Gymnasium (school)

“ Till he appears, our culture must remain for most a little hollow, falsetto, and handicapped by school-bred diseases. The modern gymnasium performs its chief service during adolescence and is one of the most beneficent agencies of which not a few, but every youth, should make large use. Its spirit should be instinct with euphoria, where the joy of being alive reaches a point of high, although not quite its highest, intensity. ”

“ History of Secondary Instruction in Germany (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, 1874, no. 3) , page 41. "The name gymnasium came into use as early as the sixteenth century. The ministerial decree of the 12th of November, 1812, ordered that all learned school institutions, such as lyceums, pedagogiums, collegiums, Latin schools, etc., should bear the name gymnasium. A gymnasium is and has long been a classical school." ”

“ Such a contest has many advantages over an in-door track-athletic meeting, and now that most of the schools in the city are provided with gymnasiums, it would seem an easy matter to arrange one. Trinity School, at present, seems to take the greatest interest in gymnasium work of any school in the city. By gymnasium work I do not mean exercise in the gymnasium preparatory for track athletics. ”

“ The gymnasium not only gets better material to work upon than its rival, but it has also a superior corps of teachers. The writer was told by a gentleman who was a graduate of a real school, and who had been a teacher in one for some time, but had afterward made up the Greek and Latin of a gymnasium course in order to qualify himself for teaching in a gymnasium, that no teacher of ability and enterprise would remain in a real school any longer than he was obliged to remain there. ”

“ At this primitive school there were no spacious athletic fields, no huge, airy dormitories, no stately towers, no gymnasium of any description. We, in this country, can hardly conceive of a crack school, for that is what this one is considered, not having at least a gymnasium. ”

“ The gymnasium was draped inside with flags and bunting and decorated outside with Japanese lanterns. School Hall became suddenly a bower of palms and other things in pots or tubs which looked like palms but were really something quite different with far more unpronounceable names. ”

“ Gymnasiums for the body, conducted by men who have made themselves masters of anatomy and physiology, should be an essential feature in every school, so that ignorance and the desire to excel may not lead to putting a strain upon the system calculated materially to injure organs which need careful and judicious development. Plays, games, dancing, marching and the gymnasium all require the careful supervision of a teacher well versed in a practical knowledge of the human system, and thoroughly appreciative of the great truth, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.” ”

“ What is lost or overlooked in the gymnasium cannot be acquired at the university. Hence the peculiar conscientiousness of the German teacher, his almost painful anxiety to make sure that his pupils master every subject, his unwillingness to let them go before they are "ripe." With us the change from school to college is not an abrupt transition, like that from gymnasium to university. ”

“ From eight o’clock until half-past eight, the three sections joined in gymnastic exercises on one morning and on the other the same period was devoted to concert singing. On the same floor with the schoolrooms a small gymnasium had been fitted with wands, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and all the paraphernalia of a high-school gymnasium. Their instructor was a young salesman in the sporting goods department, who left the selling floor for a half hour every other [100] morning to give the boys the benefit of his services. ”

“ In this way the noise and dust which is incident to exercise is removed from the school, and it is possible to give more freedom to the work. In most cases there is a swimming pool in the basement where the pupils are taught to swim. But the chief advantage of the gymnasium’s being in a separate building is that it is thus more accessible to the general public as a free gymnasium and bath at night.
Our public schools and especially our summer schools are greatly hampered by the lack of library facilities. The school in order to be successful must create a love of reading. ”

“ The runs developed into the gymnasium, the wrestling-ring into the palaestra.
The word “gymnasium” means, properly, an athletic exercise. By a natural transference it comes to be used first in the plural, afterwards collectively in the singular for a place set apart for such exercises. It is a general term. The gymnasium is merely an athletic ground, or playing-field, where all sorts of sport take place. It contains “runs and wrestling-rings.” It may serve as a riding-school. Euripides speaks of “gymnasia resounding with the tramp of horses.” ”

“ A roomy school-yard, a bit of lawn, a gymnasium-track, or a track around the school-house, either of these is all the place needed in which to learn this now almost obsolete accomplishment. The gymnasium is perhaps the best place; as there they can wear costumes which do not impede freedom of movement. ”

“ In the large, well-kept grounds there is room for football, tennis, hockey, and a gymnasium is provided in a detached building.
The school is admirably constructed for its purpose, the classrooms opening out of a large central hall. We were unexpected and unannounced. In the course of our researches in pursuit of the headmaster we were impressed with the excellent discipline and tone of a school in which the children’s attention was not to be distracted by the presence of strangers glancing into their classrooms in passing. ”

“ Each of the new public schools of New York contains a gymnasium, but most of these are on the top floor, and they have to equip another in the basement for the play center. Each of the new public schools of Cincinnati contains a gymnasium and a swimming pool, and they are generally on the ground floor or near it. Most of the new high schools all over the country contain a gymnasium at least and many of them swimming pools as well. Wherever these facilities are furnished, they are generally used by the school during the day and by the public at night. ”

“ Austrian ministry started to experiment, after the French example, with the so-called reform real-gymnasia; the first four grades are the same as in the “real schools”, in the upper grades Latin is intensively studied with knowledge of French as a foundation. In Bohemia there is only one school of this type, the German gymnasium of Děčín. The intention here is to unite gymnasium with “real school” and real-gymnasium. In some of the subjects all scholars receive common instruction, while there are separate classes for other subjects, proper to each type of school. ”

“ It is to be found in the higher social position which tradition assigns to the office of gymnasial teacher, and the better career which the Government opens to it. How idle, in the face of all these facts, is the assertion that the Berlin report has settled the question between the real school and the gymnasium, or that it is of paramount significance in the deeper question of classical against modern training! ”

“ When Marie was sixteen, she graduated from the "gymnasium" for girls, receiving a gold medal for excellence in mathematics and sciences. In Russia, as in Germany, the gymnasium corresponds to our high school, but also covers some of the work of the first two years of college. The name gymnasium signifies a place where the mind is exercised and made strong in preparation for the work of the universities.
The position as governess to the daughters of a Russian nobleman was offered to the brilliant girl with the sweet, serious eyes and gentle voice. ”

“ Germany has always had separate schools for the different schemes of preparation. The higher schools which engaged the boys to the nineteenth or twentieth year have always been of three types, the Gymnasium which puts the chief emphasis on Latin and Greek, the Real gymnasium which omits the Greek and emphasizes modern languages and the Oberreal gymnasium which has very little Latin but much natural science. They correspond roughly to the American high school and a modest American college or the first two or three years of the best colleges. ”

“ This feeling became acute when the students began to discuss the necessity for an athletic field and a gymnasium: a very hypothetical discussion remote and probably ever to remain remote, for the University had need of money for more impending goods than gymnasiums. But Jason’s party argued as if the gymnasium were about to be built, and said that it would only lead young men into racing for prizes!—and competing for wagers! The party was called the Anti-Gymnasiums. ”

“ The teacher should guard against elevating hurdles as an exhibition of her own reach. The gymnasium is not a stage for exhibitions. On the contrary, it is a place for graduated, cumulative training.
Our inclination is to make life easy and agreeable to our pupils rather than real. To this end we help them over the difficulties, answer questions which they do not ask, and supply them with crutches when we should be training them to walk without artificial aids. The passing mark rather than real training seems to be made the goal of our endeavors even if we enfeeble the child by so doing. ”

“ Both middle school and gymnasium shall contribute to the religions and moral training of the pupils, and it should also be their common aim to develop the pupils both mentally and physically into [Pg 31] competent young people." [4] The act requires that the middle school shall be no longer than four years, and that the gymnasial courses shall be of three years' duration.
The gymnasia of Norway take up the work where the middle schools leave off, and provide three years of instruction which concludes with the examen artium. ”

“ So soon as the gymnasium becomes imbued bona fide with a new spirit, and insures fitting preparation even to those who devote themselves to other than intellectual sciences, this rivalry will cease of its own accord. The much-mooted question of the admission of realschulen pupils to faculty classes would thus be settled, for then the realschule would revert to its original intent, and be an industrial school—an institution of great importance in its proper sphere. ”

“ The continued success of the gymnasium is proof of the executive ability of its manager, who for over seven years has carried on the work with such results as to maintain the reputation first established of being one of the leading normal schools of Swedish gymnastics in the country. Every graduate of this school is now occupying a good position. ”

“ During the past year there were enrolled in the manual training course, thirty-four boys, in the sewing course thirty-five girls, and in the cooking course, thirteen girls. There is also a well-equipped gymnasium in the building. The campus on which the high school and Preston Hall stand contains five acres of land, about half of which is covered with a grove, while the athletic field occupies the remainder of the open space.
Some other valuable data we derive from the information kindly supplied by Superintendent Adams. ”

“ It has also a large swimming-pool.
23The Froebel School has two gymnasiums and two swimming-pools. The Jefferson School has a large gymnasium, though only the common school is provided for in the Jefferson. The other Gary schools all have gymnasiums proportionate to their size. In the new school plants it is intended to build pergolas about the inner court which will contain open-air classrooms and additional outdoor gymnasium space. Nothing is omitted which will provide the right physical conditions for the child’s growth and development from his earliest years. ”

“ The girls in that school are taught to dress plainly and comfortably, to which end they wear a school uniform, to practice gymnastics daily in the spacious and well-equipped school-gymnasium, and to believe that all departments of knowledge are worthy of their attention and of right ought to be open to them. In addition to all those occupations, she attends to every detail of her housekeeping and has the oversight of the large boarding department of the school. ”

“ All the sports of the gymnasia were either games, or special exercises for the contests of the public festivals. And here a distinction must be made between amateur and professional gymnasts. The former were styled agonistae, and exercised in the public gymnasium; the latter athletae, and were trained fighters, whose school was the palaestra. At first frequenting the same, they afterwards became divided between two institutions. Some of the harsher sports of the prize-fighters were not thought genteel for well-nurtured youths to indulge in. ”

“ In addition to completing the work begun in the middle school in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry; instruction in the gymnasium includes trigonometry, stereometry, analytical geometry, and higher arithmetical series. The methods of instruction are the same as those used in the middle school though, of course, adapted to the greater maturity and stronger mentality of the pupils. By the time pupils enter the [Pg 178] gymnasium considerable ability should have been gained in working independently. ”

“ What we want is to have the child come to school with a whole mind and a whole body, and leave school with a fuller mind and an even healthier body. And speaking of the body suggests that, while there is no gymnasium in these diagrams, the active life carried on in its four corners brings with it constant physical exercise, while our gymnasium proper will deal with the particular weaknesses of children and their correction, and will attempt more consciously to build up the 97thoroughly sound body as the abode of the sound mind. ”