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GYMNASTICS AND GYMNASIUM

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 753 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GYMNASTICS AND GYMNASIUM , terms signifying respectively a See also:

system of See also:physical exercises practised either for recreation or for the purpose of promoting the See also:health and development of the See also:body, and the See also:building where such exercises are carried on. The gymnasium of the Greeks was originally the school where competitors in the public See also:games received their training, and was so named from the circumstance that these competitors exercised naked (-yvµv6s). The gymnasium was a public institution as distinguished from the See also:palaestra, which was a private school where boys were trained in physical exercises, though the See also:term palaestra is also often used for the See also:part of a gymnasium specially devoted to See also:wrestling and See also:boxing. The athletic contests for which the gymnasium supplied the means of training and practice formed part of the social See also:life of the Greeks from the earliest times. They were held in See also:honour of heroes and gods; sometimes forming part of a periodic festival, sometimes of the funeral See also:rites of a deceased See also:chief. In course of See also:time the Greeks See also:grew more attached to such See also:sports; their See also:free active life, spent to a See also:great extent in the open See also:air, fostered the liking almost into a See also:passion. The See also:victor in any athletic contest, though he gained no See also:money See also:prize, was rewarded with the honour and respect of his See also:fellow citizens; and a victory in the great religious festivals was counted an honour for the whole See also:state. In these circumstances the training of competitors for the greater contests became a See also:matter of public concern; and accordingly See also:special buildings were provided by the state, and their management entrusted to public officials. The regulation of the gymnasium at See also:Athens is attributed by See also:Pausanias (i. 39. 3) to See also:Theseus. See also:Solon made several See also:laws on the subject; but according to See also:Galen it was reduced to a system in the time of See also:Cleisthenes.

Ten gymnasiarchs, one from each tribe, were appointed annually. These performed in rotation the duties of their See also:

office, which were to maintain and pay the persons who great Athenian festivals, to exercise See also:general supervision over the morals of the youths, and to adorn and keep up the gymnasium. This office was one of the See also:ordinary Xerrovpyia. (public services), and great expense was entailed on,the holders. Under them were ten sophronistae, whose See also:duty was to See also:watch the conduct of the youths at all times, and especially to be See also:present at all their games. The See also:practical teaching and selecting of the suitable exercises for each youth were in the hands of the paedolribae and gymnastac, the latter of whom also superintended the effect on the constitution of the pupils, and prescribed for them when they were unwell. The aleiptae oiled and rubbed dust on the bodies of the youths, acted as surgeons, and administered the drugs prescribed. According to Galen there was also a teacher of the various games of See also:ball. The gymnasia built to suit these various purposes were large buildings, which contained not merely places for each See also:kind of exercise, but also a See also:stadium, See also:baths, covered porticos for practice in See also:bad See also:weather, and See also:outer porticos where the philosophers and men of letters read public lectures and held disputations. The gymnasium of the Greeks did not See also:long remain an institution exclusively devoted to athletic exercises. It soon began to be applied to other uses even more important. The development arose naturally through the recognition by the Greeks of the important See also:place in See also:education occupied by physical culture, and of the relation between exercise and health.

The gymnasium accordingly became connected with education on the one See also:

hand and with See also:medicine on the other. Due training of the body and See also:maintenance of the health and strength of See also:children were the chief part of earlier See also:Greek education. Except the time devoted to letters and See also:music, the education of boys was conducted in the gymnasia, where See also:provision was made, as already mentioned, for their moral as well as their physical training. As they grew older, conversation and social intercourse took the place of the more systematic discipline. Philosophers and See also:sophists assembled to talk and to lecture in the gymnasia, which thus became places of general resort for the purpose of all less systematic intellectual pursuits, as well as for physical exercises. In Athens there were three great public gymnasia—See also:Academy, See also:Lyceum and Cynosarges —each of which was consecrated to a special deity with whose statue it was adorned; and each was rendered famous by association with a celebrated school of See also:philosophy. See also:Plato's teaching in the Academy has given See also:immortality to that gymnasium; See also:Aristotle conferred lustre on the Lyceum; and the Cynosarges was the resort of the See also:Cynics. Plato when treating of education devotes much See also:consideration to gymnastics (see especially See also:Rep. iii. and various parts of Laws); and according to Plato it was the sophist Prodicus who first pointed out the connexion between gymnastics and health. Having found such exercises beneficial to his own weak health, he formulated a method which was adopted generally, and which was improved by See also:Hippocrates. Galen See also:lays the greatest stress on the proper use of gymnastics, and throughout See also:ancient medical writers we find that special exercises are prescribed as the cure for special diseases. The Greek institution of the gymnasium never became popular with the See also:Romans, who regarded the training of boys in gymnastics with contempt as conducive to idleness and immorality, and of little use from a military point of view; though at See also:Sparta gymnastic training had been chiefly valued as encouraging warlike tastes and promoting the bodily strength needed for the use of weapons and the endurance of hardship. Among the Romans of the See also:republic, the games in the Campus See also:Martius, the duties of See also:camp life, and the enforced See also:marches and other hard-See also:ships of actual warfare, served to take the place of the gymnastic exercises required by the Greeks.

The first public gymnasium at See also:

Rome was built by See also:Nero and another by See also:Commodus. In the See also:middle ages, though jousts and feats of See also:horsemanship and See also:field sports of various kinds were popular, the more systematic training of the body which the Greeks had associated with the gymnasium See also:fell into neglect; while the therapeutic value of special exercises as understood by Hippocrates and Galen appears to have been lost sight of. See also:Rousseau, in his Emile, was the first in See also:modern times to See also:call See also:attention to the injurious consequences of such indifference, and he insisted on the importance of physical culture as an essential part of education. It was probably due in some measure to his See also:influence that F. L. See also:Jahn and his followers in See also:Germany, encouraged by the Prussian See also:minister See also:Stein, established the Turnplatze, or gymnastic See also:schools, which played an important part during the See also:War of Liberation, and in the See also:political agitations which followed the See also:establishment of the See also:German See also:confederation by the See also:Congress of See also:Vienna. The educational reformers See also:Pestalozzi and See also:Froebel emphasized the need for systematic physical training in any See also:complete See also:scheme of education. The later development of the classical gymnasium (when it had become the school of intellectual culture rather than of exclusively physical exercise), and not the See also:original See also:idea, has been perpetuated in the modern use of the word in Germany, where the name " gymnasium " is given to the highest grade of secondary school, and the association of the word with athleticism has been entirely abandoned. On the other hand, in See also:England, See also:France and elsewhere in See also:Europe, as well as in See also:America, the See also:history of the word has been precisely the See also:reverse; the connexion of the gymnasium with philosophy and See also:mental culture has been dropped, and it indicates a building exclusively intended for the practice of physical exercises. But whereas the Greeks received training in the gymnasium for contests which are now designated as athletic sports (q.v.), gymnastics in the modern sense is a term restricted to such exercises as are usually practised indoors, with or without the aid of See also:mechanical appliances, as distinguished from sports or games practised in the open air. It was not until near the end of the loth See also:century that gymnastics were recognized in England as anything more than a recreation; their value as a specifically therapeutic See also:agent, or as an See also:article in the curriculum of elementary schools, was not realized. More recently, however, educationists have urged with increasing insistence the need for systematic physical training, and their views received greater attention when See also:evidence of deterioration in the physique of the See also:people began to accumulate.

During the first See also:

decade of the zoth century more than one See also:commission reported to See also:parliament in England in favour of more systematic and general physical training being encouraged or even made compulsory by public authority. Voluntary associations were formed for encouraging such training and providing facilities for it. Gymnastics had already for several years been an essential part of the training of See also:army recruits with exceedingly beneficial results, and gymnasia had been established at See also:Alder-shot and other military centres. Physical exercises, although not compulsory, obtained a permanent place in the See also:code for elementary schools in Great See also:Britain; and much care has been taken to provide a See also:syllabus of exercises adapted for the improvement of the physique of the children. These exercises are partly gymnastic and partly of the nature of See also:drill; they do not in most cases require the use of appliances, and are on that See also:account known as " free movements," which See also:numbers of children go through together, accompanied whenever possible by music. On the other hand at the larger public schools and See also:universities there are elaborate gymnasia equipped with a great variety of apparatus, the skilful use of which demands assiduous practice; and this is encouraged by See also:annual contests between teams of gymnasts representing See also:rival institutions. The appliances vary to some extent in different gymnasia, some of the more complicated requiring a greater amount of space and involving a larger cost than is often practic- Oym. able. But where these considerations are negligible, aas'c aRPeratus. substantial uniformity is to be found in the equipment ~' of gymnasia not designed for specifically medical purposes. The simplest, and in many respects the most generally useful, of all gymnastic apparatus is the dumb-See also:bell. It was in use in England as See also:early as the time of See also:Elizabeth, and it has the See also:advantage that it admits of being exactly proportioned to the individual strength of each learner, and can be adjusted in See also:weight as his strength increases. The exercises that may be performed with the dumb-bell, combined with a few See also:simple drill-like movements, give emnloyment to all parts of the body and to both sides equally. Dumb-bell exercises, therefore, whenarranged judiciously and with knowledge, are admirably suited for developing the physique, and are extensively employed in schools both for boys and girls.

The See also:

bar-bell is merely a two-handed dumb-bell, and its use is similar in principle. The See also:Indian See also:club is also in use in most gymnasia; but the See also:risk of overstraining the body by its unskilful handling makes it less generally popular than the dumb-bell. All these appliances may be, and often are, used either in ordinary schoolrooms or elsewhere outside the gymnasium. The usual fixed sorts of apparatus, the presence of which (or of some of them) in a building may be said to constitute it a gymnasium, are the following: a leaping-rope; a leaping-See also:pole; a vaulting-See also:horse; a See also:horizontal bar, so mounted between two upright posts that its height from the ground may be adjusted as desired; parallel bars, used for exercises to develop the muscles of the See also:trunk and arms; the See also:trapeze consisting of a horizontal bar suspended by See also:ropes at a height of 4 to 5 ft. from the ground; the See also:bridge See also:ladder; the See also:plank; the inclined See also:plane; the See also:mast; swinging rings; the prepared See also:wall; the horizontal See also:beam. Before the end of the 19th century the therapeutic value of gymnastics was fully realized by the medical profession; and a number of medical or surgical gymnasia came into existence, provided with specially devised apparatus for the treatment of different physical defects or weaknesses. The exercises practised in them are arranged upon scientific principles based on anatomical and physiological knowledge; and these principles have spread thence to influence largely the practice of gymnastics in schools and in the army. A See also:French medical writer enumerates seven distinct See also:groups of maladies, each including a number of different complaints, for which gymnastic exercises are a recognized See also:form of treatment; and there are many malformations of the human body, formerly believed to be incurable, which are capable of being greatly remedied if not entirely corrected by See also:regular gymnastic exercises practised under medical direction. The value of gymnastics both for curing defects, and still more for promoting health and the development of normal physique, is recognized even more clearly on the See also:continent of Europe than in Great Britain. In Germany the See also:government not only controls the practice of gymnastics but makes it compulsory for every See also:child and adult to undergo a prescribed amount of such physical training. In France also, physical training by gymnastics is under state See also:control; in See also:Sweden, See also:Denmark, Switzer-See also:land, See also:Italy, See also:Russia, systems more or less distinct enjoy a wide popularity; and in See also:Finland gymnastics are practised on lines that exhibit See also:national peculiarities. The Finns intro-duce an exceptional degree of variety into their exercises as well as into the appliances devised to assist them; See also:women are scarcely less See also:expert than men in the performance of them; and the See also:enthusiasm with which the system is supported produces the most beneficial results in the physique of the people. Inter-national gymnastic contests have become a feature of the revived Olympic dames (see ATHLETIC SPORTS), and in those held at Athens in 1906 a team of Danish ladies took part in the competition and proved by their skilful performance that gymnastics may be practised with as much success by women as by men.

The chief See also:

work on the ancient gymnastics is See also:Krause, Gymnastik and Agonistik der Hellenen (1841); of more See also:recent See also:works mention may be made of See also:Jager, Gymnastik der Hellenen (1881) ; L. Grasberger, Erziehung and Unterricht See also:im klassischen Altertum (1881); J. P. See also:Mahaffy, Old Greek Education 0.883); A. S. See also:Wilkins, National Education in See also:Greece (1873); E. Paz, Histoire de la gymnastique (1886) ; Wickenhagen, Antike and moderne Gymnastik (1891) ; See also:Becker-G611, Charicles ii.; Brugsma, Gymnasiorum apud Graecos descriptio (1855); Petersen, Das Gymnasium der Griechen (1858). See also N.- Laisn6, Gymnastique pratique (See also:Paris, 1879) ; Collineau, La Gymnastique (Paris, 1884) ; L'Hygikne d l'ecole (Paris, 1889) ; P. de Coubertin, La Gymnastique uttlitaire (Paris, 1905) ; H. Nissen, Rational See also:Home Gymnastics (See also:Boston, 1903). (R. J.

End of Article: GYMNASTICS AND GYMNASIUM

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