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INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION.
FYMNASTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAXONY—A
HISTORICAL REVIEW.
BY PROFESSOR MORITZ ZETTLER, OF CHEMNITZ, SAXONY.
THE beginnings of organized efforts in behalf of gymnastics in Saxony
may be traced back to the year 1818, when a club of about one hundred
students of the University of Leipzig devoted two evenings per week to
sxercises in gymnastics. They did this during the summer in a garden.
During the earlier part of the third decade several academic gymnastic
societies were formed, the founders of which were students who had come
‘rom Berlin and had been Jahn’s pupils. But in Leipzig, as in other
oarts of Germany, the agitation against demagogues caused by the
assassination of Kotzebue in 1819, destined the first organized efforts in
behalf of gymnastics to an early death. In order to uproot this “evil
jangerous to the state,” the police of Leipzig in 1825 ordered the parallel
and horizontal bars and other apparatus of the societies to be sawed off.
T'his did not prevent the disciples of Jahn from continuing their exercises
.n secret.
It is important to note that in 1824 the educational institute established
by Hander in Leipzig mentioned gymnastics as an integral part of its
sourse of study. All indications point to the fact that this institution
was the first school in Saxony in which gymnastics were fostered. For
the further development of physical education in Leipzig, the two after-
ward very distinguished physicians, Bock and Schreber, were especially
active. They familiarized the people, by means of example, the spoken
word, and the press, with the aims and effects of bodily exercise. :
In Dresden a few army fencing-masters had made use of parallel and
horizontal bars in their instruction, but with little effect. The conditions
changed, however, when Joh. Ad. Ludwig Werner, a retired army officer,
opened a gymnastic hall in 1831 in Dresden, and conducted it with great
skill. Most of the private and public schools aided the enterprise, so that
she number of its pupils soon rose to several hundreds. Also girls’ gym-
nastics found much favor. It cannot be denied that the instruction in
gymnastics given by Werner contained much charlatanism, but the fact
remains that he induced many noted people of authority and influence to
examine into the educational merits of physical exercise, a thing that had
been despised hitherto.
Almost at the same time (in 1833) Otto Heubner established in his
aative city, Plauen, in Vogtland, a gymnastic hall that was well patronized.
As a consequence, in other cities of the Vogtland similar institutions were
opened.
