HISTORY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN DENMARK. 665 
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was to promote gymnastic exercises. Here Nachtegall got an opportunity 
to train himself as a teacher, and in November he sent out an invitation to 
found a private gymnasium. He succeeded in his plan, and the Copen- 
hagen gymnasium, opened in January, 1800, was the first educational insti- 
;ute in Europe entirely devoted to the training of the body. In a few 
years after its foundation it counted one hundred and fifty pupils, children 
and adults, among the latter being a Swedish theological student, Mr. P. 
H. Ling, afterward the founder of the Swedish gymnastics. Nachtegall 
succeeded In interesting in the cause a number of influential government 
officers, university professors, clergymen, and teachers. Some of these 
sent their children to attend the gymnasium, others wrote its programmes 
and were present at the annual exhibitions, or recommended gymnastic 
sxercises in articles and lectures. 
The Rev. V. K. Hjorth, afterward bishop, even published in Danish 
an extract of Gutsmuths’ manual. Besides this, Nachtegall interested the 
prince regent in gymnastics, so that he helped him to get a good hall for 
the purpose. The prince also frequently visited the gymnasium, and 
caused several of the royal princes to be sent there for instruction. 
Gymuastics as a regular branch was now introduced into several Copen- 
hagen schools, not only in private schools, as ¢* Efterslogts-selskabet’s ” 
grammar school, where a young theological student, Mr. H. I. Monster, 
who afterward became bishop, was the teacher, but it was also introduced 
into several charity schools. In 1802 Nachtegall and Monster delivered 
a series of lectures on the subject of calisthenic exercises, and when Nach- 
tegall in 1804 was appointed professor of gymnastics, he lectured on the 
theory and different methods at the normal school. established in 1790, a 
short distance from Copenhagen. 
In 1804 Nachtegall founded the ‘Society for Promoting the Art of 
Swimming,” that gave gratis instruction to charity-school boys, arranged 
swimming matches, and distributed prizes. In the beginning they carried 
zeal so far as to swim more than eight thousand eight hundred yards. 
In the preface to the second edition of his manual (1804) Gutsmuths 
was fully justified in mentioning that with regard to gymnastics Den- 
mark had outstripped all other countries in Furope. It is also necessary 
to remark that an educational stamp was given to the gymnastic exercises 
trom their first introduction into Denmark. They were introduced by a 
livinity student, and altogether supported by men occupying civil posi- 
tions. They were practiced in schools before being introduced into the 
army, and the first teachers were theological and normal-school students. 
In 1804 the government established a military gymnasium for the train- 
ing of non-commissioned officers to become teachers in the army, thus 
founding the first government institution of the kind in the world. Mr. 
Nachtegall was appointed principal, and left the charge of his own private 
gymnasium to one of his pupils. In 1805 Nachtegall published his first