Papers on physical education

Preface

Although these papers have been issued in a serial form under the above title, they have been written, selected and arranged with a view to their being of permanent value to the student and teacher of Physical Education, and to parents, schoolmasters and mistresses, medical men and others, who are responsible for the rearing and management of children. As little attention has been given to the scientific aspect of physical education in this country the serial form has been adopted as the one most likely to elicit the views of those who have given some attention to the subject, and by affording opportunities for discussion to create a wider interest in it. The Editor has been obliged to resort to foreign sources of information, many of which are not accessible to English readers, especially to American, French and German writers on gymnastics — a branch of physical education which has been much neglected in consequence of our national partiality for athletics and games.

The Editor has endeavoured to place the views of the advocates of the various so-called “ systems ” of physical training impartially before his readers, and to put them side by side for the greater convenience of comparison. The result will be, he hopes, to remove much of the prejudice which surrounds the subject, and to show that, from a physiological point of view, the differences are not so great as they seem. A study of Dr. Lagrange’s paper on “ Gymnastics in Elementary Schools,” and Dr. Hartwell’s paper on “ The Nature of Physical Training, and the Best Means of Securing its Ends,” will convince the unprejudiced reader that all the systems need revision, and that the tendency of such revision will be to merge them into one, as from a scientific point of view there can be only one system, although the details of its application must necessarily vary with the conditions of the individuals subjected to it. Such a system should define the games and exercises appropriate to children of different ages, as they are found in infant schools and kindergartens, elementary, secondary, and high-class schools ; and it should draw a distinct line between the physical “ education ” of growing children and the physical “ training ” of adults.

CONTEN T S.

Overcrowding in Towns and its Remedies, by C. Roberts, F.R.C.S.

Physical Sports ok the Ancient World, by R. J. Mackenzie, M.A.

Claims and Limitations ok Physical Education in School, by Alfred If. Carter, M.D.Lond. o, A French View ok English Athletics and Games, by M. Pierre de Coubertin A Training College kor Teachers ok Physical Education, by the Editor Notes. — Physique; Scuttling in Lancashire

The National Health Society — Examination of Teachers of Physical Education How to Found a Family

Books. — Handbook of Developmental Exercises, by D. A. Sargent, M.A., M.D.

Healthy Schools, by E. Symes Thompson, M.D., F.R.C. P.

Prokessionalism in Sports and Athletics, by the Rev. Edwin Price, M.A.

Overcrowding and Model Dwellings, by C. Roberts, F.R.C.S. ...

Cultivation ok Body and Mind, by the Rev. Archdeacon Wilson, M.A.

Physical Education and Hygiene at Amherst College, U.S.A., by Prof. E. Hitchcock, M.D. Notes.— Child Marriage in India ; Skating ; Physical Education in Elementary Schools ; Public Gymnasiums

Technical Education ; Feeble-minded Children ...

Books. — The Management of Children, by a Mother A Training College ; Private Gymnasium

Games and Athletics in Public and Private Boarding Schools, by Clement Dukes, M.D.Lond. German System ok Gymnastics, by H. Metzner ...

Training ok Teachers ok Gymnastics in Germany, by E. M. Hartwell, Ph.D., M.D.

Chiek Characteristics ok the Swedish System ok Gymnastics, by Nils Posse, M.G.

French View ok Gymnastics, by a Commission

Physical Test in Competitive Examinations, by Francis Galton, F. R.S. ...

Notes.— English, German, and Swedish “Systems” of Physical Education; International Gymnastic Fetes; The Bishop of London on Recreation in Training Colleges; Lord Wolseley on National Physique ; Mr. Chamberlain on Popular Recreation ; The Education of Blind and Deaf Children ; Horse Exercise for School Girls, &c.

National Physical Recreation Society

Books. — Manual of Drill and Physical Exercises, by Thomas Chesterton National Physical Education, by Dr. Blatin Aquatic Sports and Pastimes, by W. P. M. Black, B.L. ...

The Pure Oral Instruction ok Deak Mutes, by William Van Praagh A Central Physical Examination Board, by A. St. Clair Buxton ...

Notes. — National Physical Education; Lord Dufferin on Health in Universities; Deaf and Dumb and Blind Paupers ; The London Water Suppy ; Proposed Factory Legislation ; The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association ; Banstead Downs, Surrey ; The London Vegetarian Society; Mitcham Common ; Swimming Baths for Board Schools Physique as a Factor in Economics, Prof. Marshall

Books. — -Scientific Measurement of Children, by the Rev. If. A. Soames, M.A., F.L.S. ; The Relation of Athletic Sports to Public Plealtb, by Henry Ploole, M.D.

Physical Training for thf Deaf and Dumb, by the Rev. F. W. G. Gilby ...

Physical Development, by Godfrey W. Hambleton, L.K.Q.C.P.I. ...

Physiology of the Feet with Reference to Physical Education, by T. S. Ellis,

Natural History in Public Schools, by the Rev. T. A. Preston ...

Comparative Study of Measurements of Male and Female Students in American Colleges, by E. Hitchcock, M.D.

School Games ...

Notes. — Boarding Out Pauper Children ; “ Model” Workmen’s Dwellings ; Children’s Country Holiday Fund ; National Physical Recreation Society Competition ; Games in Preparatory Schools ... The National Footpath Preservation Society

Books.— Anthropometry and Physical Examination, by Jay W. Seaver, M.D.

Are We in Danger of Allowing Athletics to Occupy too Prominent a Position in our Schools, by the Rev. Canon Fowler, M.A., F.L.S.

Physical Education and the Future of the Race, by W. J. Greenstrcet, M.A. ... Relation of Physical to Mental Education, by C. Roberts, F.R.C.S., &c.

Physical Education in Girls’ Schools, by Clement Dukes, M.D...

Physical Education — A New Profession, by Luther Gulick, M.D. ...

Healthy Homes, by E. Symes Thompson, M.D. ...

Home Gymnastics and Games ...

London Playing Fields Committee ...

Books. — Old English Sports and Pastimes, by P. FI. Ditchfield, M.A. ...

Gymnastics in Elementary Schools, by Dr. F. Lagrange

The Nature of Physical Training and the Best Means ok Securing its Ends, by E. M. Hartwell, Ph.D., M.D.

On Stammering, by E. J. Seltman, B.A. ...

Defects in Speech among School Children, by Dr. Hermann Gulzmann...

Physical Training ok our Soldiers and Sailors ... „ ...

Children’s Holiday Funds

Books — School Dietary, by Dr. C. Dukes ... ... .. ... ...

page.

i

5. 21 24. 50 12 *3 >5 >7 18

>9

. 27 28 30 3*

32 35. 36

45 47

54-58

73-77

S4

S7

96. 97

101 1 05 107

1 1 1

*36

M3

M7 journal of Pfestcal €trucattow

No. i. FEBRUARY, 1891. Vol. I.

'[Rational pbv’oiquc.

I. — OVERCROWDING IN TOWNS AND ITS REMEDIES. By C. Roberts, F.R.C.S.

The overcrowding of the population of the poorer parts of London and other large towns is admitted on all hands to be one of the most urgent social and sanitary problems of the day, and it will be useful to take a general survey of its incidence and the panaceas which are being put forward for its removal or prevention. The strenuous efforts, and to a certain extent the honourable rivalry of the London County Council, the Vestries, the Kyrle Society, the Public Gardens Association and the Commons Preservation Society in hunting out and preserving for the use of the public every patch of open space in London and its suburbs, is so praiseworthy that any criticism of their plans and mode of procedure may seem ungracious and superfluous ; and the generous efforts which are being made by philanthropists and capitalists for the better housing of the working classes would seem to be still further above criticism. Nevertheless, it is well to temper zeal with discretion, and a looker-on who is in entire sympathy with all these agencies but not identified with their work, may detect flaws in it which escape the notice of the workers themselves. In its haste to secure open spaces the County Council, for instance, shows a lack of proportion and an ignorance of the requirements of the whole county of London, with its area of 77,400 acres, its 4,282,921 inhabitants, and its 486,056 inhabited houses. A few weeks ago the Council agreed to give £■ 200 an acre for a pine wood situated on the extreme south-east boundary of the county at Plumstead, in a district which possesses only one house and six persons to the acre, and which is contiguous to a common already in the possession of the Council, and with the whole county of Kent behind it ; and now it proposes to spend ^20,000 an acre on an overcrowded area in Bethnal Green which possesses 49 houses and 373 persons to the acre— not to provide an open space where one is most wanted, but to raise piles of so-called model dwellings which will eventually be occupied by a larger number of persons than exist on the ground at present. Thus we find the Council purchasing land at a considerable cost for an open space which is not wanted and which might well be used to relieve overcrowding in other parts of the county, and clearing away small houses in an already too crowded district to supply their places by still larger houses. Overcrowding cannot be remedied by any jugglery with bricks and mortar. To put one house on the top of another is to increase all the evils of overcrowding, and nothing short of a serious centrifugal dispersion of the people will be of real use in overcoming them.

Density of the Population of London.

A survey of the whole County of London shows that many popular delusions exist as to the density of the population in different districts, and that the efforts to secure open spaces and relieve overcrowding are not always directed to the proper quarters. To show this, I have prepared a table from such materials as I have been able to collect from various sources, but largely from the reports of the Medical Officers of Health of the vestries whose areas will probably correspond with future district councils.

I have placed at the head of the » list the recently condemned insanitary area in Bethnal Green for the purpose of showing how the vestries stand with regard to it in respect to density of population. The first column shows the number of- persons per acre ; the second

PHYSIQUE.

[Fehruarv, 1891

Sanitary Districts of London.

Number ol

Square

Number of Number of

Rateable

(London Vestries.)

persons

yards |>er

houses

persons

value in £

Deaih rate

per acre.

person.

per acre.

per house.

per house.

| 1889.

I. Bethnal Green condemned area

£22 (?)

40*0

1 1

£59

21 '22

3. St. Luke s

1 8 96

4. Strand ...

£147

5. St. George’s, Southwark

6. Shoreditch

*95

£39

7. St. George’s in-the-East

£43

25-8

l6

I I

JQ'Q

9. Clerkenwell

21 ’2

10. St. James’s, Westminster

— -

11. Whitechapel

2 7

20 '4

12. Newington

2 j

13. Bethnal Green (whole district)

£22

20-67

14. St. Saviour’s, Southwark

£39

15. Bermondsey

16-7

16. Chelsea ...

l6

£43

16-8

17. Islington

£43

13-3

18. Mile End Old Town ...

£3°

18-0

19. Limehouse

22*7

20. St. Marylebone...

1 1

£83

21. St. Olave’s, Southwark

5°

£45

22. St. Pancras

1 1

£59

18-16

23. Paddington

£91

14-2

24. City of London...

/380

II I

25. St. George’s, Hanover Square

^132

14-19

26. Kensington

£83

1 3 '5

27. Westminster

£219

i8-i

28. Poplar ...

£33

17-0

29. Lambeth

—

£37

30. St. Martin’s-in-tlie- Fields

^281

31. Hackney

S

/3§

13-6

32. London, the whole of ...

1 7 '4

33. St. Giles, Camberwell... ... ... .;.

^31

4§

S

—

36. Greenwich

—

—

—

37. Fulham ...

£34

16-77

38. Woolwich

20-3

39. Hampstead

£84

10-5

40. Wandsworth

—

—

£45

41. Lewisham

£48

—

42. Plumstead

—

the number of square yards each person would possess if all the inhabitants were standing on the ground ; the third the number of houses per acre; the fourth the number of persons per house ; the fifth the average rateable value of some of the districts ; and the sixth column gives the death-ratefor the year 1889. As itis nearly ten years since the last census was taken, and many changes have taken place in the population of some of the districts, especially in the out-lying ones, the figures must be accepted as approximatively correct. It is in their relation to each other rather than their absolute value that the interest of the figures lies, as they show which districts are most in need of attention from the County Council and

*En passant, I may call attention to the fact that the Reports of the various Vestries are not kept on a uniform plan, and few of them contain all the information from which the table is constructed.

the Open Space Societies. The death-rates are probably of the least value, as they are influenced by many conditions which it is not convenient to enter into here.

I do not propose to analyse the table in detail, but a mere glance at it shows some of the most striking features relative to overcrowding of the population. The City, as might be expected, contains the smallest residential population in relation to the number of houses and their size and rateable value, but immediately outside the City boundaries, in the districts of Holborn, St. Luke’s, the Strand, and the adjoining parishes of Southwark, the population is the densest in the whole of London, and the number of houses per acre and the number of inhabitants per house are among the greatest in the list. The houses are high, and the districts are commercial ones similar to the City, but

PHYSIQUE.

they must contain some very densely populated portions occupied by shopkeepers, artisans, and workpeople of both sexes employed chiefly on domestic manufactures. In the course of time these districts will probably become part of a “ Greater City,” and the residents a population of caretakers, but at present there is in the back streets and courts a condition of overcrowding greater than that of Bethnal Green or Whitechapel, and the sanitary surrounding must be worse, inasmuch as these districts are surrounded by the rest of London, and lie furthest from the open country, and it is among them more than anywhere else that open spaces are required.

Available Open Spaces for the Central Districts.

With the exception of the Thames Embankment and the Thames itself, this “ Greater City ” district possesses no open space of the nature of a park. It comprises, however, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, The Foundling Hospital, and St. Luke’s Lunatic Asylum with the adjoining Bunhill Fields burial ground and the Artillery ground, all of which might, and indeed ought to be, acquired for open spaces. The 200 lunatics and staff of St. Luke’s Hospital would be happier, healthier and more cheaply provided for in the suburbs, and probably the only reason why St. Luke’s Hospital is retained in the very heart of the most densely peopled part of the Metropolis, is the old one of letting things alone. There are also some almshouses near the hospital which might well be removed to Highgate or the neighbourhood of Epping Forest. A still stronger case may be made out for the removal of the Foundling Hospital to the Surrey Hills. It is astonishing how this institution, which is practically an orphan asylum and school, has so long escaped the notice of the advocates of the removal of the City schools to the country and the suburbs, like Charter House, St. Paul’s, and shortly the boarding part of the Blue Coat School. The original plan of the founder of the Foundling Hospital was to draft off the children to country branches, and the large Quakers’ School, at Ackworth, in Yorkshire, was built and used for some time as one of these branch establishments. The garden of the Foundling Hospital, which at present is one of the most dreary spots in London, would with the two disused burial grounds to the north and the two squares on the east and west of it make a good-sized park, in a district which is very much in need of one, and the four or five hundred children would be much happier and healthier if they and their nurses and teachers were transferred to the country ; and their social success in life would be more secure if the name of the institution were dropped as no longer consonant with our present views of charitable relief to neglected children, and they ceased to be the objects of curiosity to Sunday visitors.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is situated inthemidst of the most crowded parts of the Strand, Holborn, and St. Giles’s, to the last of which parishes it belongs. Many attempts have been made to secure this large square for the use of the public, but they have all failed in consequence of the opposition of the residents, who must be for the most part a population of caretakers of the lawyers’ offices. It is hardly possible that this dog-in-the-manger policy would prevail if the County Council were to make reasonable overtures for the purchase or rental of the square, which is probably Avhat the residents want, as public opinion would be strongly on the side of the Council. By securing these places as open spaces there would be the additional advantage to the resident population of relieving it of about a thousand of its permanent inhabitants ; and if the more permanent occupants of the workhouses were sent to the country also, the relief to the local population would be very great, and to the advantage of everyone concerned.

The second group of districts includes all those which stand on the table from Shoreditch to Bermondsey inclusive and surround the City on the east and south. This group is the home of the true Cockney, and is the favourite hunting ground of the philanthropist and the social reformer. The houses are little more than cottages if we may judge from the average rateable value, but they are crowded with residents. The people are chiefly indoor artisans following industrial occupations, small shopkeepers, working men and women, and costermongers, all of whom have a poor physique, little enterprise, and are tied hand and foot by local traditions and customs, poverty, and insanitary surroundings. On the map these districts form a weary desert of bricks and mortar with hardly a single green oasis in it, although the density of the population is less than in Holborn and St. Luke’s. There is a small open space called the Poor’s Land in Bethnal Green, which was left to trustees in the reign of William and Mary to be kept as an open space, but there is

PHYSIO UK.

some danger of its falling into the hands of the builder. Efforts are being made, however, by Miss Octavia Hill and others to prevent its misappropriation, and if it is saved the site of the private lunatic asylum which abuts on it should be secured also, the inmates of the institution being removed to an open and healthier suburb. There does not seem to be any other way of making open spaces in this dreary district except by slowly pulling down some of the numerous groups of cottages and leaving the cleared ground permanently open and compelling the residents to go further afield for house room. Slow clearings of this kind would not press so hardly on the working classes as the wholesale clearances for railways and other commercial purposes for which Cross' Acts so wisely provides, and though it might cause temporary congestions in the surrounding neighbourhoods, it would ultimately drive those whose work did not lie in the district to find homes in the open suburbs. Gangrene, whether of the individual or the multitude, requires prompt surgical treatment, and it is in the districts I have just discussed that the gangrenous spot of London is most apparent and requires prompt treatment.

The third group of vestries lying to the west and north of the “ Greater City,” extending between and including Chelsea and Paddington on the table, consist chiefly of the residences of the professional and commercial classes, and possess for the most part well built houses, wide streets, gardens and squares, and are in the happy position of having no history as far as our present inquiry is concerned, although they are not free from slums and consequent over-crowding. The last group of districts comprises the aristocratic and suburban districts from St. George’s, Hanover Square, to Plumstead, which are sparsely populated and are well provided with parks, commons, and open spaces, and which therefore call for no further comment here.

An Ideal Density of Urban Population.

It would be difficult to lay down any definite rule as to the density of a torvn population which would be consistent with sound health ; but judging from the figures of our tables and from what we know of Chelsea, Islington, St. Marylebone and St. Pancras, vestries containing sections of all classes of the population, and forming the third group of our classification, we may set down as a reasonable density, one hundred persons to the acre, twelve houses to the acre, and eight persons to a house— a density which would allow about fifty square yards of ground surface to each person. At any rate these figures might be accepted, like the aesthete’s teapot, as something for County Councils and vestries to live up to. It would simplify the operations of the various official and voluntary bodies interested in preventing overcrowding if they were to concentrate their attention on the districts which exceed this ideal density of population, and were to leave those which fall short of it a little more to their own devices. Sanitary science and the growing taste for artistic houses and natural surroundings are now so popular there is little risk that the dwellers in Mayfair and the suburban districts will fall into the error of overcrowding themselves as the central districts did when the country was still near them, and indeed, it is only in the direction of the suburbs, or beyond them, that relief for the overcrowding of the central districts can be looked for. The law has already fixed the height of buildings in London at ninety feet, and if a law were passed requiring the width of the street to be equal to the height of the houses forming it, overcrowding would be removed automatically as far as house construction is concerned.

If County Councils could obtain such a measure from Parliament, and in supervising the plans of all new building operations would keep the ideal of a density of one hundred persons to the acre, or fifty square yards of ground space to each resident, including, of course, the area of streets and open spaces in the estimate, they would be able, without causing much inconvenience to the people or the builder, to obtain one of the greatest sanitary reforms of our day, and one which is most urgent for the prevention of the deterioration of the health and physique , and consequently the energy and happiness of our ever overgrowing and overcrowding urban population. It is not a utopian or very unreasonable request that the whole of the population of London should be housed not worse than that of Islington, with its density of 108 persons to the acre, its eight persons to a house of the rateable value of ^*43 (the same as St.George'sin-the-East), and a death-rate of only 13-3 per thousand, the lowest mortality (with the exception of the non-residential City), of the whole of the London sanitary districts.

Febrltarv, 1891.]

Workmen’s houses might be constructed at a cheaper rate than the present houses in Islington, which are occupied chiefly by persons of the lower middle classes, whose wages are not much greater, but whose personal expenses are very much greater, than those of the artisan class. The rental per person in Islington is two shillings and a penny a week, and in Bethnal Green, which has twenty-four houses to the acre, and seven persons to a house, with the low rateable value of ^22, and a third more people to the acre, the rental per person is one shilling and a penny a week. The rental per acre in Islington is £ 559 , and in Bethnal Green ^528 ; but Bethnal Green provides for sixty more persons per acre than Islington. In these calculations I have assumed that the rateable value is the same as the rental, which of course is not the case, when there are many small tenements, and a larger rental is most probably derived from Bethnal Green than from Islington. I shall deal with the subject of workmen’s dwellings in the next number of the Journal.

(To be continued.)

U>bptcal Education.

PHYSICAL SPORTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. A Lecture delivered before the Edinburgh Health Society.

By R. J Mackenzie, M.A.,

Rector of the Edinburgh Academy.

It is a common complaint against men of my profession, that they are so much occupied in instilling learning into others that they have no time to become learned themselves. You must not, therefore, expect from me to-night an exhaustive treatise with regard to the physical methods which were pursued in the ancient world. I shall content myself with offering to you, in a somewhat fragmentary fashion, the result of a few researches which I have made with regard to that ancient life which is so far from us in time, and yet so near to us in sentiment and civilization ; and here and there I shall endeavour to point the moral as it seems to me to concern us to-day.

The Persians.

The first system of education of which we have any authentic account in ancient times is that of the Persian nobles. These great Aryans educated their sons in a very simple fashion — they taught them to ride, to shoot and to speak the truth. If we add to this, that they inculcated reverence to the king, I think you will see that we have here sketched an outline of education which, with a slight admixture of the three R’s, would seem completely satisfactory to many a Tory sportsman nowadays.

The Spartans.

But it is not from so simple a method as this that we have much to learn at tile present time. I pass to the educational systems of the Greeks and Romans, which were very thoroughly developed ; and, if we take the Greeks first, as being the earliest in point of time, the natural state to which to direct our attention is that of Sparta. Now, before you can understand what physical education was in Sparta, you must understand what the Spartans were themselves. When we talk of the Spartans, we mean that small body of Dorian nobles who penetrated from the northern parts of Greece into the southern part, and there established themselves by force of arms in the midst of a population which hated them, and which vastly' outnumbered them. The Spartans were a race of warriors, and consisted, for several centuries of the best period, of about 9,000 families. They were surrounded by about 30,000 Periceci, or farmers who maintained them. In addition to these, there were about a quarter of a million of Helots, or slaves, who were a standing menace to the Spartans, and whom they frequently treated with the greatest cruelty. Now, in a state of this sort you may imagine how considerations of every kind must be sacrificed to one'necessity — that of personal preservation ; and thus we find that these £>partans, with a consummate ability, devoted their entire polity to the answering of this question — How can we turn out a race of soldiers so powerful as to be able to maintain their position amid this vast hostile population ? The methods they took to maintain themselves are ascribed to the great legislator Lycurgus. Whether he was mythical or not does not much matter, but the system as it stands is one of

PHYSIQUF.

the marvels of history. When a Spartan infant was born, he was taken almost immediately before a board of examiners more formidable than any that can be found at the present day, — for they decided whether the infant was to live at all. If he was deformed, if he was sickly, or even if at the time he happened to be superfluous, the state refused to rear him. He was exposed in a cleft of Mount Taygetus, and there, after a few hours, left a world which had proved too hard for him. But suppose that the infant survived that anxious ordeal, he remained with his mother until he was about seven years of age. At the age of seven all home life for the Spartan ceased. He was handed over to a distinguished citizen, who was called the paidonomos, or as we should say, the schoolmaster, and his education began. All his meals were taken in public at the military messes, and the fare which was presented to him there was made scant and coarse in order that the boy might be stimulated to supplement it by hunting, or if hunting failed, by stealing. It he stole successfully, he was commended : the nimbleness which had been shown in peace would be most serviceable in war. If, on the other hand, he was detected, he was severely punished as being likely to turn out a clumsy soldier. The kind of training which the Spartans affected was a lean training. From time to time there were inspections of the youths, and those who were found to be too fat were severely flogged. There was, indeed, a good deal of flogging in the ancient state of Sparta.