GYMNASTICS, in the general acceptation of the term, denotes every exercise which tends to develope and invigorate the bodily powers; such as walking, running, riding, fencing, rowing, skating, dancing, and many others. In a narrower sense gymnastics includes those manly and healthful games, which have been encouraged by all high-minded nations, as calculated to improve the physical strength, and to keep alive the martial spirit, of their inhabitants. In a yet more limited sense, the term gymnastics has been employed to denote that modern system of bodily exercises, some account of which will be given in the sequel of this article.

• In the rudest states of society, such as that which obtains amongst the aboriginal tribes of America, the necessity of repelling the aggressions and punishing the insults of hostile tribes naturally leads to the cultivation of those physical powers the development of which is essential to the purposes of self-defence. Hence, even in this stage, we discover the elements of a gymnastic education. Want and invention, in the history of mankind, stand to each other in the relation of parent and offspring. Under the operation of the law of necessity, we find parents anxious to nerve their children for the labours which in after-life must procure them sustenance, and to habituate them to the watchfulness and agility which alone can enable them to baffle their foes. From infancy the latter are accordingly trained, by progressive steps, to the practice of archery; instructed to swim across the most rapid rivers; and habituated not only to remain for a considerable time beneath the surface of the water, but also to make their way to its lowest depths. Running over the roughest ways, hurling missiles from the hand, and wielding clubs or hatchets with effective force, are amongst the number of their accomplishments; and not the least remarkable part of their training is that by which they are taught to acquire a mastery over physical pain. Under this rigid system of discipline, enforced· by the elders of die tribe, the savage has been found to acquire qualities which the milder institutions of civilised life are not calculated to unfold; the physical powers are developed with a symmetry and beauty which remind the beholder of the finer forms of ancient sculpture; and the individual, conscious of his strength, firmness, and resources in the midst of danger, walks with a more independent tread, and indulges in the cheerfulness natural to a fearless disposition.

The Greeks, in the earliest period of their history, seem to have been little, if at all, advanced beyond the state which we have here endeavoured to describe. It appears from several passages in Homer, particularlyfrom the account given in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, of the games celebrated at the obsequies of Patroclus, that gymnastic exercises were not unknown at the time of the Trojan war. From this description, which is the earliest monument extant on the subject, we learn that, on the occasion referred to, there were Chariot-races, foot-races, boxing, wrestling, gladiatorial combats, throwing the discus, shooting with the bow, and hurling the javelin. At the period in question, however, these exercises were no doubt equally rude and inartificial with those of the Indian tribes to which we have alluded; but, in progress of time, when their importance began to be fully perceived, areas and edifices were allotted for their practice, masters were appointed to instruct the youth, and prizes, contended for in the presence of assembled nations, were awarded to the victors in the different contests, with all the pomp and solemnity of a religious celebration. The exercises of the Greek athletae, namely, running, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus and the javelin, equitation, and charioteering, are known to every classical scholar, and need not therefore be particularly described. These were instituted originally with the view, no doubt, of preparing the citizens, by a systematic course of training, for undergoing the toils and fatigues of war. But, by degrees, the natural vanity of excelling in that which all more or less cultivated, fostered by the preposterous adulation bestowed on the victors in the Olympic games, introduced the habit of cultivating one exercise alone, instead of seeking to develope equally all the bodily powers. A good wrestler, an expert boxer, or one capable of carrying an immense weight, became in some degree an article of luxury, or a subject of speculation. Persons of this description were kept and fed like game-cocks, and destined for purposes of equal dignity and importance. The object originally contemplated by the patrons of the athletic exercises was completely lost sight of; the real soldier learned to despise the bully of the gymnasium and the palaestra; gymnastics lost repute by being at once perverted and degraded; and the sarcastic remark of the great Theban commander decided their fate.

Rome was from the first a species of camp, and war the principal occupation of her people. The youth were trained to hardihood and exertion, but it was chiefly in actual service, and as members of a great body, which moved as if animated by only one soul. To act in concert and unison, to afford mutual support, to give simultaneous impetus to the charge, to preserve order in retreat, and in all circumstances to observe the law of a stern discipline; such was the great object of their study. Their exercises were intended not so much to train the individual as to form the mass; not to encourage isolated efforts, but to produce unity and mobility. But when, in process of time, the military became a distinct profession; when the army was composed of praetorian bands, and legionary soldiers drawn from the conquered countries; Rome, having no efficient academy for training her citizens to active exercises, began to decline. The ancient discipline gradually relaxed; and her sons, instead of breasting the Tiber in armour, or riding and hurling the javelin in the Campus Martius, sought the cruel and debasing amusement of witnessing the massacre of slaves, or the combats with wild beasts in the amphitheatre.

Of the gymnastic exercises practised by the Teutonic nations who overthrew the Roman empire no satisfactory account has reached us. But some of the later historians of Rome speak with consternation of the manner in which the Germans, by the aid of their frameoe, bounded over the pikes of the foremost ranks, or sprung upon the hostile battlements; and Tacitus alludes to certain games in which the German youth, naked and unarmed, danced amidst pointed spears and drawn swords, displaying wonderful quickness of eye, elasticity of limb, and fearlessness of disposition. During the middle ages, the peculiar mode of warfare introduced by the northern nations rendered it of the utmost importance that the knights and men-at-arms should be subjected to a system of severe physical training. Hence they were taught to sustain during the heat of the [7:11:95]day a heavy load of armour, to carry huge burdens, to run for a length of time, to climb tall ladders by the aid of their arms alone, to swim, to ride the great horse, and to run with a spear against a target so arranged that he who missed or struck foul received in return a blow from a pole attached to it.

But when the organization and movement of armies had been reduced to system, when the art of war became a subject of arithmetical calculation, and when the invention of powder rendered bodily superiority in a great measure unavailing, athletic exercises were less insisted on than formerly; and the cvil was increased, partly by the separation of the military as a distinct class, and partly also by the increasing sedentary habits of civilians. In short, physical education was neglected in proportion as every other branch became more widely diffused and more zealously cultivated; without considering the intimate connection between the body and the mind, the former was suffered to degenerate, whilst indolent and luxurious habits engendered nervous irritability, with a consequent predisposition to mental disorders. Rousseau, in his Emile, was the first to raise his voice against this degeneracy; and although the world laughed at the ludicrous contradiction between his practice and his precepts, yet the latter insensibly prevailed, and in time a more rational regard began to be paid to the preservation of a firm and robust habit of body. In all countries the manly amusements of an earlier age had in some degree survived amongst the peasantry; in some, the pleasures of the chase had stimulated even the higher classes to cultivate habits of hardihood and exertion. By degrees, athletic exercises became once more fashionable; and then was invented that system of gymnastics which is now taught in the military and other schools.

This system derives its immediate origin from the widely-ramified confederacy which diffused throughout Germany a spirit of disaffection to the French, and prepared the people of that country to co-operate in shaking off the yoke which had been imposed on them. Convinced from the first that the deliverance of Germany could only be effected by the sword, the leaders of this confederacy directed their attention to the grand object of secretly training and preparing soldiers for the approaching struggle. With this view, whilst Von Stein was communicating to almost every individual in the Prussian territories some notion of military discipline, and labouring to impress them with a notion of its importance, Jahn and his followers were establishing gymnastic areas (turn-platze) throughout the whole of Germany. The youth of different ages were encouraged and incited to attend. They were taught to take pleasure in their exercises; a spirit of emulation was sedulously cherished; peals of laughter and merriment resounded in each area; and national songs, sung in chorus by the friendly antagonists as they repaired to or returned from the turn-platze, served at once to excite and sustain the general enthusiasm. In addition to the usual routine of running, wrestling, and leaping, a series of exercises with poles, bars, ropes, and ladders, was devised and introduced into the turn-platze. In these areas, the youths were prepared for the toils and labours of the field; and, when the grand crisis arrived, the means were found adequate to the end contemplated. For some time after the overthrow of Napoleon, these exercises continued to be patronised by the governments of Germany, and taught in all the public schools. But the spirit which it had been found so easy to raise against the dominion of Napoleon, and in support of the old hereditary governments, did not so readily vanish when its immediate task was accomplished. In adversity and in danger promises had been made, the performance of which was evaded in the hour of triumph; and, as some of the chief patrons of physical education were amongst the loudest in denouncing the faithlessness of their governments, the

German rulers gravely alleged that gymnastic exercises necessarily engendered democratical principles; and on this ingenious pretence all the public institutions for their promotion were at once suppressed. A few private establishments are still winked at, and, in some states, the military receive regular instructions; but the day of gymnastics is for the present over in Germany.

In other countries, however, the political logicians have not yet discerned any necessary connection between gymnastics and republicanism; and accordingly those exercises which have been anathematised in Germany as generative of democracy, have been warmly patronized in France and Switzerland, and are now steadily making their way even in Britain, where innovations of all kinds, especially in education, arc most cautiously entertained. The propriety of employing training to develope the powers of the body is beginning in many parts to be as readily acknowledged, as the necessity of education to cultivate the faculties of the mind. But nothing is privileged from abuse; and empiricism, which has brought so many other things into disrepute, has unluckily fastened upon gymnastics. In the Encyclopédie Moderne we find the subject divided into, 1. Gymnastique civile et industrielle; 2. Gymnastique militaire, terrestre et maritime · 3. Gymnastique médicale; and, 4. Gymnastique scénique ou funambulique. Nor is this all. Each of these divisions is subdivided into four or five branches, as if the subject, forsooth, admitted of the most systematic arrangement. Thus, under the head of Gymnastique medicale, are included, first, Gymnastique hygiénique ou prophylactique, pour conserver one santé robuste; secondly, Gymnastique thérapeutique, pour le trait-mont des maladies; thirdly, Gymnastique analeptique, ou des convalescens ; fourthly, Gymnastique orthopédique, qui a pour but la guérison des deformites. This affectation of method is exceedingly absurd, inasmuch as it confounds with the exercises themselves certain hypothetical uses, and assumes as the very basis of the classification results which have not been satisfactorily ascertained. But however this may be, the importance of gymnastics, in another point of view, cannot possibly be disputed. If persevered in, they are calculated to devclope cvery muscle of the trunk, arms, and legs to its utmost extent; they give the student the most perfect command of his whole bodily frame; they are the best preparatives for the elegant and manly accomplishment of fencing, whether with the small or the broad sword; and they afford excellent training for the amateurs of running, leaping, wrestling, and sparring. Nor are the advantages derived from such exercises confined to the soldier or the sailor; their usefulness is experienced in many other situations of life. But their importance can only be fully known when we arc called upon in emergencies of unexpected danger; amidst fire, shipwreck, the destruction of bridges, or the fall of buildings; to evince the superiority resulting from that presence of mind, and fertility of resources, which are conferred by the consciousness of physical strength and nerve, and by the habit of acting and moving where other men would be instantly paralysed. Lastly, clear heads and light hearts, the natural concomitants of health, are the unfailing rewards of a judicious and moderate prosecution of gymnastics.

The elementary exercises in gymnastics are performed by means of the horizontal pole, the parallel bars, the masts or poles, the ropes, the triangle and trapezium, the ladder, the wooden horse, the inclined plane, and the flying course or giant’s steps. The pupils, after being prepared by a course of comparatively gentle but active exertion, proceed to take lessons on the horizontal pole ; the principal use of which is to develope the strength of the hands and arms, though many other exercises are performed on it. The parallel bars are usually made circular, and vary from six to eight feet in length, and from three to four inches in diameter[7:11:96]; they are fixed about two feet apart, and placed at a height of from three to four feet from the ground. Captain Clias gives sixteen movements in this apparatus, and Colonel Amoros thirty-eight; but it is obvious that the lessons are susceptible of great variety, and that the interest may be increased by fixing the bars occasionally at the height of six or seven feet from the ground. The exercises on the masts or poles are varied by the latter being placed in different positions, either vertically or angularly, and by the introduction of rope-ladders or knotted ropes. The ropes are used sometimes plain, sometimes with large knots in them, and sometimes with a bar across. They are placed vertically, horizontally, and angularly, to give variety to the exercises, which is also increased by loosening and tightening them. The triangle and trapezium are two of the most amusing instruments in modern gymnasiums, and, from the lightness of their construction, and their being constantly in motion, give an appearance of ease and grace to all the revolutions performed on them. The invention of the triangle has been claimed by Captain Clias, though of right it belongs to the mountebanks of Italy, who employed it to amuse the public long before this celebrated gymnast was heard of; the trapezium owes its origin, or at least its introduction into the schools, to Colonel Amoros. The wooden ladder is usually fixed firmly between two walls, with the lower end just high enough for the pupils to reach it with both hands. Sometimes it is also placed perpendicularly with one end resting on the ground; but the exercises admit of more variety when it is placed in the position first described. The distance between the bars in the perpendicular ladder is commonly from eight to twelve inches; but when its position is inclined the spaces should always be wide enough to admit of the pupil passing easily through them. The rope ladder is susceptible of still greater variety of position, and the bars are usually placed closer together, as few movements beyond the different modes of ascending and descending are practised upon them. The wooden horse, although extremely interesting from the number of exercises practised on it, both in vaulting and leaping, and in feats of actual strength, appears as yet to be but little known in the small gymnasiums of this country. It is necessary that there should be a graduated succession of seizes, to suit the height and progress of the different classes. The inclined plane is ordinarily an unpolished board of pine, varying from twenty-five to thirty feet in length, and about two feet in breadth; it admits of some highly useful exercises, and has been recommended by medical men as tending to strengthen the hands, arms, chest, abdomen, legs, and feet. The same observation applies to the inclined pole. The flying course, or gianis steps, is amusing to young people; but it affords no advantages which are not fully attained by the apparatus already described. For the detail of the exercises performed, with figures illustrative of the different positions, we refer to the works of Clias, Amoros, and Roland.

Almost all the advantages which are generally supposed to result from gymnastic exercises, may be attained by the practice of our own national games, which, if not in every case British in their origin, are peculiarly so by their adoption and continued improvement. They merit notice, therefore, first, by reason of their nationality, and because, for the most part, they require in an eminent degree the union of strength, perseverance, and courage. 1st, Wrestling, though conspicuously introduced into all foreign works on the present system of gymnastics, is little more than theoretically known on the Continent; whereas, in some of the English counties, the practical wrestlers are unrivalled. We therefore claim this as one of our national games, and venture to affirm that its champions will not hesitate to enter into competition with any foreign gymnasium. 2d, Boxing is an exercise which brings the body into active and healthy exertion, increasing the elasticity of the limbs, 1 improving the play of the lungs, and giving a firmness on the legs and a power in the arms not otherwise attainable. Quickness of eye, and accuracy in measuring distances, are also acquired by the practice of boxing; by which, be it observed, we mean sparring, as practised by gentlemen, that graceful imitation battle, which differs as widely from the brutalising exhibitions of prize-fighting, as the cestus with which Dares dashed out the teeth of Entellus differs from the well-stuffed gloves of Mr Roland. 3d, Piding, walking, and running, are exercises requiring strength, perseverance, and activity; and, as a nation, our recorded equestrian and pedestrian feats may challenge Europe. We have, indeed, heard of three Frenchmen, Gervois, Labat, and Stumon, who are said to have run a French league in ten minutes, an exploit which surpasses any thing in our sporting annals; but the story is too improbable to be admitted without strong confirmation. 4th, Archery, one of our most ancient and manly recreations, is still kept up in many parts of England and Scotland; and although its champions would no doubt cut but a sorry figure in competition with the Lockesley of Ivanhoe, or even with him whose grandsire “drew a good bow at Hastings,” yet the spirit of emulation has produced no mean degree of excellence in this graceful and healthy exercise. 5th, Cricket, a noble game, is so indisputably our own, that nothing need be said upon the subject, except that it is yearly becoming a greater favourite in Scotland, where formerly it was seldom played. 6th, Singlestick has now but a small number of admirers, and its professors are of course still more limited; in fact, it is seldom practised except from motives which few are willing to avow. 7th, Putting the stone and throwing the hammer fall more appropriately under the head of Scottish gymnastics. In the Highlands of Scotland there are instances of celebrity in throwing the hammer descending from father to son for generations, as a family characteristic. This is most graphically described in the account given by Sir Walter Scott, of the contest between Norman nan Ord and Hal o’ Wynd, who is represented as a perfect prince amongst the gymnasts of an age when such accomplishments were in the highest repute. It may be added, that, at the present day, the Scottish national games are kept up with great spirit, and that dubs have been instituted in various parts of the country, for the purpose of encouraging them, by awarding medals, and other honorary distinctions, to such as excel in these pastimes. (See Roland’s Gymnastics, Edinburgh, 1831, in 8vo.) (a.)