Excerpt from Pioneers of Modern Physical Training

Denmark was the first European state to introduce physi cal training into its schools as an essential part of the course and to prepare teachers of that subject by offering sys tematic instruction in theory and method of gymnastics. The leader in this movement, and its director for forty years, was franz nachtegall (177 7 - 1847 whose whole life was passed in Copenhagen. As a student in the uni versity there he had applied himself to fencing and vaulting, and after his father's death undertook to support himself by giving instruction in gymnastics, at first in a private school. In 1799 he organized a gymnastic club composed of stu dents and young merchants, and on November 5 of the same year opened a. Private gymnasium, the first institution in modern times devoted exclusively to physical training. The venture was successful from the start. When five years later the government established a Military Institute for training non-commissioned officers to teach gymnastics in the army, its management was entrusted to Nachtegall, who received the title Professor of Gymnastics. The King also started, in 1808, a Civil Gymnastic Institute, in order to pre pare teachers for the elementary schools. A law passed in 1814 decreed that every school in Denmark Should provide grounds and apparatus for gymnastics, and that wherever the teachers were able to direct it the children should be given an hour of exercise each day, in addition to the regu lar schedule. Nachtegall was appointed Director of Gym nasties in 1821, his duties extending to the schools of the army and navy as well as to civil institutions. He pub lished, In 1828, a Manual of Gymnastics for Elementary Schools, the first book of its kind, and three years later' a Manual of Gymnastics for Use in Secondary Schools. Both were afterwards translated into German. Nachtegall resigned his position as Director of Gymnastics in 1842.

Consult the American Physical Education Review for June, 1904 (vol. IX., pp. 97-99 and 107.

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