A treatise on gymnasticks / taken chiefly from the German of F.L. Jahn.

  • Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on gymnasticks / taken chiefly from the German of F.L. Jahn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    This was by no means an easy task. The first difficulty lies in the thing itself, the subject being a new one. We are not accustomed to observe bodily movements with such accuracy, as to retain in our memory with ease, their single parts in their succession. Hence the difficulty for a writer to give, and for a reader to receive, a distinct idea of a given movement, through the medium of a description ; and this will be the case, until, by general practice, we shall be enabled to discover the essential parts in every movement, whether we see it performed, or read a description of it. Although ] had a most excellent prototype in the original, yet the genius of both languages is so different, and the German of Jahn so peculiar that I could not make use of all which I found in the original. It is a well known fact that a subject, whether it be entirely new, or only more attended to, will exercise an influence upon the language, in proportion to its importance; it will either coin new words, or transplant them from other lan- guages, or impart a new shade or greater distinctness of mean- ing to some already existing. This, I have no doubt, will be the case respecting gymnastick exercises, in however a limited ex- tent, if the practice of them should be continued and propagated in this country and England. But, at present, there arises from this very circumstance, a difficulty which would have checked and fettered one whose vernacular tongue is the English, much more a foreigner, and one who has, but for a short time, been acquainted with the language of his adopted country. He is not the person calculated to make any of the changes mentioned ; it would be presumption, to treat thus a language which is not his own ; he would be subject to= the grossest mistakes against the genius of the language. I endeavored, through the whole work, to avoid this fault, though I frequently felt the want of a word—climbing with hands ard feet, and with hands alone (klettern and klimmen)—or of an accurate distinction between synonymous words—leaping, jump- ing, bounding, springing. In one instance I allowed myself a liberty with the word crouching (see Preparatory Exercises, page 3, V; and Vaulting, page 22, II). In common use, it signifies the posture when a person lowers the upper part of his body, bending his knees and hips, so that the knees approach the breast. I have applied the same term to the posture, when a person, by means of a. spring, draws up his knees to his breast, which is, in fact, the same posture, with this difference, that in the former, the body rests on the ground, in the latter is in the air. I cannot leave this subject without expressing the wish, that one possessing an equally thorough knowledge of the language, and of gymnastick exercises, might give his attention to this sub- ject. If he should succeed in removing the most obnoxious dif-
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