Progressive Gymnastic Day's Orders: According to the Principles of the Ling System. First ...

Front matter

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Preface

Early in the spring, 1890, the writer conducted exercises in Swedish pedagogical gymnastics of several classes composed of public school teachers in Boston and suburban towns, numbering together over three hundred persons. One class was composed of masters and sub-masters in the public schools of Boston. By these gentlemen the writer was asked to provide for the publishing of a book that could be used as a gidde in teaching gymnastics to the children in the schools. It was demanded that the exercises should be so arranged as to make it possible to introduce them into the public schools under present conditions, and especially that they should be so selected, that their correct execution should not necessitate any more floor space than that at disposal between the desks, and no other apparatus than those at hand in the ordinary schoolroom, such as benches and desks.

These Gymnastic Day's Orders are the writer's response to this request.

In elaborating them, the writer has had another consideration in view. The growing interest in the Ling system in this coxmtry, and the increasing demand for teachers of the subject with a thorough training, made it necessary to institute an extended course of lectures in the gymnastic progression of the Ling system. In illustration of the principles laid down in the lectures, it became necessary to present an arrangement of the exercises of the system.

in which the student could find the principles of the progression clearly expressed. Therefore, in this collection, the individual movements in each of the typical classes of gymnastic exercises have been arranged in progressive succession, the place of each in relation to the others having been decided after an analysis of its anatomical and mechanical constituents. In accordance w^ith the principles of the Gymnastic Day's Order, the required number of movements, representing each of the essential classes of gymnastic exercises, are grouped together in each day's order.

Consequently the practical pedagogical and the theoretical anatomical and mechanical considerations are weighed against the consideration of the corrective capacity and the general hygienic value of the movements throughout the arrangement of these Gynmastic Day's Orders. Being based upon unchangeable theoretical principles in combination with consideration of conditions within the schools, that are likely to command attention for a considerable time to come, it is the hope of the writer that his day's orders may be useful for the student of the principles of the Ling system as well as helpful to the teachers in their practical work.

In preparing to print the fifth thousand of the book, it has been found advisable to insert an outline of the gymnastic progression of the Ling system, being the substance of an address delivered before the superintendent and masters of the public schools of Boston

PREFACE.

shortly before the formal adoption of the Ling system by the School Committee. It has been found advisable also to insert figures and diagrams, illustrating the definitions. These definitions form a key to the descriptive kinesiology of thef Ling system. They contain a condensed description of the simple movements, that, combined with each other in different ways,

Boston, Mass., December, 1891.

form a vast number of compound movements of the system. By reading these four pages carefully the student will be saved the greater trouble of reading the hundreds of pages that would be necessary for a complete description of all the movements of these day's orders, although leaving him as much in need of the instructor's demonstration.

The Progressive Oymnastic Day's Orders are used, among others, in thefollotving cities and educaiional institutions: —

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