Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-16
TRAINING THE BODY
By Frederic J. HaSkin

Benjamin Rush and other early patri-
OTIS. In those days the education of
the body was generally along the line
of military drilling. The first educa-
tional institution to introduce gym
nastics as part of the regular instruc-
ton was Round Hill school at North
ampton, Mass New York high school
followed in 1926. Harvard, Yale,
Brown and Williams we're among the
pioneers in the movement. At first the
exercises were too violent. This led
to a reaction in which manual training
was substituted, but proved unsatis-
factory. Since then various systems,
including many worthless and some
harmful fads, have had their vogue.
Important events in the history of
American athletics were the organiza-
ton of the first boat club the Knick-
erbocker of New York in 1928, the first
baseball club in the same city in 1S45,
the first all-round athletic club, the
New York, in 1868, and the introduce
ton of the bicycle in the same year
and of lawn tennis in 1874 The first
Y. M. c. A. gymnasium was opened
in New York in 1869. In the late '70s
and early '80s gymnasiums began to
spring UP everywhere and now there
are probably 1000 of them in America,
including a number of municipal gym
nasiums, the first of which was es-
IdDllSTe1 III 6OSIOti III 1885, AIIlI6TSC
was the first college to make physical
education compulsory.
Millions of people are either prac-
ticing gymnastics or very much in
terested in tho subject. So great is
the popular demand for knowledge
that the Turner's started a course of
instruction for teachers in New York
as early as 1885, and in 1874 they es
tablished large physical culture nor
NAL school at Milwaukee. The Y. M.
C. A. opened a training school for
physical instructors at Springfield in
1887 and there are gymnastic normal
schools at New York, Boston, Chau-
tauqua and other places. In the
American kindergartens, primary
schools, high schools, colleges and uni
versities the training Of the body
keeps pace with .--e mental and moral
education of the children and the
young men and women of the nation.
The Swedish system of drilling with
wands was first introduced into the
public schools of Boston in 1890. About
five years earlier the schools of Gin
cinnati, Kansas City, Chicago and st.
Louis adopted the German system.
striking illustration of what gym
nastics can accomplish among the
young is furnished by the athletic
league of the New York public schools,
established In 1903, of which Mr..
Roosevelt is honorary vice president.
The teachers finding many of their
100000 pupils unruly, the athletic
league idea was suggested to help
them and carried out with the assis-
lance of funds furnished by Carnegie,
Morgan and other prominent people.
A system of prizes and honor buttons
was established, the rule being that
no boy or girl could compete who
failed to do well in the class room.
The. scheme worked like magic.
Teachers are said to have little trou-
BILE now, cigarette smoking is thing
of the past and the children are much
improved generally. There are fire.
quent baseball games, races, shooting
matches, dances and other physical
contests, $50 such meetings having
been held last year. The movement
has led to the establishment of four
municipal athletic fields at q cost of
100000
Thousands of men and women, in
Guiding the aged, are in physical
training at clubs and similar institu-
lions or at their homes. The United
States army and navy have become a
legion of trained athletes, whose Off
GERS and men enjoy an occasional
fifty-mile walk or ninety-mile horse
back ride. Among the good results Of
physical training are the increased
height and weight of college students,
better health among women and chill
dren and less sickness and longer life
in all classes.
At institutions for the blind in Ken
lucky, Wisconsin, Ohio and Virginia
the pupils have been taught to play
baseball and football, organize track
teams and engage in many outdoor
pastimes, all of which is said to in
the latest things in the field of Amer
lean gymnastics is the use of oxygen
by athletes desiring speedily to re-
cuperate from their exertions. The
widespread physical education Of
America, in some cases combined with
heredity and other causes, has enabled
the athletes of the new world to carry
off the laurels at the international
Olympic games at Athens, Paris, st.
Louis and London.
The world is now convinced that
sound body is necessary to secure the
highest mental and moral development
of the human race. While 1t Is prob
ably not desirable to have a return of
the religious athletics which charac-
terized the ancient Greek Olympics
and the Indian ghost dances. there Is
undoubtedly room for improving
American gymnastics by eliminating
some features of business and drudg-
cry and encouraging the idea of sport
for sports sake.
(Copyrighs 1909, by Frederic J. Haskin)
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