CHAPTER V
GYMNASTICS
The story of Jahn and the Turners—The enthusiasm which this movement
generated in Germany—The ideal of bringing out latent powers—The concept of
more perfect voluntary control—Swedish gymnastics—Doing everything
possible for the body as a machine—Liberal physical culture—Ling's orthogenic
scheme of economic postures and movements and correcting defects—The ideal
of symmetry and prescribing exercises to bring the body to a standard—
Lamentable lack of correlation between these four systems—Illustrations of the
great good that a systematic training can effect—Athletic records—Greek
physical training.
Under the term gymnastics, literally naked exercises, we here include those
denuded of all utilities or ulterior ends save those of physical culture. This is
essentially modern and was unknown in antiquity, where training was for games,
for war, etc. Several ideals underlie this movement, which although closely
related are distinct and as yet by no means entirely harmonized. These may be
described as follows:
A. One aim of Jahn, more developed by Spiess, and their successors, was to do
everything physically possible for the body as a mechanism. Many postures and
attitudes are assumed and many movements made that are never called for in
life. Some of these are so novel that a great variety of new apparatus had to be
devised to bring them out; and Jahn invented many new names, some of them
without etymologies, to designate the repertory of his discoveries and inventions
that extended the range of motor life. Common movements, industries, and even
games, train only a limited number of muscles, activities, and coördinations, and