ose

Moving on to the background of German gymnastics, we find Johann
Bernhard Basedow (1723-1790), Johann Christeph Friedrich Gutsiuths (1759
1893), and Frederick Ludwig Jahn (1778~1852), as the pillars of strength
of German gymasties supporting the view that this activity was primarily
indulged in for the purpose of developing strong young men for war, While
the Turnverein and Turner bund, popular German gymnastic societies were
operating over Germany and systems of school gymmastics were being develop-
od in that country and Sweden, a variety of sports and organized games had
become an established feature in the life of Engligh public schools and
activities, The playground movement made headway in Germany and Denmark,
but the Swedish system of school gymastics was gaining a foothold in
England as it had done in’ Denmark,

Montague Shearman attempts to show “that competitions in running,
jumping, and hurling of heavy weights are not only indigenous to the land,
but have been one of the chief characteristics of both tow and country
life in England as far back iin chronicles will reach; and that athletic
sports, though they have had their days of waxing and waning, have always
been a feature of life in 'Merrie Ingland'." Young Londoners in the reign
of Henry II (1154-1189) practiced leaping, wrestling, casting the stone
and playing with the ball, niger with other exercises in open spaces set
apart for their use near the city. Another author refers to lifting or
throwing the heavy stone or bar, wrestling, running, swimming, handling the
sword and the battle-axe, riding, vaulting and shooting in a long bow.

Some idea of the universal prevalence of vigorous forms of recreation in
the early part of the seventeenth century we gain from a passage in Robert
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Writing of exercise as @ cure, he first
considers hunting and fishing, and then goes on to say that many other
sports and recreations there be, much in use, such as ringing, bowling,