Why do we teach gymnastics? / by Jakob Bolin.

  • Bolin, Jakob, 1863-1914.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Why do we teach gymnastics? / by Jakob Bolin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I therefore come to the conclusion that though gym- nastics in our schools can, and should be, so arranged and conducted as to have a direct and immediate influ- ence on mind development, there are other agencies, in the motor training as well as outside its field, which transcend it in importance, and that gymnastics cannot be successfully defended merely or mainly because of this direct influence. If we endeavor to do so we only invite a comparison with these other agencies which cannot but be detrimental to gymnastics. For training of sense perception, manual training is better; through language, history, mathematics, the natural sciences, we acquire “a multitude of conceptions and judgments,” in comparison with which those acquired by gymnastics fade into insignificance; by all subjects in the school, rightly taught, we train attention to detail and devotion to duty just as well as by gymnastics; by well regulated sports we develop that larger, positive will of which I have spoken to a greater extent than by gymnastics in the true sense. I do not deny the direct beneficial effects on the mind of gymnastics. Nobody does. The close inter-relation between mind and body is too well established to allow any Quixotic endeavor in that direction. I simply wish to warn as to exaggerations in the claims; that is all. Do not let us speak of the direct benefits on the develop- ment of the mind and its various “faculties” (which the philosophers no longer recognize as separate entities) as if we wished to make the impression that nothing but gymnastics is worth anything as an educational agency, and that the only or chief benefit from gymnastics lies in this field. For this is not true. In the preceding paragraphs I have endeavored to give reasons for my opinions. These “reasons” are not
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