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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    have been misunderstood simply because they did not guard themselves against a misunderstanding which they could not foresee. Authors of a much later date have stepped into the arena consciously to wage war for the opinion that a system of gymnastics must be all-em- bracing, must include all possible movements. Among these none stands forth so prominently, none is looked up to by the upholders of everything in the German sys- tem, be it good, bad or indifferent, with as much rever- ence and awe as the late professor of physiology at the University of Berlin, the eminent scientist, Dr. Emil, du Bois Reymond. It was in the celebrated strife about the general usefulness or injuriousness of the parallel bars. Rothstein, sent by the Prussian Government to Sweden to study the methods of gymnastics in vogue there, had returned to Germany filled to overflowing with enthusi- asm for what he had seen and heard. Appointed the official head of gymnastics in Prussia, he sharply, and frequently in too inconsiderate terms, criticized the methods born and fostered on German soil. Instead of treating the matter with that tact and consideration which we always owe our opponents in a scientific con- troversy, and which is doubly incumbent on those who claim to be leaders in the educational field, he took occa- sion to abuse the German gymnasts for their ignorance, to scoff and sneer at the men who, whatever we may say of their scientific attainments at the time, certainly already had done an immense amount of valuable work from a practical and proselytic standpoint in agitating for the recognition of physical training as a necessary part of education. These actions of Rothstein’s are among the most deplorable events in the history of gym- nastics. The rather theoretical than practical mistake of Spiess, if we even go so far as to call it a mistake at
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