What is gymnastics? / By Jakob Bolin.

  • Bolin, Jakob, 1863-1914.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What is gymnastics? / By Jakob Bolin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    other side of nervous processes that it has taken com- plete possession of them and become the moving force within them. Therefore, though it may be perfectly safe, ‘so far as the leaders of thought are concerned, to say with Guts Muths that the purpose of gymnastics is bodily perfection, it is at least not politic to do so, because many will accept that term in a narrower sense than that im- posed upon us by the modern view of man. It can cer- tainly do no harm to choose our words so as to com- pletely close any loophole for those who still look upon body and mind as antagonistic in their nature. That there actually does exist a danger of ambiguity in this regard is evident, among other things, from the well- known fact that the support given to any form of physical exercise in our educational system is mainly due to the dissemination of knowledge that health becomes seriously impaired by the methods of instruction so long prevalent in our schools, to the general belief that this impairment of the body must inevitably be associated with intense “mental training,’ and that “physical training” is able to counteract these evil results of the school work by restoring the equilibrium between body and mind, sup- posedly lost by overloading the latter. So is the popu- lar belief of our day. So it has always been. The suc- cess hitherto gained in incorporating physical training as an integral part of our educational system is due to this popular belief. Few indeed are those who perceive that the loss of health is due not to a too strenuous men- tal training but to erroneous methods employed in it. Few are there who understand that what is conveniently called physical training is not only a means to preserve health by being put in opposition to mental training, but that it is at the same time a method of mental training, the opening of new avenues to the mind, so that the gym-
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