was elevated, his aims patriotic and comprehensive. His methods were simple, direct, and orderly. His influence upon his pupils and disciples was deep and lasting. He gave a direction and stamp to Swedish gymnastics which they still retain. He won honor for himself and respect for his subject among his contemporaries. His spirit, his point of view, his methods, and his achievements are worthy of study and emulation.

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF SWEDISHI GYMNASTICS.

Swedish "gymnastik" may be divided into two main departments-Sjukgymnastik, or the movement treatment, so called, and Friskgymnastik. The latter embraces pedagogical gymnastics and military gymnastics. It is in the field of military training that the Swedish and German systems of gymnastics most closely resemble each other. Certain forms of apparatus in vogue in the Prussian army were introduced by Major Rothstein. In both armies the obstacle or applied gymnastics bear a strong family likeness to each other, and the practice of free and apparatus exercises by squads of men under the command of commissioned and noncommissioned officers is common to both. In the Prussian, as in the British and other armies, the piece is used as "hand apparatus" in certain styles of exercise, but "hand apparatus" is not used by the Swedes either in their school or military gymnastics. I know of no conclusive reason for utterly eschewing the use of hand apparatus by the Swedes except its cost and the fact that it is contrary to the Ling tradition.

Some attempt has been made to cultivate gymnastic and fencing clubs among the Swedes, but without very much success. It may fairly be said that the semimilitary character and labored rationalism of the Swedish gymnastics make them ill-adapted to serve the purposes of popular gymnastics for free associations of boys and young men. Gymnastic games are employed, both by Swedes and Germans, but the latter believe in them more heartily and prosecute them more generally and vigorously— witness the results of the activity of the movement for the promotion of youthful and popular sports in Germany.

In comparing German and Swedish school gymnastics the distinction between an artisan's kit of tools and instruments of precision suggests itself. Less care and attention have been given in Germany than in Sweden to the selection and arrangement of exercises, whether with or without apparatus, and the Swedes reject not a few forms of exercise as useless or injurious which pass muster in Germany. For example, the Swedes profess to discard exercises that tend to constrict the chest, those that require the breath to be held, and those that produce continuous pressure on the larger vascular and nerve trunks. One of their most stringent rules is that all gymnastic movements should help and not hinder full, free, and regular breathing. In Swedish school gymnastics much stress is laid on precision and correctness in the execution of movements, though regard to form is by no means absent from other systems. The principles of teaching on which the success of gymnastic instruction so largely depends are pretty clearly apprehended and applied everywhere. But Swedish gymnastics are characterized by the character and amount of effort employed in coordinating the exercises belonging to a single "day's order," not only with regard to each other, but also with regard to the "day's orders" which have been practiced and the "day's orders" that are to follow. By means of the "day's order" or "table," and the principle of "gymnastic progression," which they have best worked out, the Swedes are enabled to order and vary their school gymnastics from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year in a graded series. By this means continuity is secured in the instruction; and the pupils, of whatever age or condition of health, are advanced from simple, easy, and absolutely safe exercises, to those that are complicated, difficult, or comparatively dangerous. Class leaders and memorized drills have no place in instruction of this kind. All exercises, whether by a full class or by a squad, are executed at the word of command. Continnous, progressive, and comprehensive gymnastic training can not be secured by mere imitation of a leader, or by executing memorized exercises over and over again even where music is employed. Change and variety are necessary and must be had.

They are best secured in school gymnastics by recognizing the laws of physiology and by following the principles of sound teaching. The principle of "commanded exercises" is a valuable one in school gymnastics; but it can be carried to such an extreme as to reduce spontaneity and emulation, which are the life of athletics and of popular gymnastics, to lowest terms. Teachers of gymnastics sometimes forget that children and youth were not made for gymnastics, but vice versa.

Compared with teachers of gymnastics in any other country, those of Sweden are a small and highly trained corps. From its inception the majority of the pupils of the Central Institute have been young officers in the army and navy, so that teachers of gymnastics in Sweden hold a better social position than elsewhere. Under special circumstances one may, by passing the required examinations, be licensed to teach without taking the course at the Central Institute, a course, be it said, more extended, comprehensive, and severe than is the case in any other European normal or military gymnastic school. The influence and traditions of the Central Institute are paramount in all branches of Swedish gymnastics, and have made them what they are. (For a fuller account of the Central Institute, sec paper by its director, Professor Törngren, pp. 662-664, in Proceedings of International Congress of Education, published by National Education Association, 1894.) As tending to show that the principles of teaching employed in German gymnastics are not abysmally dif ferent from those termed Swedish, the following extract from the official "Leitfaden für den Turnunterricht in den Preussischen Volksschulen, Berlin, 1895," is here cited. School gymnastics should, by means of appropriately selected and well-ordered exercises, promote the bodily development of the children, strengthen their health, habituate the body to a natural and pleasing carriage, increase the strength, endurance, and dexterity of the body in the use of its members, and secure the adoption of certain useful forms of dexterity, particularly with reference to future service under arms in the army of the fatherland. Throughout the entire course of instruction, simultaneously with increase of health, strength, and skill of the body, it is essential to secure as cooperative factors freshness of spirit, self-confidence, and resolution-discretion as well as courage-not only to arouse and strengthen these in the children, but also to accustom them to quick apprehension and accurate execution of commands, and to teach them ready subordination to the purposes of a greater whole. This can only be attained when instruction in gymnastics is so divided-in accordance with a definite plan of instruction and a carefully considered preparation on the part of the teacher for every single hour of instructionthat the material of instruction, through gradation and variety, insures regular progress to all pupils.

The main subjects of instruction are divided as follows: Order movements; free movements; apparatus exercises, and gymnastie games. Under the head of "The conduct of gymnastic instruction" the following remarks are made:

Gymnastic instruction, properly so called, begins, as a rule, with the completed eighth year of life. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on the teacher to pay attention to the bodily carriage of the children in the earlier years of school life, and to stimulate and guide them in games. Besides simple running games, in the lower classes, the so-called "imitation plays" have a place.

Every gymnastic lesson should include order and free movements as well as apparatus exercises. Free movements in place should interchange with similar movements involving change of place. Care should be taken that during the time of exercise the trunk as well as the lower limbs are exercised. During the hour of instruction the single exercises should follow one another quickly and without delay. Explanations and criticisms by the teacher should be concise and conclusive. Free and order movements as well as exercises with hand apparatus should always be made as common movements, i. e., simultaneously and in concert by all the pupils in the division at the command of the teacher.

Hitherto school gymnasties in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Russia, Italy, England, and even in France, have followed or resembled German school gymnastics in the main; but in France, Denmark, England, and Russia a tendency to adopt or approximate toward Swedish methods has declared itself recently. In my opinion the Swedish system is better adapted to the needs of school children between the ages of 7 and 15 than any other. For boys above 15 and collegiansat any rate in England and America-I am inclined to think an admixture of German

forms of exercise will be found advantageous; but I would have them grounded in Swedish gymnastics to begin with.

More ink and anger have been expended in discussing the relative merits of German turnen and Swedish gymnastik than their diverse characteristics warrant. Each has its excellences and limitations, which reflect the personal and racial peculiarities of its inventors and champions. Both bear the stamp of the times and conditions under which they originated, but both have been modified and improved to suit new conditions. It is altogether likely that both will be still further modified to meet the requirements of progress in the science and art of education. It must be admitted that the leaders of German gymnastics are quicker to adapt themselves and their art to new demands and conditions than are their Swedish rivals, on whom the yoke of tradition weighs somewhat heavily. Besides the German and Swedish there is no modern system of gymnastics entitled to be designated as national in its characteristics and proportions.

In general, we may say that the Grecian gymnastics and athletics and the martial exercises of the ancient and medieval Gauls and Teutons were of a character to affect chiefly the fundamental or earliest developed neuro-muscular mechanisms, which constitute "the coarse adjustment" of the body. The more massive bodily virtues of strength, endurance, and speed are promoted by popular sports; whereas dexterity, address, sleight of hand, quickness and accuracy of eye and hand require more specialized and complicated forms of exercise for their development. In other words, British sports are insufficient for the purpose of giving a complete training to the fundamental and accessory groups of muscles, and require to be supplemented by such drill as is afforded by the systematic gymnastics of the Swedes and Germans. For purely educational ends in many respects no system of physical training has yet been devised which is superior to the Swedish school gymnastics.

PRESENT TENDENCY IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE,

If the course of the summer and autumn of 1896 the writer visited certain of the principal cities of Europe for the purpose of studying school hygiene and physical education. The principal cities visited were Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, Cologne, Vienna, and Budapest. Of the cities mentioned Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds, and Budapest were visited by me for the first time.

Comparing the impressions gained in 1896 with those derived from studies made in former visits, I am led to the following general conclusions with regard to physical education in Great Britain, France, and Germany: Physical education as organized and administered in the public elementary and secondary schools of all those countries is of a more highly developed and efficient type than was the caso on the occasion of my last previous visit in 1890. On the whole it is, as heretofore, more intelligently conceived and better organized on the Continent than in the British Islands. In German cities there has been a wide and successful movement to supplement gymnastic training (which has long been more fully provided for than in French or British cities) by the development of gymnastic games and out-of-door sports, both within and beyond the jurisdiction of the regularly constituted school authorities. As a rule German cities now provide their schools with both gymnasia and playgrounds. The former are detached or semidetached buildings, generally; the playgrounds in some instances form a part of the school yards, in others they are located in public parks or open spaces (as is more frequently the case in Britain and France), while in not a few cases special playgrounds are set apart for the school children of the city. In Paris and in London the school yards are used as playgrounds in the summer vacation, particularly in crowded districts. In Paris school gymnasia and special playgrounds for school children have increased notably in the last five years. The new French gymnastic code requires much attention to be given to games, and in accordance with it the gymnasia attached even to elementary schools are much more generally furnished with gymnastic appliances than is

yet the custom: in American high schools. In Paris the school authorities maintain a large number of "vacation schools," which are officered by regular teachers. The "kinderhort" is peculiar to German schools. In it younger pupils, who otherwise would be left to their own devices while their parents are at work, remain on the school premises, under the charge of teachers specially detailed and paid for the purpose, until evening; while in the kinderhort they may receive instruction in singing, manual training, and the like. "Cantines scolaires," which furnish a simple meal for a trifling sum, constitute a marked feature of the newer schools in Paris.

School gymnasia, either in the form of special rooms or special buildings, are increasing in number year by year in Scotch and English cities, as well as in France. It is only in the United States, where physical education is in a relatively backward and undeveloped state, that the cheap device of having school gymnastics in the aisles and corridors is considered sufficient. The professional training and standing of directors and teachers of gymnastics is higher in France and Germany than in England. There has been more radical improvement and rapid progress in Paris than in London, Liverpool, or Berlin in the last six years.

Gymnastic apparatus in the school yard is not uncommon in England and Germany. As a rulo the school yards are much more spacious and well adapted for school playground purposes in the cities of Europe than is the case in most American cities.

One of the most salient features of British city parks and open spaces is the varied and often ample space set apart for outdoor games for children, youth, and adults. In the parks under control of the London county council, for instance, there are no less than 23 open-air gymnasia, not to speak of fields for cricket, tennis, football, quoits, bowls, and even golf. Open-air swimming pools are found in certain city parks of Manchester, Birmingham, and London, although public baths with swimming pools are common in these as in most British cities. Swimming baths are found in several of the schools of Glasgow and Liverpool. Special funds for the instruction of school children in swimming in connection with public or semipublic baths are now provided in London, Paris, Frankfort, and Dresden.

SURVEY OF PHYSICAL TRAINING IN THE UNITED STATES.

The development of physical education in America has taken place along lines that are in general parallel to the course of the development of physical education in Europe. It may be divided roughly into periods as follows: 1. The period extending from the outbreak of the Revolutionary war to the year 1825. This was a period of premonitory criticism and slight theoretical recognition. 2. A period from 1825 to 1835 of enthusiastic discussion and of hopeful but short-lived experiments due to foreign example. 3. The period 1835 to 1860 was one of quiescence and neglect, marked by the beginnings of a reaction toward its close. 4. From 1860 to 1880 was a period of awakening, revival, and experiment. 5. The period extending from 1880 to the present time has been a time of active growth and diversified expansion.

Interest in problems pertaining to the physical side of education has never been so general, so active, or so intelligent in the United States as within the past ten years. Though that interest has continually gained in force and volume since the revival in athletics set in, after the close of the war, its spread has become much more rapid, and its manifestations much more widely diversified since the year 1884. Evidences of its extension are to be found in all parts of the country, under an increasing variety of forms. Within the period under review, the discussion by the general, the religious, the medical, and the educational press of the more superficial aspects of physical training has been notably enlarged. In certain quarters, likewise, a keener and more intelligent interest in questions relating to the scientific, historical, and pedagogical bearings of the subject has been awakened and fostered by publications emanating from the United States Bureau of Education, the North American Gymnastic Union, the National Education Association, and Associa

tion for the Advancement of Physical Education, and from various other sources. At the same time not a little hubbub has arisen from various groups of would-be reformers and minor prophets, who are quick to scent an opportunity to call public attention to themselves and their crude and inept schemes for hastening the millenium. Systems and systemettes made up of "breathing exercises," "decomposing exercises," and "elocutionary exercises" still excite enthusiasm among faddists, but they can not be made to serve the ends of general physical education.

In the field of superior and secondary education the multiplication and improvement of material appliances have gone bravely on, and large sums of money have been expended on gymnasia, gymnastic apparatus, and playgrounds, and numerous colleges and preparatory schools for both sexes have established departments or quasi departments of physical training and personal hygiene. School boards in most parts of the country have shown a somewhat quickened sense of the need and value of bodily education and a hopeful new departure has been made in the direction of establishing public education on a really sound foundation. Since 1884 cities aggregating an enrolled school population of more than 1,000,000 have taken steps toward providing instruction in gymnastics of one kind or another for the children in their elementary schools. In promoting this end, especially in the West, the North American Turnerbund has achieved more than any other organization or class of organizations. In the East an independent movement has arisen, with Boston as its center, for the promotion and extension of the Swedish system of pedagogical gymnastics. The battle of the systems continues to be waged, but with less acrimony than at first. Its earnest and prolonged continuance will in the main, I am confident, be productive of good results, as it can not fail to bring out a large body of principles and facts which our educators as a class have ignored hitherto; and it is also likely to exercise an enlightening and humanizing influence on the too often uncritical and intolerant partisans of the systems and alleged systems of which we hear so much. Teachers that are not open minded and teachable are almost certain to prove false guides, and it is teachers and not mere gymnasts or expert foreturners that we must have if physical education is to win its proper place in the school and college world. Summer schools and a variety of nondescript "institutes" and "colleges" have shown marked activity in organizing what they are pleased to advertise as normal courses in physical culture. Of much greater consequence is the fact that several prominent normal schools have enlarged their curriculum by the appointment of special teachers of physical training, and other well-established schools of the same kind are moving in the same direction.

One of the most striking and hopeful signs of the times is the growing conviction that teachers and preachers of physical training require to be carefully and thoroughly trained for their work; and the measure of success attained by a few normal and training schools, for the special teaching of the principles and practice of physical education, that have been started or re-formed since 1880 gives ground for hope that this indispensable department of endeavor will in the future be much moro adequately organized and supported. In this connection special mention should be made of the Turnlehrer Seminar in Milwaukee, the physical department of the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School at Springfield, Mass., Dr. Sargent's Normal School at Cambridge, Dr. Anderson's Normal School at New Haven, the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, and the Posse Normal School, Boston. Each of the schools named above offers a course of theoretical and practical studies covering two years. Of summer schools and classes there is no lack. The most prominent and popular of them are the Harvard University Summer School of Physical Training, the Chautauqua School of Physical Education, and the Summer School for Physical Training maintained by the North American Turnerbund at Milwaukee. The International Young Men's Christian Association Training School also holds summer courses for the special benefit of men in charge of Young Men's Christian Association gymnasia.

The aims of the Young Men's and also the Young Women's Christian Associations