
“One of my most impressive early reminiscences,” he says, “is of a
certain moment when I looked out timidly from my father’s gateway, on
what is now Kirkland Street, in Cambridge, and saw the forms of young men
climbing, swinging, and twirling aloft in the open playground opposite.
It was the triangular field then called the ‘Delta,’ where the great
Memorial Hall now stands. The apparatus on which these youths were
exercising was, to my childish eyes, as inexplicable as if it had been a
pillory or a gallows, which indeed it somewhat resembled. It consisted
of high uprights and crossbars, with ladders and swinging ropes, and
complications of wood and cordage, whose details are vanished from my
memory. Beneath some parts of the apparatus there were pits sunk in the
earth, and so well constructed that they remained long after the woodwork
had been removed. This early recollection must date as far back as 1830.”
In the “Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University in
Cambridge,” October, 1825, appears the name “Charles Follen, J.U.D.,
Instructor in German, and Lecturer on the Civil Law.” The next catalogue
(September, 1826) retains the name and title unchanged, but in that
“for the Academical year 1827-1828” (published in 1827) he is called
“Instructor in German, and Superintendent of the Gymnasium;” and in both
these catalogues the following paragraph occurs: “The regular Gymnastick
exercises, when the Superintendent of the Gymnasium is present, are on
Wednesday and Friday, from 12 to 1 o’clock; or when the length of the
day admits, after evening Commons. On Monday, the Monitors and Vice
Monitors meet separately with the Superintendent, to prepare for the
general exercises.” The catalogues for 1828-1829 (published in 1828) and
1829-1830 (published in 1829) make no mention of “Gymnastick exercises,”
and give Follen the title “Instructor in the German Language, in Ethics,
and in Civil and Ecclesiastical History.” From 1826 through 1829 this
further paragraph is included: “Military exercises are allowed on Tuesday
and Thursday, from 12 to 1 o’clock, or after evening Commons; with
music not oftener than every other time, and liberty of a parade on the
afternoons of Exhibition days.”
In a letter to Beck dated March 5, 1826, Follen had written: “In Boston
a gymnasium is soon to be established.” The gentlemen interested in
the project offered him a liberal salary if he would “superintend the
erection of the proper apparatus and become the principal instructor,”
and authorized him to engage a suitable assistant. September 26 he again
wrote to Beck: “The day after tomorrow my rope-dancing begins in Boston.
The gallows stand, in significant majesty, on the spot. There is no lack
of gallows-birds, large and small, genteel and vulgar....” A petition had
been presented to the Board of Aldermen of Boston on March 13, asking
for the use of a certain piece of land “for the purpose of establishing
a school of gymnastic instruction and exercise.” April 17 the city
authorities granted this request. Following a call which appeared in the
Boston _Daily Advertiser_ of June 12, a meeting of citizens was held June
15, at the Exchange Coffee House, to take steps to carry out the plan for
a public gymnasium. The official report is published in the _American
Journal of Education_ for July, 1826, (Vol. I, p. 243). The meeting
unanimously resolved “that it is expedient to attempt the establishment
of a Gymnastic School in the city of Boston,” and appointed William
Sullivan, Dr. John C. Warren, Prof. George Ticknor, Dr. John G. Coffin,
and John S. Foster, with others to be selected by them, a committee to
carry the resolution into effect, by securing and applying contributions
from the citizens of Boston. Others mentioned as especially interested in
the project are Judge Prescott, Josiah Quincy, Daniel Webster, Peter O.
Thacher, John A. Lowell, Thomas Motley, and John B. Davis. Two hundred
and fifty shares, at twenty dollars each, were offered by the committee,
and according to Dr. Warren the contributions were “very liberal,”
permitting the opening of the establishment “on a large scale.”