ATHLETICS; OLYMPIC GAMES.) The chief work on the ancient gymnastics is Krause, Gymnastik and Agonistik der Hellenen (1841) . Of more recent works mention may be made of Becker-Goll, Charicles, ii.; Brugsma, Gymnasiorum apud Graecos descriptio (1855) ; Petersen, Das Gymnasium der Griechen (1858) ; A. S. Wilkins, National Education in Greece (1873) L. Grasberger, Erziehung and Unterricht in klassischen Altertum (1881) ; Jager, Gymnastik der Hellenen (1881) ; J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education (1883) ; E. Paz, Histoire de la gymnastique (1886) ; Wickenhagen, Antike and moderne Gymnastik (1891) . See also N. Laisne, Gymnastique pratique (1879) ; Collineau, La Gymnastique (1884) ; L' Hygiene a l'Ecole (1889) ; P. de Coubertin, La Gymnastique utilitaire (1905) ; H. Nissen, Rational Home Gymnastics (Boston, . (X.) The United States.—Gymnastics were first taught in America by two pupils of Jahn, in 1825, Charles Follen and Charles Beck, who copied closely the equipment and methods of the German Turnplatz. They were soon diverted to other pursuits, and the movement instituted by them languished, until, in 186o, Dio Lewis, with his "New Gymnastics," demonstrated light and free exercises with barbells, wooden dumbbells, bean bags and rings to admiring audiences. He emphasized the value of light exercise as opposed to the heavy gymnastics of the early German pioneers, and founded a short-lived institute for training teachers; but his interest soon turned to other fields, and in Io years the life of the movement was almost extinct.
The great emigration from Germany about 1848 brought with it the Turners and in every German community a Turngemeinde was founded. Their gymnastic societies became centres of propa ganda for physical education, especially for the schools, and the Normal school now at Indianapolis was one of the first to train teachers in the tradition of German gymnastics for the public schools. About 1870 the Young Men's Christian Association be gan to consider the body as well as the soul, and in 1875 they founded what is now the International Y.M.C.A. training college at Springfield, Mass., for training teachers to carry on the work, not only in the Y.M.C.A. of America and abroad but also in schools and colleges. In 1879 the Hemenway gymnasium was opened at Harvard, equipped with Dudley A. Sargent's appara,us, by which the bars and trapezes could be adapted to the weakest as well as the strongest by means of pulley weights. Class-work was replaced by individual advice.
The Swedish system was introduced to America by Baron Nils Posse, and the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics was founded about 1889. Other schools followed, but this became the main source of supply for teachers of Swedish gymnastics. For the next 20 years the relative merits of Swedish and the German gym nastics formed a favourite field of debate at the Annual Conven tions of the American Physical Education Association.
About the beginning of the 2oth century college after college began to require gymnastics as part of the regular course, and a change came over the equipment and courses of instruction. But the revival of athletic sports modified the programme and made it approach much more closely to the traditional Greek ideal of exercise. With the recognition of physical education as part of the curriculum it has become possible to allow a wide latitude in the form of exercise taken by all students who are physically sound, and the rudiments of such exercises as boxing, wrestling and team games can be taught to classes like gymnastic drill. The more proficient pass on to more strenuous personal competition, the others taking their gymnastic training in movements that they find more interesting than the more artificial drill which charac terizes the German and Swedish gymnastics. The defective student is provided for by individual corrective exercises for his special needs.
Gymnasiums, swimming pools and playgrounds have been estab lished in the crowded parts of the city, with expert instructors.
Gymnastic classes and organized games form an important part of the activities of these recreation centres.
The most potent influence in extending physical education has been the passing of State laws making physical training part of the regular curriculum in the public schools. This occurred in response to the amount of physical inefficiency revealed by re cruits during the World War. New York began this movement in 1916 and California in 1917, and similar laws have been passed (1928) in 35 States. This legislation has brought to a focus the question of adequate training for teachers to carry out the pro visions of the act. The Normal schools first in the field were mostly proprietary, but they are becoming affiliated with colleges which have degree-granting power. State Normal schools are con ducting two- or three-year courses and many colleges and univer sities are giving four-year courses in physical training. These courses are rapidly becoming standardized and include instruction in anatomy, physiology and psychology, and hygiene, practice in gymnastics, dancing and athletics and teaching, together with the literary and other cultural subjects necessary to put the teachers of physical education on the same educational level as the others on the staff.
(R. T. McK.)