For more than a century gymnastics in Sweden has been undergoing development along three more or less distinct lines, educational, military, and medical, i.e., as an integral factor in school life, as an agent in the training of men for the army and navy, and as a therapeutic measure. The Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics at Stockholm, where teachers of these various branches receive their preparation, was opened in 1814, and its originator and first director (1814-1839) was Per Henrik Ling. He was born November 15, 1776, in Småland, one of the southern provinces, where his ancestors had lived for seven generations or more. Up to the time of his grandfather, Mathias Månsson (1687-1748), they had belonged to the peasant class; but this man, taking the name Ling, prepared himself for the ministry and married a clergyman’s daughter. His son, Lars Peter Ling (1723-1780), who followed the same calling, was settled in the country parish of Ljunga, in Kronoberg county, and died there when Per Henrik, the youngest of six children, was only four years of age. A year and a half later the mother, a great granddaughter of the famous Swedish author Olof Rudbeck and herself a woman of superior intelligence, married the new pastor, but died in 1789.⁠[111]

These early bereavements, acting on the serious, sensitive, and affectionate nature of the boy, and in spite of his stepfather’s watchful care, gave a touch of sadness to the whole period of his childhood, to which he rarely referred in later years, and then only in the fewest possible words. The romantic scenery about his home must have heightened this effect, besides producing others of its own. The church and parsonage stood near the border of a lake encircled by forests, and all around stretched desolate heath, a strange jumble of hills and broken rocks, swamps and reedy lakes, and forests of pine and deciduous trees with here and there a cleared space in their midst. In 1784 he left these scenes to attend the läroverk (higher classical school) in Vexiö, capital of the same district, where the botanist Linnæus had studied sixty years before. Here he gave evidence of rich mental gifts, a strong will, and a fondness for independent and original thinking and acting; but in November of 1792, taking part in certain boyish pranks, he broke a pane of glass in the rector’s house one Sunday morning, and left the school rather than accept the harsh terms imposed as the condition of his reinstatement. In February of the next year, however, upon furnishing proof of repentance, continued progress in his studies, and good conduct meanwhile, he received from the rector a certificate admitting to the university in Lund.⁠[112]

The young Ling was registered as a student in the Småland nation at Lund—the “nations” are provincial clubs at the Swedish universities, and each student is expected to enroll himself in one of them, according to his birthplace—on April 19, 1793, and remained there during the spring and fall semesters. In September of 1796 he wrote to Lund from Stockholm requesting a university certificate, and on the 22nd of the following November applied for a clerkship in one of the city offices at the capital, where an older brother, Carl, was already installed in a similar position. Two days later he received the appointment. April 9, 1797, in a letter to his stepfather, he refers to “these years” in Stockholm, and tells of private lessons in French and German which he is giving to bookkeepers outside of office hours. Although he registered with the Småland nation at Upsala December 21, 1797, and took out his certificate there on June 5, 1799, he seems never to have attended that university through an entire semester, and there is no record of the theological examination which he is reported to have passed on the former date.⁠[113]

It will be seen that not much is definitely known, then, regarding his life in the years 1794-1799. It was plainly a time of poverty and struggle, and it is not strange that even the members of his own family and his nearest friends learned little or nothing of its secrets from his lips. By the time he left Stockholm for Copenhagen, in the summer of 1799, he was able to speak French, German, and English,—the first of the three with especial ease—and this fact alone may explain the legend of extensive wanderings on the Continent and in England. He possessed, however, a quick mind and undoubted talent for language, and was a diligent and enthusiastic student of any subject that aroused his interest. Moreover, it was not necessary to leave Sweden in order to find natives of those countries with whom he might converse, and it now seems probable that he resided at first near Stockholm as private tutor and later in that city itself as clerk during most or all of the period in question. Although there is nothing impossible in the frequently repeated story of travel and military service in foreign parts, but very little direct evidence has been urged in its support.⁠[114]

In July of 1799 Ling arrived at Copenhagen, and remained in the Danish capital for more than five years, until September or October of 1804. According to his own statement he entered the university there March 27, 1801. Although he was voluntarily enrolled on the side of the Danes when Nelson and his English fleet, by the battle fought in Copenhagen harbor April 2, 1801, broke up the Northern Alliance, the company to which he belonged was not brought into action on that occasion. Linguistic studies continued to engross his mind at first. He worked diligently in the Royal Library, took every opportunity to extend his knowledge by conversation with foreigners, and acquired complete mastery of the Danish language, both written and spoken. Afterwards his attention became transferred from language to literature. Schelling, the distinguished Jena professor and the favorite philosopher of the Romantic school of writers in Germany, was then at the height of his fame. Among his enthusiastic auditors had been a young Norwegian, Henrik Steffens, who appeared in Copenhagen in 1802, full of the new doctrines, and began to lecture there on philosophy and on Goethe. Through him Oehlenschläger, soon to be hailed as Denmark’s foremost poet, caught the spirit of the Romantic movement and began to breathe new life into the old Norse mythology, rousing in the breasts of his countrymen a feeling of Scandinavian nationality. These men introduced Ling to the treasure-house of the Eddas and the Northern sagas, whose gods and heroes were thenceforth never absent from his thought. After composing short poems in French, German, and Danish, and translating into Swedish the “Balders Död” (Balder’s Death) of Johannes Evald, the chief lyric poet of Denmark, he wrote himself, in Danish, a three-act comedy, Den Misundelige (The Envious Man), which was published in Copenhagen in 1804. Here also he conceived the plan of his later dramatic works, designed to set forth momentous epochs in Swedish history. “Eylif the Goth,” printed in Stockholm in 1814, was written at this period, and reveals his desire to revive in the rising generation the old Norse vigor.

Perhaps it was the opportunity afforded for practice in a foreign language that first attracted Ling to the fencing school in Copenhagen conducted by two French émigrés, Beuernier and the Chevalier de Montrichard. For three years he continued to frequent the place, and made such progress that Montrichard gave him a paper which certified to his great skill with the foil and his ability to give instruction in the art. There is a story that Ling had suffered from gout in the arm, as one result of the privations to which he was constantly subjected, and finding the case much relieved by his fencing, was thus led to study the effects of exercise in general. At any rate, he visited the private gymnasium which Nachtegall had started in Copenhagen in the fall of 1799 (see page 179). GutsMuths’s “Gymnastics for the Young” appeared in 1793 and Hjort’s translation into Danish six years later, and two volumes of Vieth’s “Encyclopedia of Bodily Exercises” were published at this time; but how much Ling was indebted to these German sources for inspiration and suggestion is purely a matter of conjecture.⁠[115]

In the fall of 1804 he returned to Sweden, to act as substitute for the aged fencing-master at the University of Lund. The latter died shortly after his arrival, and Ling, who had applied for the position December 8, was appointed his successor, at a small salary. Writing to a Copenhagen friend December 28th he says that the fencing-master at a Swedish university must be able to give instruction in vaulting the horse, and he wishes therefore to have a good vaulting buck sent him. A riding-school, also, is about to be opened, and his assistance is wanted there. Though he has almost entirely lost his skill in that art he is confident that practice will to some extent restore it. At that time gymnastics proper was unknown in Sweden, but Ling soon arranged apparatus for general exercise, and some years later, when a new university building had been completed, he was allowed to use an older one for this purpose and as a fencing hall.⁠[116] In 1806 he began to apply himself to the study of anatomy and physiology. A year later he had worked out a system of bayonet fencing and was practising it with his pupils. He seems to have won the respect and esteem of teachers and students alike. The new exercises became very popular, and it was not long before interest in his fencing method, a simplification of the French, and in his gymnastics as well, spread beyond the bounds of Lund. Invitations to introduce the double art were received from Gothenburg, Malmö, and Christianstad, and in the first and second of these cities, at least, he gave instruction repeatedly during the course of the long summer vacations. Thus Gothenburg papers of July 9 and 10, 1807, announce his presence there for six weeks to give instruction “in all parts of the art of fencing and in gymnastics;” another of July 25, 1809, informs the public that he will remain three months to teach fencing, gymnastics, and swimming; and again July 5, 1811, he gives notice that until the middle of August he will receive pupils in sabre and foil fencing and gymnastics. On the occasion of this last visit arrangements were also made to have him give instruction in “the art of swimming and other gymnastic exercises” to certain poor children of the city.

Ling remained eight years in Lund. In 1809 he married Sofia Maria Rosenqvist, and a daughter, Jetta, was born April 8th of the following year. “Agne,” a tragedy in five acts, his most successful dramatic work, was printed there in 1812, and a year after his death was presented on the stage in Stockholm at the opening of the new theater. The condition of Sweden just at this time was a desperate one. Gustavus IV had allowed intense hatred of Napoleon to draw him into the great coalition of 1805 (the third, formed by England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden), and as a consequence French troops had occupied Swedish Pomerania and in 1807 had taken Stralsund and Rügen, the last of the Swedish possessions south of the Baltic. By opening his ports to English vessels the King next incurred the enmity of Russia, whose troops invaded and conquered the whole of Finland in 1808, and so deprived the Swedes of territory which had been theirs for centuries. Gustavus was meanwhile deserted by his English allies, his armies were driven back from Norway, and the Danes invaded the southern provinces. In 1809 he was dethroned, and succeeded by his uncle, Charles XIII. One of Ling’s poems, “Gylfe” (1810, 1812, 1816), deals with this loss of Finland, which the Swedes bitterly deplored, and shows how intense was his patriotism and his hatred of Russia. We have here the reason for his desire to see his countrymen strong in body and soul, and hence prepared to meet the enemy. This was the inspiring motive of his poems and his gymnastics alike, though in the latter he saw a means of restoring health, as well as developing the race and defending the fatherland. One who visited him in Lund in 1812 refers to his enthusiasm and to the system introduced into his methods of instruction. During these eight years he had been thinking out the principles upon which his later work was based, seeking first of all to understand the human body and discover its needs, and then to select and apply his exercises intelligently, with these needs in view. Nachtegall, in Copenhagen, had already begun to train teachers of gymnastics for the army and the schools of Denmark, and now Ling conceived the idea of opening in Stockholm a central training school from which all Sweden should be supplied with teachers of the new art.

With this plan in mind he went up to the capital early in 1813, applying first for the position of fencing-master in the Royal Military Academy at Karlberg, just outside the city to the northwest, and then, on January 29th, handing in to the recently appointed Committee on Education a written proposal of the new institution. He refers to what he has already accomplished in Lund, Malmö, and Gothenburg, explains his purpose in seeking to make Stockholm a center of influence for the physical training of the young, and asks government approval and support for the project. To the secretary of the Committee, Jakob Adlerbeth, he brought a letter of introduction (dated January 15, 1813) from Esaias Tegnér, at that time a teacher in the University at Lund, who had roused the Swedes in 1808 by his “War Song for the Militia of Scania,” three years later won for himself national fame and the great prize of the Swedish Academy by his patriotic poem “Svea,” and was soon to receive worldwide recognition as the author of “Frithiofs Saga” (1825). Ling was already favorably known for his own literary labors, and appears to have been fortunate in his Stockholm quest from the start. He was given the Karlberg position, at a salary of 250 rix-dollars and lodging; the Committee received his proposal February 1st, and the same day reported the matter to the King with its strong recommendation; and a royal letter of May 5th formally approved the plan. Ling was to receive a salary of 500 rix-dollars as director of the school, an annual allowance of 100 more to cover the rent of a room for his exercises, and a single grant of 400 rix-dollars for the purchase of equipment. The salary was doubled in 1830, and before his death was raised again to 2000 rix-dollars. The school was opened in 1814, and at the Committee’s suggestion the King gave it some time later the name it still bears—The Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics (Kongl. Gymnastiska Central-Institutet).⁠[117]

In the northern suburb Norrmalm, at what is now the corner of Hamn-Gatan and Beridarebans-Gatan and on the site ever since occupied, Ling equipped the necessary rooms—a gymnasium, a fencing hall, and others—in some old buildings which had once belonged to a cannon-foundry. Soon considerable improvements were possible, for in a letter dated December 13, 1815, the King informed the Committee that a further grant of 9800 rix-dollars had been made, in order to provide for the better housing of the Institute and its director. The next fall means were furnished for an assistant, and others were added from time to time until in 1830 the personnel included, besides the director, a head teacher and two ordinary teachers. Lars Gabriel Branting, who had already been his assistant for a year at Karlberg, became second teacher at the Institute in 1818, and head teacher in 1830; Carl August Georgii was made extra teacher in 1829 and regular teacher six years later; and Gustav Nyblæus joined the staff as assistant teacher in 1838.

Ling believed that gymnastics had a rightful place in education, medicine, and national defence, and almost from the start instruction was accordingly given in the three corresponding branches, educational, medical, and military gymnastics. He continued to teach fencing to the cadets at Karlberg until 1825, and on the 4th of December, 1821, was also appointed instructor in gymnastics and fencing at the Artillery School in Marieberg, about equally distant to the southwest, in the latter capacity receiving a salary of 300 rix-dollars. In 1810 the Swedish Diet had elected Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s marshals, to succeed the childless King Charles XIII. He assumed the title Crown Prince at once, and from 1818 to 1844 reigned as Charles XIV. Quick to see the importance of Ling’s work for the army, he had officers detailed to complete the course at the Institute and afterwards employed to teach gymnastics and bayonet fencing to the rank and file. Soldiers from cavalry and artillery regiments in the city were also sent to the school to receive practical instruction in the same arts, and Branting and Ling were allowed to introduce them among the troops assembled in the various training camps. The later order giving these exercises a place in all Swedish regiments did not meet with a cordial reception at the start; but afterwards, when it was learned that French and Prussian soldiers were being drilled in bayonet fencing, investigation and comparison led to the choice of Ling’s method in preference to either of the others, and thus won for it a somewhat tardy recognition. In 1836 he published a manual of gymnastics (Reglemente för Gymnastik) and another of bayonet fencing (Reglemente för Bajonettfäktning) for use in the army, and in 1838 a small handbook covering both subjects (Soldat-Undervisning i Gymnastik och Bajonettfäktning). In view of the general absence of well-equipped gymnasia and teachers thoroughly trained in the system he found it necessary to limit the exercises to simple forms, and to such as require little or no apparatus.

Medical gymnastics he had begun to develop after the first year in Stockholm. The new ideas not unnaturally aroused much bitter opposition on the part of conservative physicians, but he went his way nevertheless, and was content to let the future determine the value of his method of treatment. His school gymnastics comprised only a few strong movements, in which the pupil himself and his fellows constituted the most important apparatus. Swedish educational gymnastics in its present form is a comparatively recent growth, and its introduction in the elementary schools of the state and in schools for girls was not brought about until long after Ling’s death. The first law requiring physical training in the secondary schools for boys was published in 1820.

In spite of his regular duties as director and teacher, Ling’s literary activity was unceasing. For some years he belonged to the Gothic Society, organized by Tegnér in 1811, and the moral support of its distinguished members was of no slight assistance in the long struggle to win recognition for his work at the Institute and to see it firmly established in spite of small beginnings and scant resources. In 1816 he delivered public lectures on the Northern Myths. Three years later appeared his “Symbolism of the Eddas, for the Unlearned,” a prose work; and his “Asarne” (the Aesir, or Northern gods), including the entire mythology and ancient legendary history of the Scandinavian race, first published in 1816, was reissued in revised and more complete form in 1833, winning for him the great prize of the Swedish Academy. This august body of eighteen scholars, created by Gustavus III in 1786 after the pattern of the French Academy, paid him the further tribute of election to a seat in its midst, and he was accordingly made a member by the King in 1835. He was also given the title Professor, and decorated with the Order of the North Star. A long series of dramatic and other poetical works was added to those already mentioned, so that his collected writings⁠[118] fill three large volumes, of whose more than 2500 pages only about 350 have to do with gymnastics.

Ling’s first wife died in 1817, and he had previously lost two sons, leaving him only the daughter Jetta. About two years later he married Charlotta Catharina Nettelbladt (1798-1889). Of their seven children only five survived him, and three of these became teachers of gymnastics—Hjalmar (1820-1886) and Hildur (1825-1884) at the Institute, and Wendla (1834-1911) both there and at two normal schools for women. After some years of impaired health, his own death occurred in 1839, on the 3d of May. He was buried at Annelund, a few miles north of the city, where he owned some property, and the grave, on a high bank overlooking Brunnsviken, a bay of Lake Mälaren, is now marked by a memorial stone erected by friends in 1848. Branting and Georgii were the men he considered best fitted to carry on his work. The task of arranging his literary remains he laid upon the latter of the two in company with Dr. P. J. Liedbeck (1802-1876), who had been one of his pupils and afterwards taught anatomy at the Institute and had married his daughter Jetta in 1833. The year after his death they accordingly published, in the incomplete and often fragmentary form in which he had left it, his “General Principles of Gymnastics,”⁠[119] a treatise begun as far back as 1831. After an opening section devoted to the laws of the human organism, the book takes up, in order, the principles of educational, military, medical, and aesthetic gymnastics, and closes with a few pages of miscellaneous suggestions and comment. It is a small volume of less than 250 pages, and like the rest of Ling’s writings possesses little of present interest to any but the student of history. As one of his successors at the Institute has said, his greatest service to gymnastics was the attempt to give it a scientific basis, and it must therefore change and develop with every advance in the sciences upon which it rests.