A guide to the history of physical education

In Sweden, as in Germany,⁠[135] there are two types of public schools, the elementary, common, or folkskola (people’s school), and the secondary, or allmänna läroverk, corresponding in general to the German Gymnasium and Realschule and the French lycée. An American college student at the end of his sophomore year has received an education roughly equivalent to that of the graduate from a Swedish allmänna läroverk. In the matter of equipment, organization, and method there is such uniformity throughout Sweden that if allowance is made for less favorable conditions in smaller cities and in country regions a fairly accurate, and more definite conception of physical training in the schools will be obtained by confining attention to Stockholm, the capital and largest city.⁠[136] It will be convenient to consider, in order, the folkskola, the allmänna läroverk, the higher schools for girls, and private schools.

Of the more than 35,000 children of school age in Stockholm over three-fourths attend the thirty folkskolor. These are grouped in eight school systems, corresponding to the parishes or districts into which the city is divided, and at the head of every such system is placed a “first teacher.” The different grades in a single building are cut up into parallel sections, so that the average number of children under one teacher does not exceed 35. The great Kungsholms folkskola, intended to accommodate 3,500-4,000 children, and one of the largest school buildings in the world, is in many ways typical of them all, in spite of its greater size. It consists of two L-shaped portions, each four stories high with a basement, their long arms forming the opposite ends of a rectangular gravelled yard and separating this from the street, and their short arms turned toward each other on one side of the yard. At the center of this third side is an archway, flanked by one-story structures which contain offices and the janitor’s quarters. Next to these the loftier gymnastic halls complete the front by joining on to the ells. The area of the yard is not far from one and a half acres. The classrooms, ninety-four in number, occupy the entire street side of the building, and open into long corridors which look out upon the central yard and lead down into it. On every floor drinking fountains and stationary washbowls supplied with hot and cold water are distributed at frequent intervals along these passage-ways. Besides the recitation rooms there are eight larger halls for pasteboard, wood, and metal sloyd and the sewing classes; three rooms for the use of cooking schools; two gymnasia; two bathing outfits, which include dressing-rooms, a hot-air chamber, shower baths, and a pool seven by fourteen feet; steam disinfection apparatus, laundry and drying rooms; dining rooms, and counters where milk and bread are sold to the children; the living apartments of the First Teacher, and a room for the use of other teachers; offices, and janitor’s quarters. The old wing is heated by steam and the newer one by hot air. The total cost, exclusive of the site, was over $200,000.

In the classrooms of this building the single desks are arranged one behind the other so as to leave aisles between adjacent rows and next to the wall at the sides and rear. Space is thus afforded for simple marching exercises and for others which either require no apparatus or may be practised with the help of desks and seats. The two halls set apart for gymnastics measure about 55 by 25 feet, and have a height considerable greater than that of the other rooms. Their side walls are lined with stallbars, and the floor space is divided crosswise into three nearly equal parts by two pairs of Swedish horizontal bars, when these are set up; but the bars and central post of each pair can be dropped below the floor and concealed from view by trapdoors when not in use, and then the entire area from wall to wall is left free. The remaining equipment includes Swedish ladders, climbing poles, ropes and rope-ladders hanging from the ceiling, long benches for use at the stallbars, and bucks for vaulting exercises. Each of the other school districts has also its special room or rooms for gymnastic instruction.

The three lower classes of the various folkskolor have marching and other exercises without apparatus daily, in the schoolroom, the work alternating with other instruction and directed by the same teacher. In the case of higher classes special periods, three a week as a rule, are set apart for the gymnastic lesson, and this is given sometimes in the schoolroom, utilizing the desks and seats as apparatus, but at least once a week in the gymnasium, where its duration is commonly about half an hour. Little or no change of costume is attempted, beyond the laying off of coats by the boys. The school report for 1898 relates that “since many of the children wear wooden shoes, unsuitable for the gymnastic lesson, four hundred pairs of special shoes were bought and distributed among the districts for use in the gymnasia.”

As regards teachers in the folkskolor, the women outnumber the men five to one. All must have completed a four-years’ course at one of the twelve Swedish training colleges for this grade of instructors, and of that course gymnastics everywhere forms a part, directed by a graduate of the Central Institute at Stockholm and occupying three hours a week throughout the entire four years. There is always a model school attached, which affords the future teacher an opportunity to test his skill and to acquire experience in this as well as other branches of instruction. In Stockholm teachers receive additional counsel and direction from a special instructor in gymnastics, who divides his time among all the folkskolor in the different districts; but the general guide followed is C. H. Liedbeck’s Manual of Gymnastics.⁠[137] Besides the formal exercises this book contains a large number of games. These are introduced occasionally as part of the gymnastic lesson, and are also encouraged in the schoolyards during recess. Of the twenty-eight tables of exercises contained in the manual only six call for no apparatus of any sort, six can be given with nothing more than desks and seats, and the balance require a hall supplied with stallbars, Swedish horizontal bars, poles, ropes, ladders, benches, mats, etc.

Instruction in military tactics and target shooting is given to the older boys in the spring and early fall, under the general direction of an army officer who is assigned to this service in all the elementary schools of the city. There is drill by squads in exercises for the recruit, together with occasional company drill, a few longer marches in battalion, and training as subalterns for the most advanced. During the summer months pupils may also receive instruction in swimming, at a large swimming school in Lake Mälaren, near one of the city bridges. Over 3000 boys and 2500 girls availed themselves of this privilege in 1899, and a total of 6000 in 1900. The number of these who could swim increased in the former year from 602 at the beginning of the season to 1510 at its close.

There are seven higher schools for boys at Stockholm. At two of these the gymnasium is a separate building of brick, located at one side of a gravelled yard at least an acre and a half in extent. Each cost about $17,000 and consists of a lofty main hall, eighty by forty or forty-five feet, with a wing containing dressing-rooms, the teacher’s office, and a few shower baths. At a third school the gymnasium occupies a spacious two-story wing which projects from the rear of the main building; in two other cases a hall in the main building is fitted up for gymnastics, and pupils in the remaining two schools go for their exercises to the halls of the Central Institute. The following list of apparatus noticed in the gymnasium of the Realläroverk (a non-classical higher school for boys) is fairly representative: Sixty sections of stallbars, seven Swedish horizontal bars, two vertical Swedish ladders and two horizontal ones, eight rope ladders, twenty-four climbing ropes and eight poles, two double inclined ropes, a few sections of stallbars continued to the ceiling as ladders, storming boards and short benches for use with stallbars, bar saddles, two Swedish horses, two vaulting boxes, two bucks, jump stands with cord and pins, some thin mats about four feet by three, and a number of cheap fencing foils. The horizontal bars are arranged to drop beneath the floor. The inclined ropes are attached to the ceiling at either end, and to a hook beneath the floor, when in use, by means of a tackle block at the center. Near the ends they are crossed by vertical ropes, used by the pupils in reaching or leaving the inclined ropes. All of these ropes can be hoisted out of the way readily, and a small trap door conceals the hook.

The royal statutes require that in every public secondary school in Sweden there shall be at least three hours a week of pedagogical gymnastics, arranged in daily half-hour periods when possible. In Stockholm the division into half-hour lessons is the most common one. Less frequently there are three periods of an hour each, and in a few cases a class meets twice for a half-hour and twice for an hour, or fifty minutes four times a week, or forty minutes six times, or in four one-hour periods. In a majority of cases the time chosen for exercise lies between ten and one o’clock, though the hours from two to four in the afternoon are used not infrequently. Military exercises take the place of gymnastics for boys of the sixth to ninth years in the early part of every fall semester, occupying three hours daily for twenty days as a rule, and during this period their usual school duties are cut down by a corresponding amount. Each of the seven schools has its special teacher of gymnastics, and no one is eligible to such a position until he has completed a two-years’ professional course at the Central Institute of Gymnastics. In the fall of 1900 these teachers and their assistants were all officers in the army, and five of the nine were on the staff of instruction at the Institute. One had the rank of major, and the rest were captains and lieutenants.

Occasionally a “weak section” is formed of boys selected from the whole or part of the school, but in general the division into classes is based upon school grade, the boys of the sixth to ninth years exercising together as a rule, and the rest variously subdivided according to their numbers. The size of some of these classes is noteworthy. They rarely contain fewer than 60 or 70, while 100-125 is not an unusual number, and 150-200 are sometimes seen together under a single teacher. To facilitate the handling of so many it is usual to separate them into squads of from 12 to 20, on the basis of physical fitness, and to place at the head of each squad one of the best pupils, who sees that his portion of the lines is correctly formed at the beginning of the hour, reports upon attendance, and directs the work of his division when the teacher is not giving commands for the whole class. Before exercising it is the practice to remove coats, collars, cuffs, and suspenders, and the dickey, or detachable shirt-front, if a boy has arrived at the dignity of wearing that common article of clothing. Shoes are exchanged for rubber-soled canvas slippers, of the sort so often seen in American gymnasia.

The ease and quickness with which apparatus is made ready or put out of the way by pupils must strike every observer. It is this which allows such frequent changes during a single lesson, and the great variety of forms given to the “day’s order.” As a rule the teaching which one sees is remarkably well done. Perfect discipline and prompt and accurate execution of commands are secured, and yet there is no oppressive military strictness, nor anything but the pleasantest relation between teacher and pupils. Opportunities for relaxed attention and brief outbreaks of high spirits are frequent, the boys take hold with a vigor which proves their interest, and many squad leaders, even the youngest, show uncommon earnestness and ability to direct. In a few cases it will be found that the control over a class is less perfect and listless, slovenly work is tolerated. Where pupils are sent to the Central Institute for their instruction, and receive it largely from students at that school, the frequent change of leaders and the great variety of personality among them produce a natural mingling of good and bad teaching.

So far as the fencing instruction given to boys of the four higher grades was observed it formed a portion of the gymnastic lesson, and included brief practice in the fundamental positions and movements by the whole class, and an exchange of thrusts and parries between two opposing lines. The military exercises of the same boys in the fall semester cover target practice with the rifle, besides squad and company drill and the manual of arms. The school yard serves not only for these evolutions and for games, but part or all of the gymnastic lesson is often given outdoors when the weather is favorable.

In all Sweden there are only two higher schools for girls under state control. These are the Royal Higher Normal School for Women (Kungl. högre lärarinneseminarium), in Stockholm, and the model school associated with it. One of the halls in the school building used by the two in common is fitted up as a gymnasium, and except in the lowest classes at the model school a half-hour of gymnastic instruction is given daily throughout the entire course of study at both institutions. In the case of private schools, the great majority of which are for girls only, or admit boys to none but the lowest classes, there is no law prescribing the amount of physical training to be given, and the practice varies accordingly. Thus in 1899 there were 46 such schools, with a total of 5157 pupils, and out of this number 2909, in 33 schools, were reported as receiving instructions in gymnastics. The oldest institution of them all, with 240 pupils, has (1900) nothing but a small room some 40 by 25 feet and 9 feet high, supplied with a Swedish horizontal bar, six climbing ropes, three long benches with balance beams on the under side, a vaulting box, jump stands, and a rubber ball. Most of the lower classes exercise here for half an hour every other day, and the higher ones twice a week, under a special teacher. Another school for girls provides for nearly the same number of pupils a room 60 by 20 feet and of good height, situated on the ground floor, and for its size as well equipped with apparatus as any of the allmänna läroverk. Its gymnastic instruction is in the hands of Major Silow, of the Central Institute, assisted by students in the course for women at that school. His capacity as an organizer and his rare talent as a teacher render the quality of work done by these girls quite as good as the best to be seen in the boys’ schools of the city.