Dr. Thomas chats with
Dr. Dudley Sargent
Dr. Sargent, I was taught by students of Charles H. McCloy, and you taught him. Over the years, we have moved away from your genius. What was different about the period in which you lived that allowed you to develop and gain support for your ideas.
To understand what physical training was like in America when I did my best work, let's first go back at least as far as the closing years of the eighteenth century to discover the origin of the first organized efforts in this direction. Prior to this time the rough duties of a pioneer life had given our early ancestors all of the physical exercise they needed. About 1790 when the country began to assume the role of an independent nation, and the trades, professions and industries became diversified, a few men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Dr. Benjamin Rush saw the necessity of making some provision for the preservation of the body of the individual, as a fundamental basis for the maintenance of the body politic.
So in the post revolutionary period, our leaders understood that physical culture was connected to the prosperity and order of the State?
That's right. At first an attempt was made to give to physical exercise an educational and practical value through the teaching of swimming, horseback riding, wrestling, leaping, and the use of instruments and tools in various kinds of manual arts. But the country had just recovered from the Revolutionary War, and what we had gained by force of arms had vividly impressed itself upon the minds of the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that physical training soon took on a military aspect. The persistent recommendations of the Board of Visitors in favor of introducing physical training into the Military Academy at West Point, the recommendation of the Secretary of War that professors of military tactics should be established in the higher schools and seminaries, and the effort of Captain Alden Partridge, who opened a literary, scientific, and military academy at Norwich, Vermont, in 1819, gave a great impetus to physical training from the military standpoint. Although the number of schools and academies adopting military drill, a form of physical training, was never very large, the management of most of those in existence in my day was quite similar to that instituted by Captain Partridge.
What was the evolution of the European-based systems of physical training that played such a key role in the origins of American physical education?
The wave of popular interest in gymnastics that swept over Europe in the early part of the last century did not reach this country until around 1825. In the spring of that year gymnastics were introduced as a part of the regular instruction at the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts, under the direction of Mr. Charles Beck, a former pupil of Jahn in Germany. This move was followed by the introduction of similar gymnastics into the New York High School in 1825, and at Harvard University, in 1826. Brown, Williams and Yale soon followed with provisions for gymnastic exercises, and later several schools in New England and New York, and one each in the states of Maryland, South Carolina, and Mississippi, introduced gymnastics into their courses.
Which European system most influenced this period?
This was distinctly the era of Drs. Beck, Follen, and Lieber, and marks the beginning of German gymnastics in America. The scholastic attainments of these three men, however, were so superior to those of most other college instructors at that time that soon all their efforts were required in other branches of education. After their personal instruction and supervision had been withdrawn interest in this form of gymnastics soon began to wane, and by 1830 it was practically dead. According to some of the early physiologists the violent and exhausting nature of many of the exercises led to their speedy decline in popular favor. "The students of Cambridge in 1826" says Dr. Jarvis, "complained that they were fatigued, and sometimes overcome, rather than invigorated at the gymnasium, and were unfit for study for some hours afterwards." Apparently, American youth were not up to training to the German standard.
What came next?
The collapse of the movement to introduce heavy gymnastics into our schools and colleges gave a new impetus to the Fellenberg method of using manual labor as a means of physical and mental training. This method was first advocated by Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, as early as 1790, but it did not make much progress until 1830. In July, 1831, a "Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions" was formed in New York, the general agent of which, Mr. Theodore D. Weld, made great efforts to introduce manual labor into our various institutions of learning. After giving this method a trial, one after another of the schools that had adopted it gave it up because they found it impractical to combine labor and study, in the same institution. As Mr. Weld himself stated later, he found that labor, in order to be profitable, must be more continuous than would be consistent with the best conditions of study, and too little diversified to secure the best result in mind and body. The failures of the heavy gymnastics and the manual labor methods of physical training were largely attributable to the neglected observation of the ordinary laws of physiology and hygiene. The dependence of exercise upon air, diet, sleep, bathing, and other agents of health gradually began to force itself upon the minds of the intelligent public, and in October, 1835, a movement was started in Cincinnati, Ohio, under the auspices of the Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers, which was designed to broaden the teachers' conception of physical education.
Was this when we started to look deeper into the scientific principles behind our training?
Yes. The plea for a more extensive study of physiology on the part of the teacher was further advanced by Dr. W. A. Alcott in a paper before the American Institute of Instruction in Boston in 1836. Some of the suggestions made by Dr. Alcott at this meeting are so applicable, even at the present time, that it is worth while to refer to them. Among other things he said: "It is very difficult to give rules on the subject of physical exercise which should be applicable to all pupils. To be particular in the matter each pupil should require a different quantity of exercise according to his age, health, habits, and moral constitution. Many rules might be given which would be applicable to a large number of pupils, though the best way is for every teacher to make himself acquainted with physiology, and then he could make his own rules, and adapt them to existing circumstances. I would, however, lay down one rule which is applicable to all places, cases and circumstances. Exercise, to be useful to pupils, should be such as will call off the mind from its common pursuits or studies. It is not sufficient to exercise the muscles; the mind too must be exercised and even amused." In view of the system that was developed later, Dr. Alcott's recommendations at this time were very significant of what was to follow. The publication of a book in New York in 1834 by Dr. Andrew Combe, of Edinburgh, entitled "The Principles of Physiology Applied to the Preservation of Health and to the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education," and Horace Mann's report in 1843 as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education had much to do with awakening interest in the study of physiology and hygiene throughout the country.
When did physical training really start getting physical in America?
After the political disturbances in Europe in 1848 a large number of Germans came to America, and by 1849 and 1850 they began to establish their gymnastic societies in Boston, New York and other cities in the East and West. In 1856 Miss Catherine E. Beecher published a manual of physiology and calisthenics for schools and families, which aroused considerable interest in light exercises in homes and in girls' seminaries. In 1859, Dr. George B. Winship, who had been a student at Harvard University, brought to the attention of the public his system of development by means of heavy lifting. He established a gymnasium in Boston, and for a few years he had a considerable following among athletes and business men. In 1860 Dr. Dio Lewis first introduced to public notice, at a meeting of the American Institute in Boston, what he was pleased to term his "New Gymnastics." These consisted largely of exercises with light wooden wands, dumbbells, and Indian clubs, generally with an accompaniment of music. Dr. Lewis established a Normal Institute for Physical Education in Boston in 1861. Through the efforts of its graduates, supplemented by his lectures and writings, considerable interest and enthusiasm were aroused for the lighter forms of gymnastics.
About this time, 1860, the advocates of the heavier and more masculine forms of gymnastics were beginning to assert themselves, and as a result of their efforts gymnasiums were built at Amherst, Harvard and Yale colleges. But the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 rather lessened the ardor for both light and heavy gymnastics, and the physical training most in vogue during this troublesome period was military drill, which was quite extensively introduced in many schools and colleges. After the close of the war the interest in gymnastics was revived, and a new impetus given to athletic games and contests. Sports and games eventually came to dominate physical culture, but I did my best in the years I was at Harvard to keep alive the ancient wisdom of overall physical training.
Widespread rational physical training seemed to be a real possibility toward the end of the 19th Century in American culture. How did it gain such a foothold?
In the public schools, physical exercises had not received much attention until the adoption of the German system of gymnastics in Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and many of the Western cities, and at about 1885 when the Swedish system came to Boston. After that, New York, Brooklyn, Washington, Philadelphia, and over 270 other cities introduced some form of gymnastics into their public schools. Another movement, originating in Boston in 1889, was the establishment of the open-air gymnasium on the banks of the Charles River in connection with the Park system. It was opened to the public free of charge, and was followed by four similar gymnasiums in Boston and several free open-air gymnasiums in Chicago, New York and a few other cities. At one time, six municipal gymnasiums flourished in Boston. The completion of the new gymnasium at West Point in 1890 and the appointment of Herman Koehler in 1885 gave a new impetus to physical training in the United States Amy.
You influenced many famous people who attempted to make our Army stronger, didn't you?
Among the first men at Harvard in 1880 to come to me for a physical examination was Theodore Roosevelt. He was, though a graduate, a slight man weighing but 136 pounds. He turned out to be a great example of what a resolute will may do to train a body as well as a brain to meet the stress and strain of an active life. While I was at Yale in 1876, my first class leader in gymnastics was William H. Taft. He was a hard worker, honest, earnest, sincere, a natural leader of men. One of the first men to come to the Harvard Summer School of Physical Training in 1887 was Lieut. J. Franklin Bell. He became General Bell and went on to stress that the success of an army depends largely upon the physical fitness and efficiency of the individual soldier. Charles H. McCloy was influential in putting some muscle back into physical training during WWII. At least that is what he tells me. I was long gone as you know, and he come over here in 1959.
I wish you all were still here.
No thanks.
