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GYMNASTICS. 



himself was not always wise in his conduct. Much 

 had crept into the gymnasia with which the public 

 was dissatisfied, and when Sand assassinated Kot- 

 tebue, and the government, which had already be- 

 come suspicious of the gymnasia, ordered them to be 

 closed, no opposition was made. We must not omit 

 to mention here, that, some years before, the Prus- 

 sian government had ordered an investigation into 

 the gymnasia by the government's physicians, whose 

 report was decidedly favourable. 



When the persecutions against liberals were re- 

 newed, in 1824, with greater violence, Mr Volker, 

 being compelled to seek an asylum in England, 

 established the first gymnasium in London. At the 

 same time, captain Clias, a Swiss, established a gym- 

 nasium at Chelsea, in the royal military asylum. He 

 soon after published his work on gymnastics, the only 

 merit of which is its brevity and clearness. Jahn 

 and his pupil Eiselen had published, soon after the 

 peace of Paris, a work on modern gymnastics, which 

 is excellent in many respects, though it is sometimes 

 too minute and pedantic. When the gymnasia were 

 founded in London, calisthenics, or exercises for 

 females, were first taught ; but though we think that 

 they should never be omitted, yet we consider those 

 exercises which were taught as founded on erroneous 

 principles. A system of healthy and graceful exer- 

 cises for females may be established ; but those which 

 are now generally practised in English boarding- 

 schools are wrong in principle. Gymnasia have 

 since been reopened in some places of Germany, but 

 they are now strictly confined to bodily exercises. 

 In 1825, doctor Beck, a German, and pupil of doc- 

 tor Jahn, established the first gymnasium in America, 

 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Others have been 

 subsequently established in different parts of the coun- 

 try. Respecting the various exercises themselves, 

 we must refer the reader to a Treatise on Gymnastics 

 taken chiefly from the German of F. L. Jahn (1 vol., 

 8vo., Northampton, Massachusetts, 1828). 



The writer of this article has always observed, 

 that the pupils of a gymnasium after a while lose 

 their interest in the exercises. This was observable 

 even hi Germany, where patriotic feelings were 

 mingled with the exercises. The reason of this ap- 

 pears to be, that little or no difference is made in the 

 exercises of different ages, and it is natural that an 

 exercise repeated for years should become wearisome. 

 Gymnastics therefore, when they are taught as a re- 

 gular branch of education, ought to be divided into 

 two courses. In the first course we would include 

 walking and pedestrian excursions ; elementary ex- 

 ercises of various sorts ; running, 1. quick, 2. long 

 continued ; leaping in height, length and depth ; 

 leaping with a pole, in length and height ; vaulting; 

 balancing ; exercises on the single and parallel 

 bars ; climbing ; throwing ; dragging ; pushing ; 

 lifting; carrying; wrestling; jumping, 1. with the 

 hoop, 2. with the rope ; exercises with the dumb- 

 bells ; various gymnastic games ; skating ; dancing; 

 some military exercises ; swimming, which we in- 

 clude in the first course, because it can be easily 

 taught to children. Some of these exercises, of 

 course, are not suitable for very young children, and 

 they should be distributed in a regular gradation, 

 which caution and experience will teach. Gymnas- 

 tics, properly so called, may be begun by a boy from 

 six to eight years old. The second course consists 

 of repetitions of some of the former exercises of vault- 

 ing, both on the wooden and the living horse, either 

 standing or running in a circle ; boxing, driving, rid- 

 ing on horseback, and fencing with the broad-sword 

 and the small-sword. Fencing with the small-sword 

 appears to us the noblest of gymnastic exercises. No 

 other is so well entitled to the name of an art ; no 



other calls the powers into such active exercise ; no 

 other requires such quickness of limb, of mind and of 

 eye, together with so much self-possession ; no other 

 developes so completely the whole frame. It is a 

 noble art. Riding, indeed, deserves likewise the 

 name of an art, in which a man may make continual 

 improvement. It cannot, however, be called so pure 

 a gymnastic exercise as fencing, and, in its nature, it 

 is more mechanical. Many excellent horsemen are 

 men of very inactive or limited minds ; but all good 

 fencers whom we have known, were men of quick 

 apprehension and lively intellect. This accounts for 

 the circumstance that the artists of the middle ages 

 valued fencing so highly. Almost all the great mas- 

 ters and distinguished poets of those times, were skil- 

 ful swordsmen, and some of them wrote treatises on 

 the use of their favourite weapon; for instance, 

 Leonardo da Vinci.* Boxing, riding, and the vari- 

 ous exercises on the living horse, should not be com- 

 menced much before the sixteenth year. 



In our plate of Gymnastics we have given an out- 

 line of some of the principal exercises. For several 

 of these we are indebted to Captain P. H. Clias's 

 " Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises, 1 ' the 

 fourth edition of which was published at London in 

 1825, and for others to " A Military Officer's" Abridg- 

 ment of Guts-Muth's " System of Gymnastics." Fig. 

 1,2, 3, and 4, represent the exercises upon a column 

 with pegs by Captain Clias. The column should be 

 a round post about twenty-five feet long, and fifteen 

 or eighteen inches in diameter, with four rows of 

 wooden pegs, three feet distant from each other, pro- 

 jecting four inches, and being one inch in diameter. 

 Fig. 1, represents the most simple exercise with this 

 column. It consists in climbing to the top in a spiral 

 direction by means of the hands and feet. It habi- 

 tuates the hands to seize with quickness and firmness, 

 and the feet to place themselves with celerity and 

 exactness on narrow places, without requiring the 

 eye to direct them. In ascending, the right foot is 

 placed on the first peg, the left hand grasps the 

 second, with the nails turned under, the right, the 

 third peg of the second line, the nails also under, the 

 right foot on the first peg of the second line, the left 

 hand on the third, and so on to the top of the column. 

 To descend, the contrary movements are made, going 

 backwards. Fig. 2, represents a manner of climb- 

 ing the column by passing under the right arm. In 

 ascending, the right foot is placed on the first peg, 

 the left hand on the second, the left foot, passing be- 

 tween the right foot and the column, is placed on 

 the first peg of the second line, the heel outward, and 

 the right hand on the second peg of the same line. 

 In this position all the weight of the body is support- 

 ed by the right hand and the left foot. Then the 

 head passes under the right arm, between the column 

 and the body. In order to descend, in passing under 

 the right arm, the movement is made in a contrary 

 direction, observing that the nails ought to be turned 

 upwards, the moment when seizing the peg to pass 

 under the arm. (See fig. 3.) In this exercise, both 

 in climbing up and down, the foot and the hand 

 which cross always occupy the two pegs which fol- 

 low on the same line ; that is, the left hand and the 

 right foot, or the contrary. When passing under the 

 left arm, the left hand and right foot begin. The 

 left hand, crossing over the right arm, grasps the se- 

 cond peg of the second line. The left foot, passing 

 between the column and the right leg, is placed or. 



Of Tasso it was commonly said, after he had manfully 

 repelled three assailants 



Collapenna e colla spada, 

 Aissuno vale quanta Tasso. 



His father was a distinguished fencer, as was Albert Dita- 

 er. 



