Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723-1790), the son of a Hamburg wigmaker, attended school in his native city and was for several years a student of theology in Leipsic, later accepted a position as private tutor, and for eight years, from 1753 till 1761, was professor of moral philosophy and belles-lettres in the school for young noblemen (Ritterakademie) at Soröe, in Denmark. This institution belonged to a type common in Continental countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.⁠[24] It had been founded in 1623 by Christian IV, who merely followed the custom of the age when along with teachers of the literary branches he appointed professional masters of riding, fencing, and dancing, a master of gymnastics, and a special teacher of various games of ball. Basedow, therefore, had before his eyes a system of education which actually made the attempt to combine physical with mental training, in the case of youth of a certain class. After leaving Soröe he taught for seven years in Altona, near Hamburg. Thoughts of reform in school life had already begun to fill his mind, and the appearance of Rousseau’s Émile (1762) just at this time no doubt influenced him profoundly. In 1768 he gave up teaching in order to devote himself wholly to the improvement of educational methods.

For some years Basedow had been pondering plans for a model school which should embody his ideas and force them upon the attention of educators, and where among other innovations physical training should be given a place in the daily program. The support of the Duke of Anhalt, at whose invitation he removed to Dessau in 1771, enabled him to realize this project, and on December 27, 1774, he opened there his private academy, named by him the Philanthropinum. A year and a half later the number of pupils was only fifteen, including Basedow’s daughter, and only three of these were above eight years of age. But in spite of the unwillingness of parents to subject their children to the new methods, and although the founder himself soon resigned his position at the head of the institution, the effects produced by the experiment were far-reaching and it was watched with the greatest interest. Basedow severed all connection with the school in the spring of 1778, but other men, with greater capacity for organization and administration than he possessed, continued the work in conformity with his views until 1793, when the Dessau Educational Institute, as it had been called after the first few years, finally closed its doors.

According to the prospectus issued in December of 1774, five hours a day were to be allotted to studies, three hours to recreation in fencing, riding, dancing, music, etc., and two hours to manual labor. Basedow promises that if the numbers are sufficient and the ages suitable there will be drill in military positions and movements, and frequent marches on foot; he also hopes to have the school dwell under tents in the field for two months of the summer, and in this way to give opportunities for hunting and fishing, boating, bathing, climbing, and jumping, as well as for the study of geography and the natural sciences. The physical training of the pupils was first entrusted, as a part of his duties, to Johann Friedrich Simon, a teacher in the Philanthropinum from January 2, 1776, to October 20, 1777; and he was succeeded by Johann Jakob Du Toit, whose connection with the school lasted from Easter of 1778 until the end came in 1793. The earliest exercises mentioned are weekly lessons in dancing, free instruction in fencing for the older boys, and six lessons a week in the Duke’s private riding-school. The latter’s riding-master also gave free instruction in vaulting the (living) horse. Thus the “knightly exercises,” as these four were called, had all been introduced, and Basedow himself refers to this fact, evidently recalling the school at Soröe.

But children of such tender age plainly required a different sort of bodily training, and accordingly it was not long before Simon began to give his pupils lessons in what he termed “Greek gymnastics,” apparently including under this head nothing more than orderly contests in running, wrestling, throwing, and jumping, such as formed the staple of discipline in the Greek palæstra. For the broad-jumping he used ditches, cut so that they were perhaps eight feet across in the middle, but tapered almost to a point at either end, the pupils starting with a width which they could easily clear and working gradually toward the center as their strength and skill increased. For the high-jump two vertical poles were fixed at a distance of two and a half feet from each other in the ground, reaching about five feet above its surface; into holes bored in these, at intervals of an inch, wooden pegs were set at any desired height, and a stick resting crosswise upon the pegs furnished a barrier which would not injure the person who happened to strike it with his foot. Another of Simon’s devices was a long round beam raised about four feet above the ground and fastened firmly between posts at its thicker end and again near the middle, but with the smaller half left unsupported. The pupils were taught to balance themselves upon this beam, first at the fixed end, while the teacher lent a hand from below, and then, as they accustomed themselves little by little to the feat, upon the swaying portion, and without assistance. A simpler exercise of the same character consisted in crossing ditches on a narrow plank. The list of games, all of which were under the oversight of a teacher, included shuttlecock, tennis or fives, skittles, and playing with a large ball filled with air. For the younger children there were also hoops and seesaw.

Under Simon’s successor, Du Toit, other varieties of exercise were added from time to time—singing and reading aloud; swimming, skating, shooting with the bow and with firearms; marching in time and playing soldier; making excursions on foot into the surrounding country; walking up the rounds of a ladder set obliquely, without the help of the hands, or swinging from its under side and climbing hand-over-hand; carrying bags full of sand with the arms stretched out horizontally at the sides, while a teacher, walking among them, counted his steps aloud, and the pupils noted the number when their muscles began to pain them, and when they were finally overcome with fatigue, gauging thus the daily increase in strength and endurance. Gardening is mentioned, and in the fall of 1777 working in wood was introduced—the use of the lathe and plane, and cabinetmaking. Thus, at the very beginning of modern physical training, and under these earliest teachers of the art, we find in embryo most of the varied forms which have been advocated at one time or another since that day, i.e., simple games and athletic sports, gymnastics, military drill, manual labor and manual training, and school excursions. It will be observed, further, that these exercises had been incorporated into the plan of education as an essential factor, and that they were entrusted, not to a special master, but to one of the regular teachers in the school.

Other institutions were soon started in imitation of the Dessau Philanthropinum. The first of these was opened in October of 1775 at Marschlins, in Switzerland, but closed its doors in the following year. A second, at the castle Heidesheim, not far from Mannheim, lived only from the first of May, 1777, until some time in 1779. The task of organization in each instance was confided to Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, who had spent four weeks at Dessau and was recommended by Basedow himself. But one philanthropinistic school, the Schnepfenthal Educational Institute, long outlived its parent, and has survived even to the present day. Its founder, Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744-1811), had been called from a pastorate in Erfurt to become liturgist and teacher of religion in the Philanthropinum at Dessau, remaining there from the spring of 1781 until the end of February, 1784, and he himself attributed much of his later success to what he saw and learned in these three years. A growing desire to carry out independently his ideas of education, upon similar principles but with some important differences in organization and surroundings, finally induced Salzmann to give up his position in order to found a new school in the country, remote from the influences of city life. The site selected for the venture was Schnepfenthal, an estate in the vicinity of Gotha. Toward its purchase Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha contributed four thousand thaler, and the cornerstone of the main building was laid June 18, 1784.

Besides the Director’s four children, there were during the first year nine pupils, all of them under twelve years of age, and for the instruction of this small number five assistants were employed. On July 18, 1785, Christian Carl Andre entered upon his duties as a teacher at the Institute, and to him Salzmann assigned the physical training of the pupils. About eleven o’clock they were called away from other tasks for the gymnastic lesson, commonly given in an open space under the oaks which shaded a neighboring hill. Here a jumping-ditch had been dug, and a balance-beam and pair of upright poles set up, like the ones at Dessau. The new exercises mentioned at this period are throwing at a target, running through the long jumping rope, pole-vaulting, and running up and down hill. When the weather was unfavorable they practised indoors various movements and positions intended to teach the proper carriage of the body—the beginnings of our present “free exercises.” The knightly exercises had not yet been introduced. After the midday meal the children were allowed the time until two o’clock for relaxation and games, and again in the evening these alternated with “musical entertainments.” The whole of Sunday afternoons was set apart for amusements, excursions on foot, and games under Andre’s direction. Pupils who showed proficiency in the events of the morning were distinguished by a few oak leaves on the hat, and as a further reward they were sometimes permitted by the teacher to choose the exercises for the following day.

In July of 1786 this portion of Andre’s work was turned over to Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (1759-1839), who continued to discharge the duties of the position for nearly fifty years. During fifteen years of this time, i.e., from October of 1787 till 1802, Christian Ludwig Lenz assisted him by giving instruction in swimming and vaulting. The preëminence of GutsMuths among pioneers of modern physical education does not rest upon priority in time—as we have seen, he was not the first, but the fourth teacher of gymnastics in a school open to all classes of society—but it is due rather to his long period of service, to the character and results of his teaching and the favorable impression which it made upon visitors, and to the series of volumes from his pen which formed what has been aptly called the first normal school of physical training for other teachers, and not in Germany alone, but elsewhere in Europe and even beyond its borders. For these reasons his career deserves somewhat extended notice.

GutsMuths, son of a tanner in moderate circumstances, was born August 9, 1759, in the ancient Prussian town of Quedlinburg. The boy’s first library consisted of a great Bible illustrated with beautiful copper-plate engravings, an old geography with woodcuts of the different races of men, and, best beloved of all, the “Acerra philologica,” in German. This last book, containing hundreds of selections from the writings of well-known Greek and Latin authors, he read through a score of times, he said, and it may have given him his first introduction to the gymnastics of the ancients. He was also fond of working with tools, and skilful with his pencil and afterwards with brush and paints. In the spring of 1773, while he was in his third year at the Gymnasium or classical secondary school of Quedlinburg, his father died. Four years later, upon recommendation of the prorector of the Gymnasium, he became private tutor in the family of Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Ritter, a respected physician in the town and medical adviser to the then abbess of Quedlinburg, Princess Anna Amelia, sister of Frederick the Great. GutsMuths now found his time fully occupied. Besides preparing his own school tasks, he must teach the two oldest of Dr. Ritter’s four sons and a merchant’s boy whom he had also accepted as a pupil, and to fit himself the better to discharge the new duties he studied carefully Basedow’s “Elementarwerk” (1774) and especially the “Methodenbuch” (1770).

In 1779 GutsMuths entered the university of Halle, intending to take up the study of theology; but inclination led him to attend as well courses in mathematics, physics and modern languages (including English and Italian), and pedagogy, too, continued to interest him greatly. After three years in Halle he returned to Quedlinburg to resume his old position in the Ritter household, where there were now six children, five of them boys and the oldest barely nine years old. The next to the youngest, aged three, was Karl, the geographer-to-be. Only two years later, in June, 1784, Dr. Ritter succumbed to a severe attack of typhoid fever. His young widow found herself unable to continue the salary which GutsMuths had been receiving, but he was unwilling to desert the family in its time of need and was easily persuaded to remain for another year in spite of the changed circumstances.

During this same year Salzmann was making preparations to open his new educational institution at Schnepfenthal, about seventy miles away to the south and west in a straight line. Already teachers had been selected, but outside of his own large family there were no pupils on the grounds. He decided to receive without charge, as the first of these, some promising lad not yet beyond his sixth year, and having learned of Dr. Ritter’s death from a published announcement, sent two friends to Quedlinburg to see whether there might not be among his sons a suitable candidate. As a result, Frau Ritter was asked to part with her favorite Karl. June 7, 1785, taking the boy and his brother Johannes, four years older, she set out for Schnepfenthal, accompanied by GutsMuths, and reached there at noon of the 9th. A stay of several days led to such favorable impressions on both sides that she accepted Salzmann’s offer to receive both children, and GutsMuths consented to remain as a permanent assistant. He made the return journey to Quedlinburg with the widow, arranged his affairs in the home city, and on the 30th of the same month was again in Schnepfenthal, ready to take up the new tasks.

The life story of GutsMuths during the next half century, apart from his work as teacher and author, is soon told. In a letter to a university friend, written in June, 1791, he speaks of his garden, and of cabinetmaking and wood-turning; he has daily gymnastic exercises with the children in good weather, goes shooting in the fall, and in winter skates on the meadows and coasts down the neighboring hills; he is an industrious botanist, still takes up his brush occasionally, painting portraits especially, but also landscapes from Nature, and enjoys the use of a very good pianoforte by one of the best German makers; he mentions the many distinguished visitors (Goethe, Wieland, Kotzebue and others), but says that of more importance to him is the Gotha library of seventy thousand volumes from which he has permission to draw whatever books he desires, through a messenger who makes trips back and forth every day or two. The school itself has a good collection of books, and he has been made librarian. Together with an English pupil he has read much in that language.

Twelve years after his arrival in Schnepfenthal, on August 15, 1791, GutsMuths was married to Sophie Eckardt, a niece of Salzmann’s wife. They occupied a storehouse on the grounds, at first, but after fifteen months moved into a home of their own in the little village of Ibenhain, a half mile distant in the valley. There they gradually improved and beautified the dwelling and its surroundings, laid out a garden which became famous for its flowers and fruit, and by the purchase of adjoining pieces of ground from time to time came at length to be possessors of a considerable estate, the source of much pleasure and not a little profit. The family life seems to have been an ideal one. Eight sons and three daughters were born to the couple, and two of the children who married during his lifetime presented their parents with six grandchildren. “Father” Salzmann died in 1811, but his son Karl succeeded to the directorship and the new administration brought no change in GutsMuths’ relations with the school. The completion of fifty years of teaching, celebrated June 1, 1835, found him still in full enjoyment of his powers and busy in his calling. He continued in active service up to the end of March, 1839, and died on the 21st of the following May, after a brief and painless illness.

In the earlier years, while pupils and teachers were few, GutsMuths gave instruction in various elementary subjects, but especially in geography and the French language. Gymnastics was added, as we have seen, in July, 1786. Later, when he had moved to Ibenhain, he confined himself to his favorite subjects—the gymnastic lesson from 11 to 12 daily (until the summer of 1835), and geography and technology between 2 and 4. After 1802 he was swimming teacher as well. Salzmann had expected not more than twelve pupils at the start, but in the fall of 1785 there were already thirteen, including four of his own children, and the numbers steadily increased during the next two decades, to forty-nine in 1790, fifty-two in 1800, and sixty-one in 1803. The war which broke out in 1806 led to a marked falling off, followed by another rise, from twenty-two at the beginning of 1814 to thirty-six three years later, and forty-one in 1823.

For full information regarding the sort of gymnastic exercises which GutsMuths practised with his pupils we turn, of course, to his books. With few exceptions they were taken outdoors, in a spot set apart for the purpose and provided with the necessary apparatus. Already at Dessau, and by his predecessor Andre at Schnepfenthal, a varied list of suitable forms had been elaborated: Marching in time, walking on the balance beam and crossing ditches on the edge of a plank, jumping over a stick placed on jump stands, pole vaulting, jumping across a ditch, vaulting, carrying weights with outstretched arms, throwing at a target, foot-races, running and jumping through a long rope swung by two persons, simple free exercises indoors, skating and coasting, and long walks. Most or all of these GutsMuths continued to employ, modifying them, however, and making numerous additions as experience suggested. During the summer of 1794, for example, or before it, he has the pupils going up and down a rope ladder, swinging on vertical ropes, climbing a mast, hanging and travelling on the under side of a horizontal beam, balancing rods on the fingers, going through various exercises while standing on one foot, jumping over a rope swung close to the ground, throwing a wooden discus, wrestling, pushing against each other, lifting a weight hung on a rod and moved toward or from the hands according to the strength of the individual, estimating distance with the eye, and reading aloud so as to be heard by a person stationed at varying distances. He kept an accurate record of each pupil’s performance in order to note his needs and progress.

Meanwhile gardening and other forms of manual labor and training were not neglected by Salzmann. Terraces were laid out upon the sides of a hill near the school, and here each pupil had his own patch of flowers, vegetables, and fruit to cultivate, earning pocket money by selling produce to the Institute. During the first year a bookbinder in the neighboring village of Waltershausen had given instruction in his trade and in the manufacture of little boxes, pen cases, and baskets out of pasteboard; and after the spring of 1796 one of the regular teachers, who had been employed in various mechanical pursuits and was unusually skilful with his hands, continued this instruction in pasteboard work and also taught the pupils to make wooden models of tools and machines used in the various handicrafts, in milling, etc. Now and then a whole day was passed in the open air by teachers and pupils, who enjoyed their lunch together at some attractive spot in the woods. Longer excursions on foot, when the smaller children were left at home and a wagon was required to carry the baggage of the party are occasionally mentioned. Thus we read of a four days’ excursion in October, 1798, undertaken by a company numbering forty-five persons; and in another year the journeys of Salzmann with his pupils amounted altogether to more than a hundred miles.

Joseph Röckl, a professor of pedagogy, passed nine days at the school in 1805, and in a published record of his observations commends the frugal diet there, the light and simple clothing, the unusually airy rooms for sleeping and study, the regard for personal cleanliness, the active outdoor life, regular walks, work in the garden, and especially the gymnastic exercises. He visited, with GutsMuths, the newly erected riding school, the grounds for jumping and vaulting, and the swimming pool; watched the pupils handling saw, plane, and chisel, or engaged in paste work; and learned of the occasional festivals and the yearly excursions. He doubts whether anywhere in all Germany there is an educational institution which devotes more care to the physical well-being of its scholars.

Other visitors also came to Schnepfenthal, and went away to spread the news of what was undertaken and accomplished there. The lasting fame of GutsMuths, however, depends less upon the example furnished by his fifty years of teaching than upon his books, two of which, at least, the “Gymnastics for the Young” (1793), and its continuation, the “Games” (1796), not only constitute the first modern manuals on those subjects, but deserve to rank as classics. The former⁠[25] was issued in two volumes, which contain altogether about seven hundred pages, nine copper-plate illustrations of various exercises, and a folding sheet with explanatory drawings of apparatus. The first volume is divided into five chapters: 1, We are weak because it does not occur to us that we could be strong if we only would. 2, Consequences of the common method of education, and especially the neglect of bodily training. 3, All the means hitherto employed against lack of hardihood are insufficient. 4, Gymnastics proposed and objections answered. 5, The effects and object of gymnastics. The second and larger volume is a practical handbook, arranged as follows: Chapter 6, Gymnastics defined, the open-air gymnasium described, the exercises classified. 7-15, Different sorts of jumping, running, throwing, wrestling, climbing, balancing, lifting, carrying, pulling, dancing, walking, military exercises, bathing and swimming. 16, Behavior in case of fire, keeping watch at night, fasting. 17, Loud reading and declaiming. 18, Exercises of the senses. 19, The exercises classified, according to the different parts of the body which each affects. 20, Method, use of time, general rules. 21, Manual labor and training. A second edition of the work, so much altered that it is virtually a new treatise, was published in 1804.⁠[26]

In the volume “Games,”⁠[27] of which two editions appeared in the first year and a third in 1802, an introduction of about fifty pages is followed by detailed descriptions of one hundred and five different games, arranged in natural groups and according to the faculties which they test or tend to develop, e.g., attention, observation, memory, judgment. The other works of GutsMuths include a “Manual of the Art of Swimming” (1798, 2d ed., 1833),⁠[28] “Mechanical Avocations for Youths and Men” (1801, 2d ed., 1809),⁠[29] “Book of Gymnastics for the Sons of the Fatherland” (1817),⁠[30] and “Catechism of Gymnastics: a Manual for Teachers and Pupils” (1818).⁠[31] Some idea of the wide influence exerted by these books may be gained from the fact that the “Gymnastics for the Young” was pirated outright in Austria (the 2d ed., Vienna, 1805);⁠[32] appeared in the form of translations more or less altered and condensed in Denmark (Copenhagen, 1799),⁠[33] England (London, 1800),⁠[34] the United States (Philadelphia, 1802. This is a reprint of the London edition, and in both the work is wrongly attributed to Salzmann on the title page. See footnote on p. 89),⁠[35] and Holland (The Hague, Amsterdam, and Breda, 1806);⁠[36] was epitomized and issued under a different name in Bavaria (Stadtamhof, 1800),⁠[37] France (Paris, 1803),⁠[38] and Sweden (Lund, 1813);⁠[39] was freely drawn upon by Clias in the “Elements of Gymnastics” which he published in German (1816), French (1819) and English (1823); and with these books of Clias served as the basis of Young’s Italian manual (Milan, 1825).⁠[40] Of the “Games,” six editions (revised) have been published since the author’s death, the last of them in 1914. In addition to his books on physical training GutsMuths wrote numerous ones devoted to Geography, and rendered an important service to educational science through the Bibliothek der paedagogischen Litteratur, which he edited and published in the years 1800-1820 (53 volumes).⁠[41]

Chronologically the names of Franz Nachtegall (1777-1847), Per Henrik Ling (1776-1839) and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1853) should follow those of the German pioneers who taught and wrote in Dessau and at Schnepfenthal. These men, however, are best studied in connection with the later results of their life work, i.e., statewide physical education in Denmark, the Swedish system of school gymnastics, and the popular gymnastic societies (Turnvereine) of Germany, to each of which a separate chapter is devoted.