Physical education / by Archibald Maclaren.

  • Archibald MacLaren
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physical education / by Archibald Maclaren. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    perhaps for this reason that, notwithstanding the pio- gress and alterations of recent years, the book still abides, both in America and in this country, as the text-book of gymnastics proper. Another speciality of the book is the care which has been taken to mark with due importance the position and ‘form’ in which every exercise should be accomplished. We owe to the Aldershot school, more than anything else, the preservation of that accurate style which gives a polish to all gymnastic exercises ; and it is not too much to hope that their precise methods, as laid down in these pages, may become the standard ones of all English gymnasia. The greatest care has been taken throughout the book in discriminating between skilful exercises and mere tricks, and. no exercise has been introduced into the System which does not admit of being performed in perfect safety in the company of a skilful conductor. The greater number of the new exercises come in the fourth course—arduous exercises to be attempted only when the pupil is a sound gymnast; in cases where exercises, though safe for the experienced, are only valuable for the variety which they afford, they have been placed in an Appendix at the end of the several machines; risky exercises are in some of the best-known cases merely scheduled ; otherwise they are excluded from the book. At the same time, it must be remembered that, throughout the learning of all exercises, it is pre-supposed that a qualified instructor is on the spot, who can judge of the capabilities of his pupils. With the introduction of trickeries and fancy-work into modem gymnastics there has grown up a tendency, a very regrettable one, of coining new names for every fresh combination of exercises—names often unsuit- able and in numerous instances either exaggerated or
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