The beginnings of the playground movement in Germany can be traced back to a time when the Franco-Prussian war was a very recent memory, and its pioneers were men moved by the same spirit and motives which led Jahn to the Hasenheide sixty years before. In the summer of 1872 Konrad Koch⁠[89] (1846-1911), a teacher in the Gymnasium (higher classical school) Martino-Katharineum in Brunswick, with his colleague, Hermann Corvinus, having in mind their own participation as schoolboys in the outdoor exercises of a Jahn club, began to take pupils on free Wednesday afternoons to St. Leonhardplatz, on the outskirts of the city, to practise a variety of running and ball games. Three years of experience with German games such as Barlaufen (prisoners’ base), Kaiserball, etc., revealed to them the need of something more highly organized, and of a sport which might be practised in the winter months. The teacher of gymnastics (Turnlehrer) at the Gymnasium was August Hermann (1835-1906), whose wife’s sister conducted a flourishing private boarding school for girls in Brunswick and in its interest spent several months a year in England. Hermann’s own house was a pension which usually contained a number of English boys, and Koch’s father-in-law, Dr. med. Friedrich Reck, had observed with interest in his travels abroad the widespread popularity of active games in Great Britain.⁠[90] At Dr. Reck’s suggestion Hermann therefore procured from England a football, and one day in October, 1874, threw it among the boys on the playground. The history of the Rugby game in Germany dates from this moment. American baseball was introduced in 1875, and English cricket in 1876, as summer games, and the steady increase in the number of players demonstrated the wisdom of the changed program.

Saturday afternoon had now been added to Wednesday’s. In the summer of 1878 the games were made an integral factor of the school life. Certain classes were freed from other work on two afternoons a week (Thursday and Friday) in order that the pupils might engage regularly, the two teachers whose time had hitherto been given voluntarily to the task were now relieved from a part of their school duties and formally delegated to this one, Mk. 200 a year was appropriated toward the cost of equipment, and in the spring of 1879 participation in the games was made obligatory for pupils in the lower and middle classes. The rule was extended to cover the upper classes also in 1882. The Gymnasium Martino-Katharineum thus became the first school in Germany to give to active games a place in the curriculum. In 1885 the Realgymnasium and the new Wilhelm-Gymnasium took the same step. Other higher schools in the Duchy followed, and the movement reached the intermediate Bürgerschulen of the city in 1905, and the lower ones in 1908.

Skating competed with football for winter popularity, but cricket was still the favorite summer game. Koch, who later became the recognized psychologist and philosopher of the entire games movement in Germany, was impressed from the start with its fundamental educational value. Like Thomas Arnold, he attached great value to the influence of games on the emotions and the will, and was not satisfied with the too exclusively intellectual training of the schools. His “Die Erziehung zum Mute durch Turnen, Spiel und Sport,”⁠[91] a book devoted to the psychical aspects of bodily exercise, deservedly ranks as a classic, and stands almost alone in its field.

The German Turnlehrer held their eighth general convention at Brunswick July 27-30, 1876.⁠[92] August Hermann opened the morning session on the 28th with an address in which he urged the necessity of arousing an interest in competitive exercises and games if bodily exercise was ever to become a truly national custom in Germany, calling attention particularly to English experience, and in conclusion referring to what had already been accomplished in Brunswick with English football and cricket. Dr. Reck described at length how he had himself seen all England at play, and not merely those of one class or age or sex. He also spoke of the value of such habits as a means of training the will and developing initiative. Others who took part in the debate (Kloss of Dresden and Jäger of Stuttgart) had been witnesses of the athletic sports of English residents in German cities. On Saturday, the 29th, pupils from the intermediate classes of the Gymnasium gave the visitors an impressive exhibition of their skill and interest in football and cricket on St. Leonhardplatz, under the direction of Hermann and Koch.

Five years later (November, 1881) the movement in favor of games and other outdoor sports, which had been slowly gaining headway among German teachers of gymnastics and educators in general, received a sudden impetus and gained a powerful champion, when Emil Hartwich (1843-1886), judge in the Prussian district court at Düsseldorf, issued his pamphlet “Woran wir leiden. Freie Betrachtungen und practische Vorschläge über unsere moderne Geistes- und Körperpflege in Volk und Schule.”⁠[93] Hartwich was the son of a leading pioneer in German railroad construction, and educated at the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtische Gymnasium at Cologne (1856-1862) and the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin (1862-1865). After completing the required year of military service in a regiment of dragoons at Berlin he began to practise his profession of public magistrate, and became judge in the Düsseldorf court in 1873. By enthusiastic application in his leisure moments he had acquired skill in gymnastics, music, and painting. Deeply impressed with the importance of the problems which modern education is called upon to solve, and convinced that the physical point of view, though fundamental, was too much neglected, he determined to undertake the task of agitation for reform.⁠[94]

The pamphlet of 1881 was the first result of the decision. A second edition, enlarged, was published the following year, and later a third made its appearance. “Next to untarnished honor, health is the greatest good on earth.” This is the motto with which he begins. While in England, the home of open-air sports, many an old man has a youthful look, the German schoolboy too often shows a pale, precocious face. What has become of the games which freshen body and soul alike, and the school excursions and long walks? Our modern pedagogy, he complains, has forgotten the great outdoors. With thirty hours or more a week given to mental training in stuffy classrooms, and only a pitiful two hours to gymnastics as the sole counterpoise, the harmonious balance between body and mind cannot fail to be disturbed. A sound body and good spirits must be recognized as of equal value with a well-trained mind. Give the morning to the mind, he says, and the afternoon to body and spirit, to what brings enjoyment and strengthens the will to withstand the trials of everyday life. This quality of courage and good spirits is vastly more important than the training of the intellect now so excessively emphasized.

To coördinate and direct all efforts for improvement and reform Hartwich proposed the organization of a Zentralverein für Körperpflege in Volk und Schule—a permanent national body which should hold itself aloof from all political, sectarian, and other factional discussions, should unite all classes of society for the common end, and should allow complete independence in the sections which it was to comprise and entire freedom of organization in the different cities. The separate sections established in town and country were to be bound together by the common purpose to promote care of the body and its active exercise. The following divisions were suggested: (1) For gymnastics, (2) for skating, (3) for school interests, (4) for bathing, swimming, and rowing, (5) for games and festivals suited to both old and young, (6) a section to serve as a propaganda working through the public press, and (7) a medical section.

The appearance of “Woran wir leiden,” which was widely read and quoted throughout Germany, led at once to a lively discussion of the claims of the body and the value of open-air exercise, and to a great accession of popular interest in these subjects. Men of letters, government officials, and others in high position rallied to the support of Hartwich, and Gustav von Gossler, Prussian minister of public worship and instruction, invited him to an interview (November 4, 1882). Meanwhile the Zentralverein became a reality—it was formed in Düsseldorf, March 6, 1882—and in this and the following year local societies (Vereine für Körperpflege) were organized in Witten, Bonn, Barmen, and Hagen, in each case with an address from Hartwich as part of the program at the initial gathering.⁠[95] Playgrounds were secured and equipped in Düsseldorf,⁠[96] Bonn, Witten, Berlin (Park bei Treptow) and other cities; much continued to be written on school conditions in general and on brain forcing in particular; and a number of handbooks of games made their appearance. Bremen and Chemnitz opened playgrounds in 1884, and public games were introduced in Dresden, Salzburg, Darmstadt, and Frankfort-on-the-Main. At the sixth national Turnfest of the German Turnerschaft, in Dresden, July 19-21, 1885, there was an exhibition of games by schoolboys and girls.

To keep members of the Zentralverein in touch with the movement and furnish newspapers with reports and items of information Hartwich had started a periodical, Körper und Geist, to be issued at irregular intervals. Only five numbers were actually published, the first in the spring of 1883 and the last in April of 1886. In his address at the organization of the society he had referred to the educational value which the English attribute to their games, and to the obligatory school games in Brunswick. He wrote to Koch at Brunswick, requesting a few lines from him on the subject of English games for German playgrounds, having in mind already as part of the program for his Volks- and Kinderfeste competitions in running, swimming, throwing the spear and the discus, wrestling, football, cricket, etc. Koch replied under date of November 1, 1883, with a recital of his own experience.⁠[97]

The Vereine für Körperpflege were largely confined to Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia, a fact explained by the support which newspapers in these provinces, and notably the Kölnische Zeitung, gave to the movement. The membership, in both size and character, and the sums contributed fell short of what had been expected, and proved that a considerable portion of the public remained to be won over. Some teachers of gymnastics were hearty and loyal in their coöperation, but not a few Turnvereine and leaders in the national Turnerschaft adopted an attitude of apathy, or of positive opposition. “Into the open” was the cry of Hartwich, and he seemed to them to ignore, or not to appreciate, the solid achievements of the followers of Jahn and Spiess. There were many, too, who protested against the importation of English games and athletic sports in seeming disparagement of German Turnen and native games. The early and tragic death of Hartwich—he was shot in a duel and died December 1, 1886—brought with it the collapse of the Zentralverein, for no other leader possessed of equal skill and courage came forward to take his place.

Elsewhere in Germany, however, new adherents were at work, and the movement which had begun in Brunswick and been greatly extended by the Düsseldorf judge was soon to become national in its scope. One state, and that the leading one, had already given its official sanction. Gustav von Gossler (1838-1902), Prussian minister of public worship and instruction in the years 1881-1891, himself trained in gymnastics as a schoolboy in Potsdam and Königsberg, an expert fencer in his university days, a good oarsman and a strong swimmer and skater, had been an interested listener at the sessions of the ninth national convention of German teachers of gymnastics, held in Berlin, June 7-9, 1881, while he was still under-secretary. There the first morning was taken up by two papers which urged the necessity of systematic use of games and school excursions on foot as a supplement to formal gymnastics, and by a discussion which led to the adoption of recommendations to that effect.⁠[98] In the following November Hartwich’s pamphlet appeared, and a year later von Gossler, as we have seen, invited him to an interview; but before this took place the minister had already issued (October 27, 1882) his momentous “Order relating to the provision of playgrounds for the promotion of gymnastics in the open air and to stimulate participation in active games.”⁠[99]

He begins by saying that when gymnastics was first made an integral part of the instruction in higher and lower schools, effort was naturally directed toward securing room indoors where the exercises might be carried on without regard to season and weather. But the playground is not less valuable, and he sums up impressively the beneficial influence it may exert on the entire life of the pupil, concluding with these words: “The school must foster play as an expression of youthful life salutary for body and mind, for heart and soul alike, along with the increase in physical strength and skill and the ethical effects which attend it, and this must be done not merely now and then, but as a matter of course and in a systematic way.” Attempts in this direction have been few and scattered hitherto. He then refers to the books of GutsMuths and Jahn and to some recent works, mentions a number of suitable games, calls attention to certain articles which contain useful hints, and among them one of Koch’s on the history and organization of the Brunswick school games, and suggests at some length practical ways of carrying out the purpose of the order. School excursions, swimming, and skating are also recommended. Other ministerial orders and announcements which followed within the next few years touch upon every phase of gymnastics and games, and for girls as well as for boys and young men.

While the von Gossler Spielerlass of 1882 met with general approval and exerted a stimulating influence felt beyond the bounds of his own state, the immediate and visible results were disappointing. One experiment which it inspired was, however, momentous in its consequences. The scene was Görlitz, in Prussian Silesia, and the prime mover, soon to become a national figure, was Emil von Schenckendorff (1837-1915), formerly member of the city council and now member of the Prussian chamber of deputies. He had spent ten years in the army (1855-1865) and nine in the telegraph service (1867-1876), resigning from each on account of impaired health, and having made his home in Görlitz occupied himself altogether, for the balance of his life, with public affairs in city, state, and nation.⁠[100]

In Sweden, in 1872, August Abrahamson (1817-1898) had opened a sloyd school for boys on his estate at Nääs, about eighteen miles from Gothenburg, under the direction of his nephew, Otto Salomon (1849-1907), and in the autumn of 1874 a training school for teachers of that branch of education was added. Adolph Clauson-Kaas (1826-1906) had made societies for home industry popular in Denmark. Von Schenckendorff was familiar with both movements, and in his desire to provide some counteragent to the one-sided mental exertion of the schools organized in 1881 the Görlitz Manual Training Society (Verein für Handfertigkeit) and opened a workshop for boys. He was also, that same year, one of the founders of the German Central Committee for Manual Training and Home Industry (in 1886 the name was changed to Deutscher Verein für Knabenhandarbeit). As early as 1882 he was in communication with Hartwich at Düsseldorf, approving his efforts and asking advice with regard to the introduction of games among the young people of Görlitz. In 1883 he persuaded the Görlitz Manual Training Society to add this new form of activity to its program. With the hearty coöperation of his friend Gustav Ernst Eitner (1835-1905), director of the city Gymnasium, a beginning was made with boys from the lower classes of that school, who met for the purpose on Wednesday afternoons. Soon the pupils of the intermediate classes became interested, and in the spring of the following year the older boys, who viewed the innovation with indifference at the start, were gradually drawn into the ranks of players. Oberturnlehrer Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan (1842-1896) and several younger teachers in the Gymnasium assumed the direct oversight of the games. The next step was to make provision for the elementary schools, and thus the movement spread from year to year, and methods of organization and administration were perfected, until not only the school children, but older boys and young men and even adults had been reached by the efforts of the society. Annual Spielfeste helped to make the playing of games more and more a matter of habit among the entire populace.⁠[101]

An opportunity to bring the results of all this experience to the attention of German teachers generally was afforded by the fortieth national convention of philologists, held in Görlitz, October 1-5, 1889. Eitner realized that in spite of widespread desire for a revival of games in the schools few teachers were familiar with them, or knew how to set about introducing them among the children, and these in turn had forgotten how to play. He thought it would be of service to show the Görlitz plan in actual operation, and so arranged for an exhibition of games as a part of the program for the second afternoon. The applause which greeted the spectacle was gratifying. One of the visitors deplored the fact that in his home there was no one capable of introducing and directing a similar plan, and he therefore proposed that there should be started in Görlitz a teachers’ course in games for such persons as were interested in the subject, in order to diffuse a knowledge of it more widely. Von Schenckendorff took up the idea with enthusiasm, readily secured the approval and support of Minister von Gossler, and it was arranged that Eitner should undertake the direction of such a course with the assistance of Oberturnlehrer Jordan.

After careful preparation on the part of these two men the first course was given during the week of June 9-14, 1890, and a second September 1-6. In the following year there were two more, June 22-27 and August 31-September 5. The total attendance for the four weeks, not counting about 30 who remained for a few days only, was 120 teachers, of whom 82 were from various parts of Prussia (Silesia 48, Posen 11, Pomerania 2, East Prussia 4, Brandenburg 3, Hannover 4, the province of Saxony 2, Westphalia 1, Hesse-Nassau 3, and the Rhine province 4), 2 from Baden, 1 each from Saxony, Oldenburg, Lauenburg, Thuringia, and Anhalt, 30 from Austria (13 of these from Vienna), and 1 from Russia. There was no tuition fee. Each morning of the week Eitner lectured for an hour on the theory of games in general and discussed individual ones in some detail, with demonstrations of the apparatus used, until about 60 had been covered, including 34 ball games. Then followed two hours of practice under Jordan, and in the afternoons between four and six o’clock there was a demonstration of the methods employed in the different city schools. A much wider audience was reached by Eitner’s manual of games,⁠[102] six editions of which were called for in the year of publication (1890), a seventh in 1891, and an eighth in 1893.

Meanwhile other measures looking toward nationwide agitation and instruction were being taken. As a preliminary step it was desirable to ascertain the exact present status of the games movement in Germany, and for the collection and tabulation of such statistical information von Schenckendorff was able to secure the services of a man who had already made an important contribution in the realm of physical education. Hermann Raydt (1851-1914), born in the Prussian province of Hannover, educated in the Lingen Gymnasium of which his father was rector and in the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Göttingen, was from 1878 till 1892 teacher (Oberlehrer) in the Gelehrtenschule at Ratzeburg, a town twelve miles southeast of Lübeck. In 1886, as the first appointee under the terms of the Bismarck-Schönhausen foundation for the advancement of teaching, he travelled in England and Scotland, studying especially the methods of education and manner of life in the English public schools. The results of his observations were embodied in an interesting and stimulating volume⁠[103] published three years later, in which he proposes an adaptation of the English playground to German school conditions. The book appeared at an opportune moment and met with a favorable reception everywhere. The Prussian ministry of instruction warmly recommended it to the attention of all higher schools and teachers’ colleges. It also brought Raydt into communication with von Schenckendorff, who persuaded him to undertake the task already mentioned. The Görlitz Society for the Promotion of Manual Training and School Games bore the expense of the investigation, and in April of 1890 circulars were sent out to all German cities with a population of 8000 or more asking what had already been done in the way of games and playgrounds, and whether the authorities were inclined to welcome their introduction. Two hundred and seventy-three replies were received. Raydt studied these carefully and made them the basis of another volume⁠[104] which appeared early in the following year.

The time for organized endeavor on a large scale had evidently arrived. Von Schenckendorff therefore invited a number of prominent men—leaders in the German Turnerschaft, pioneers in the games movement, and persons of influence—to meet in Berlin on May 21, 1891, and then and there the “Central Committee for the Promotion of Games in Germany” (Der Zentral-Ausschuss zur Förderung der Volks- und Jugendspiele in Deutschland) was formed. The thirteen in actual attendance included Director Bier of the Dresden Turnlehrer-Bildungsanstalt, Unterrichtsdirigent Euler of the Berlin Turnlehrer-Bildungsanstalt, Goetz and F. A. Schmidt of the Committee of the Deutsche Turnerschaft, Koch and Hermann from Brunswick, Raydt from Ratzeburg, von Schenckendorff, and teachers or public officials from Hamburg, Hannover, Magdeburg, Rendsburg, and Stralsund. After an opening address by von Schenckendorff, and a general exchange of views it was agreed that the committee type of organization, with great freedom of action, was preferable to an association bound by a constitution and a fixed program. Three sub-committees of seven members each were decided upon, and the chairmen of these together with the officers of the Central Committee were to constitute a board of directors. Von Schenckendorff was the unanimous choice for chairman of the Central Committee, Schmidt of Bonn was elected vice-chairman, Raydt corresponding secretary or business manager, Koch treasurer, Eitner of Görlitz chairman of the sub-committee on games for boys, Hermann of Brunswick chairman of the sub-committee on games for girls, and Schmidt of Bonn chairman of the sub-committee on games for older persons (Volksspiele). The Central Committee itself, in its original form, was composed of thirty-five men, whose names are attached to the formal summons to the German people (“Aufruf zur Förderung der Jugend- und Volksspiele in Deutschland”) prepared at the Berlin meeting.⁠[105]

A good idea of the methods adopted by the Central Committee, and the results of its work during the twenty years 1891-1911, can be gained from a review of that period which von Schenckendorff, still chairman, prepared and published in 1912.⁠[106] The Committee has endeavored from the start to supplement and support the work of individuals or local organizations and to prepare the way for the actual introduction of games into any community. Its membership is limited to one hundred, selected from men and women in all parts of the empire who have had experience and met with success in the field of physical education. Besides games in the narrower sense, it aims to foster all forms of active exercise in the open air, such as excursions on foot, swimming, rowing, skating, skeeing, bob-sledding, etc. There were the following sub-committees in 1912: (1) Technical, (2) on public exhibitions of games (Jugend- und Volksfeste), (3) on the German universities, (4) on continuation and professional schools, (5) on promotion of national defense (Wehrkraft) through education, (6) on country children and youth, (7) on excursions (Wandern) and winter exercises in the open air, and (8) on measures for increasing the physical fitness of girls and women. The activities of the Central Committee may be classified in three main groups, as follows: information, constructive work proper, and indirect measures.

Information. To bring its work to the attention of the public at large the Committee has made use of the organs which mould and give expression to public opinion, i.e., about three hundred newspapers and other periodicals—political, social, pedagogical, and medical, as well as those published in the interest of physical education and athletic sports. It possesses also two organs of its own, the semi-monthly Körper und Geist, started in 1892 (April 1) under the title Zeitschrift für Turnen und Jugendspiel,⁠[107] and a year-book⁠[108] averaging more than three hundred pages. In addition to these a long list of pamphlets and small volumes have been issued. The first of a series of national congresses in the interest of games was held in Berlin, February 3 and 4, 1894, and others have followed, in different parts of the empire, at intervals of one or two years.⁠[109] Persons whose official position gave them an influence which might be of great value in furthering the objects of the Committee were approached directly. In this way permanent relations have been established with about five thousand town and city authorities, district magistrates and school inspectors, provincial school commissioners, heads of institutions for the training of teachers, and members of state ministries of instruction.

Constructive Work Proper. Here belongs first of all the arranging of courses for men and women teachers who wish to prepare themselves as playground leaders. By the end of 1904, i.e., in fifteen years if we include the Görlitz courses of 1890 and 1891, a total of 175 courses for men had been held in 54 different places, with 5805 participants, and 74 for women in 20 places, with 2814 participants. For the entire period 1890-1911 the totals were 409 courses to 14,269 men, and 206 courses to 6287 women.⁠[110] In general the Görlitz pattern, as already described, was followed. There were no fees for instruction, and the persons in charge of the work gave their services in every case. Since 1905 the Prussian school authorities have also offered playground courses (about 60,000 teachers had been trained in them up to the time when von Schenckendorff wrote his review), and others have been given at the various state normal schools of gymnastics. Next in importance to the demand for competent leaders was that for authoritative descriptions of the most important games, with the rules which govern them. The technical committee met this need by issuing and frequently revising a series of pocket-size booklets, in board covers, which sell for about five cents each and have become the standard guides on nearly all the German playgrounds. By 1912 there were twelve of these little volumes, covering sixteen games. The Central Committee has also published ten booklets (“Kleine Schriften”) containing information and suggestions on such subjects as how to set about introducing games into a community, the management of competitive and other exercises for public exhibitions, active games for girls, games at the German universities, winter sports, excursions on foot, Geländespiele, games for use in the army, etc.

Indirect Measures. For a number of years the Committee worked energetically to bring about the inauguration of periodical German Nationalfeste, which should serve as an inspiration and pattern for smaller public exhibitions (Jugend- und Volksfeste) all over the country, and at the same time stimulate national spirit. Growing opposition on the part of the German Turnerschaft, which saw in such occasions a menace to the success of its own quadrennial Turnfeste, together with other difficulties, finally led to the abandonment of the plan. The Committee now seeks to work from the bottom up, by encouraging regular exhibitions with competitive sports in separate localities. The conviction that national efficiency (Volkskraft) and national defense (Wehrkraft) are merely different expressions of the same thing, and that whatever promotes or disturbs the one affects the other similarly, has led to careful study of the latter question. A volume of some size (“Wehrkraft durch Erziehung”), published in 1904, in place of the usual year-book, sets forth educational measures which foster Wehrkraft by increasing Volkskraft, and a special “Committee of Defense” (Ausschuss zur Förderung der Wehrkraft durch Erziehung) has met repeatedly to discuss the subject, with representatives of the Prussian war ministry and the head of the general staff present on one occasion (March 12, 1911). Games were incorporated in the course of military gymnastics by imperial order of May, 1910, and the Committee’s special manual (“Militärisches Spielbuch”) is now in use everywhere.

Looking back over twenty years of effort along these varied lines of activity, von Schenckendorff is forced to admit that much remains to be accomplished. In the schools, while play-afternoons with voluntary attendance have spread widely, the obligatory play-afternoon on a par with required instruction in gymnastics has been introduced only here and there. Brunswick, Württemberg, Baden, and Saxony are farthest advanced in this respect. The continuation schools have taken only the first step looking toward physical development. At the universities there is increased interest in gymnastics and athletic sports, but facilities for their practise are still inadequate. The state has not met its responsibility in the matter of building gymnasia, fitting up playgrounds, and providing the means for swimming, rowing, and the like.

Von Schenckendorff, the foremost figure in the German playground movement, died March 1, 1915, and was succeeded as chairman of the Central Committee by Dr. F. A. Schmidt of Bonn, the former vice-chairman. Of the other members of the original board of directors Raydt died December 6, 1914, Koch April 13, 1911, Eitner September 4, 1905, and Hermann February 20, 1906. The board in 1915 was constituted as follows: Chairman, Schmidt; corresponding secretary, Kohlrausch of Hannover (since Raydt’s death); treasurer, Dominicus of Berlin-Schöneberg (following Koch); and Hagen of Schmalkalden, Sickinger of Mannheim, and Neuendorff of Mühlheim-on-the-Ruhr.