PRECISION IN PHYSICAL TRAINING. 475 



Normal bearings, like the most complicated movements of 

 gymnastics, are practiced and taught in the same way. There 

 may be an exception in quick movements, such as leaping, which 

 can not be decomposed because they can not be retarded. But 

 skill acquired in difficult exercises creates an aptitude favorable 

 to learning new ones ; and it is well known that those who have 

 educated their movements by gymnastics speedily, become habitu- 

 ated to the most varied exercises. Yet the skill of a virtuoso in 

 any particular art is acquired only by the force of work and 

 patience ; and, according to the general law, we are inclined to 

 prize the result of our work according to the quantity of effort 

 it has cost us ; in short, to extol the method we have chosen. This 

 is the origin of the schools and of differences in methods, which 

 prevail in gymnastics, as in every other matter those of Ling, in 

 Sweden ; Jahn, in Germany ; and Ameros and Triat, in France ; 

 and many others who have left various teachings. 



Pupils are cultivated by imitation^ A group of admirers forms 

 around a chosen person ; and among those who seek to imitate 

 him are some who often succeed with great difficulty ; the latter 

 are then well disposed to defend their master and their school ; they 

 are gratified adepts, who will perpetuate the traditions, with their 

 qualities and their faults. Those minds are rare which can over- 

 come a bad habit when contracted. It is with movements as with 

 moral activity ; and that is why every teacher prefers to take his 

 pupils from the beginning, to continuing the labors of his col- 

 leagues. It is easily comprehended that the pupil who has con- 

 tracted the habit of holding his sword in a certain way will find 

 it easier to keep up even a defective attitude, a position that will 

 limit his further progress, than to learn a new one. The effort of 

 attention that he has to make lest he fall back into his false ruts, 

 and to destroy the nascent automatism, is so great that he avoids 

 it. His self-love will not accommodate itself to the idea of be- 

 coming a novice, and he prefers going on the wrong way to re- 

 suming the toils of first lessons. On these various considerations 

 many practitioners have come really to regard their method as 

 the only good one, and to maintain it, with its errors. But prog- 

 ress in physical education is impossible if we limit ourselves to 

 respect for traditions, to a servile imitation of former things. 

 There can be progress only when we aim at an improvement in 

 attitudes and movements in general. Having been called several 

 times to give our vote in competitive physical exercises, we have 

 been able to observe that the relative merit of the candidates was 

 usually established on conventional bases. Many pupils, who 

 had listened to no other rules than those of nature, and were thus 

 naturally superior, were rated at less than they deserved by 

 judges who were ignorant of these rules. "We do not see by what 



