page_title: Adolf Spiess
section_title: Basel, Switzerland
hierarchical_section_title: Adolf Spiess / Biography / Basel, Switzerland
caption_attribution_description: Drawing of the Basel Turnplatz from a plate in Adolf Spiess's book Turnbuch für Schulen (1847)
context_page_description: Karl Adolf Spieß was a German gymnast and educator who contributed to the development of school gymnastics for children of both sexes in Switzerland and Germany.
context_section_description: Two years earlier, Spiess had married a former pupil, Marie Buri, and the need of finding a larger and more remunerative field of usefulness no doubt had much to do with the journey to Berlin; but the summons of Massmann to the Prussian capital in 1843 put an end to all hopes in that direction. With further attempts, he received a call from Basel to the position of teacher of gymnastics and history in two higher schools for boys — the Gymnasium and the Realschule — and at the orphan asylum. He entered upon these duties in May 1844. The following March he was relieved of the work in history in order that he might have time for instruction in gymnastics at the public girls' school (German: Töchterschule), and preparations were also made for progressive improvement in physical training at all the city schools.
  Free at last to devote all his thought to the one subject, he finished in 1846 the fourth and final part of his System of Gymnastics, and the next year was able to publish the first volume of a practical manual for teachers (Turnbuch für Schulen), containing graded series of exercises suitable for boys and girls between the ages of six and ten. The second volume, covering the ages from ten to sixteen, was completed in 1851, after he had left Basel and returned to Germany.
caption: The Basel Turnplatz from a plate in Adolf Spiess's book Turnbuch für Schulen of 1847
exif: {}