Ling’s Successors at the Central Institute in Stockholm

Fig. 34.—Lars Gabriel Branting (1799-1881).

Immediately after Ling’s death, and in accordance with his wishes, Branting was appointed Director in his stead, and retained the position for twenty-three years (1839-1862). Born July 16, 1799, he had grown up a weak and sickly boy, and in the very first year of the Institute had been sent to Ling for treatment by means of medical gymnastics. Improvement was rapid, and the master was so impressed with the evident talent of his young patient that he offered to train him as a teacher of the art. Thenceforth the relation between the two resembled that of father and son. For several years Branting was a student at the Karolinska Mediko-Kirurgiska Institut (the largest medical college in Sweden) and attended clinics in the Serafimer-Lazarett (hospital), receiving instruction in chemistry under Berzelius, and showing such a fondness for anatomy and physiology that A. A. Retzius bore witness to his skill in the former subject. He learned to speak German, French, and English fluently, and travelled repeatedly in Germany and Austria. For more than twenty years he had been a member of the teaching staff at the Institute, under Ling, assisting the latter with his fencing at Karlberg and Marieberg, successfully introducing gymnastics among the girls at the large Hillska School, just outside the city, where he became teacher of gymnastics and music in 1831, and applying himself with marked enthusiasm to medical gymnastics. Ling gave him the first place among all his pupils, and turned over to him gradually a large share of the responsibility for both theoretical and practical instruction.

As director, Branting devoted himself chiefly to the development of medical gymnastics in accordance with the theories of his predecessor, and brought that branch to a high degree of perfection. He insisted that the beneficial effects are due not alone to changes produced in the muscular system, but mainly to the influence exerted upon the nerves and bloodvessels—a novel view at that time. He also elaborated a rich store of gymnastic material, and worked out a terminology which with a few changes is still generally employed in Sweden. It was at this period, too, that the work of the Institute began to awaken interest in other countries. As we have seen (pp. 122 and 123), two Prussian army officers, Lieutenants Rothstein and Techow, were sent to Stockholm to take the regular course of instruction in 1845-1846, and Rothstein afterwards wrote extensively on the Ling gymnastics and in 1851 became the first director of the Berlin “Central-Institute,” founded on the pattern of the Swedish school but without its department of medical gymnastics. Many other foreigners came for visits of varying duration, and physicians, especially, were attracted by the new system, among them Drs. Eulenburg and Neumann of Prussia, Melichor of Vienna, and Mathias Roth of London. Branting was made a knight of the orders of the North Star and the Red Eagle (Prussian) in 1847 and of St. Olaf and Dannebrog (Danish) in 1855, and in 1873 Commander of the Order of Vasa. After retiring from the position of Director in 1862 he was still actively engaged in the practice of his profession until his death, March 27, 1881.⁠[120] During his term of office the staff of instruction was enlarged, provision having been made for one additional teacher in 1841, and for two more, a man and a woman, in 1848. Some of these teachers deserve particular mention. Carl August Georgii (1808-1881), trained at the Karlberg Military Academy and made lieutenant in the army in 1836, had entered upon his service at the Institute ten years before Ling’s death, was chosen by the latter to edit and publish, with Dr. Liedbeck, his “General Principles of Gymnastics,” and in 1859 married the oldest daughter of Liedbeck and Jetta Ling. He became head teacher in 1839, giving instruction in anatomy and in the three branches of practical gymnastics. In 1846 he went to Paris to introduce the Swedish system, and the next year published in French a treatise on the Ling method of kinesitherapy and physical education. Two years later, in 1849, he withdrew from his Stockholm position and removed to London, where for twenty-eight years he presided over a private institution, giving lessons in fencing and conducting school gymnastics in addition to his medical work. His published writings in England include “Kinesipathy” (1850), a biographical sketch of Ling (1854), a lecture on “Rational Gymnastics” (1873), and “Kinetic Jottings” (1881). The last four years of his life were spent in Stockholm.⁠[121] The first woman to be regularly appointed as teacher at the Institute was Gustafra Lindskog (1790-1851), in 1848, and at her death she was succeeded by Ling’s daughter Hildur (1825-1884). Besides assisting in medical gymnastics they both devoted a portion of their time to the physical training of school girls. Two other teachers, Hjalmar Ling and T. J. Hartelius, who began their activity during this period, will be referred to again at some length farther on.

Fig. 35.—Gustaf Nyblæus (1816-1902).

Branting’s successor was Col. Gustav Nyblæus (1816-1902), who filled the position of director for twenty-five years, from 1862 until 1887. He was trained as an officer in the army, and had been added to the staff of instruction at the Institute during the last year of Ling’s life. The school, which had hitherto been under the control of the Stockholm educational authorities, was now given its own board of directors, appointed by the King; the length of the course was increased from one year to two years of six months each (October 1 to April 1), and a regular course for women was opened; and the royal statutes of January 8, 1864, reorganized it into three sections, the pedagogical or educational, the military, and the medical, each with a head teacher and a second teacher. Provision was also made for extra teachers, both men and women, and a sum of over 167,000 rix-dollars was granted in 1863 for remodelling and adding to the buildings. Nyblæus himself became the head teacher in the section of military gymnastics, and the corresponding positions in the other sections were given to Ling’s son Hjalmar, in school gymnastics, and to Hartelius in medical gymnastics. Nyblæus visited at various times other European countries to study the systems of physical training employed in their schools⁠[122] and armies, and published several manuals of fencing for use at the Institute and in the Swedish army, and others of gymnastics and military exercises to meet the needs of teachers in elementary schools.⁠[123]

Truls Johan Hartelius (1818-1896) had taken the course at the Institute in the year 1851-1852, and began to give instruction there immediately after his graduation. He afterwards completed a course in medicine, became a regularly qualified physician, and held the position of head teacher in medical gymnastics from 1864 until 1887. Finding no text-books suitable for his classes, he prepared small manuals of anatomy, physiology and histology, and hygiene, and wrote a larger work on medical gymnastics which was translated into German, French, and English. When the corps of teachers decided to start a semi-annual periodical devoted to gymnastics in all its phases and therefore began the publication of the Tidskrift i Gymnastik⁠[124] in 1874, Hartelius undertook the editorship, and for fifteen years served in this capacity, contributing many articles on his own and related subjects and important biographical sketches of fellow workers along similar lines.⁠[125]

To Hjalmar Fredrik Ling (1820-1886) Swedish educational gymnastics is largely indebted for its present form, and the school gymnasium for the nature and arrangement of the equipment now in common use. He also made it possible to introduce physical training generally in the elementary schools and in schools for girls. The only surviving son of Per Henrik Ling, he was born in Stockholm, April 14, 1820, received an education equivalent to that given in the Swedish secondary schools, completed the course at the Institute (1842), and was installed as teacher there in 1843, devoting himself to educational and medical gymnastics under Branting’s direction, and studying anatomy with Dr. Liedbeck. In 1854 at Georgii’s suggestion he went to Paris to spend the better part of a year in study there, paying particular attention to anatomy, both human and comparative, but attending also Claude Bernard’s lectures on experimental physiology and the clinics at the Hôtel Dieu, and meanwhile acquiring a thorough knowledge of the French language and literature. During this same period he also paid two long visits to Berlin, to assist in introducing the Swedish method of medical gymnastics at the institutions of Drs. Eulenburg and Neumann, and took advantage of the opportunity to familiarize himself with the German language. From Paris he returned to Stockholm, became head teacher under Branting in 1858, and upon the reorganization of the course in 1864 was placed at the head of the section of school gymnastics. This position he continued to fill for eighteen years, until his retirement on a pension in September of 1882. For some years he was also in charge of the physical training in one of the city’s higher schools for boys (the Nya Elementarskola).

Fig. 36.—Hjalmar Fredrik Ling (1820-1886).

Following closely the ideas of his father, and with the sole thought of completing the latter’s work, he devised new forms of apparatus adapted to the needs of the school and so arranged them that large numbers could exercise at the same time, in this way greatly increasing the number of useful exercises and bringing them all within the reach of every pupil. Then collecting a mass of gymnastic material he selected the most suitable exercises and arranged them in groups according to the effects produced upon the individual, providing further an orderly progression in each group, and combining these into a complete lesson-scheme—the original “day’s order.” It was now possible to assign to different ages and degrees of ability, and to the two sexes, the appropriate material from the graded series of exercises, so that the benefits of gymnastics could be extended to girls and younger boys.

Hjalmar Ling published two pamphlets⁠[126] intended primarily as guides for his students at the Central Institute, and in 1866 a work on kinesiology (Rörelselära) or the science of bodily movements. He also assisted Hartelius with the Tidskrift i Gymnastik and for ten years (1874-1883) was one of its associate editors and a frequent contributor. Although not a clear writer, he was a deep thinker and an industrious compiler, familiar with the whole range of gymnastic literature,—German, French, and English—as a glance at the pamphlets just mentioned will show. He left behind a carefully arranged collection of nearly two thousand pen-drawings of positions and movements used in gymnastics, made by himself. These are preserved in the library of the school, and about a quarter of the entire number appear in a book⁠[127] since published with the help of a gift from Mrs. Mary Hemenway, the founder of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. The younger Ling died March 9, 1886, and was buried near his father at Annelund.⁠[128] He sought first of all to analyze the conditions of school life and the needs of the growing child, and then to devise forms of exercise, to select, invent, and arrange apparatus, and to elaborate a lesson plan which should meet these conditions and needs efficiently and with the greatest economy of time and effort. Opinions may differ as to the merits of particular details in the system he helped to perfect, but his method of approach to the problem deserves ungrudging commendation.

Fig. 37.—Lars Mauritz Törngren (1839-1912).

The head teachership in school gymnastics left vacant in 1882 was filled by the promotion of Captain Lars Mauritz Törngren (1839-1912), at that time second teacher in the same section and an officer in the navy; and he was further advanced to the position of director upon the retirement of Nyblæus in 1887. A third year (medical gymnastics only) was now added to the course, the school year was lengthened, and other minor changes were made. In 1894 a grant of 80,000 kronor made possible improved facilities for instruction and practice. Among Professor Törngren’s earlier writings had been a book on school games (Fria Lekar, Stockholm, 1879; 2d ed., 1880), the fruit of a visit to England in 1877, and an official manual of gymnastics for the Swedish navy (1878; 2d ed., 1879). Tidskrift i Gymnastik for 1890 (3: 145-195) contains further observations on physical education in English public schools, based on a second visit in 1889. In the spring of 1893 he came to the United States, and was present at the department Congress of Physical Education and the eighth annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education held in Chicago in July of that year. He was on the editorial staff of the Tidskrift i Gymnastik from its beginning in 1874, assuming more direct responsibility after Hartelius withdrew in 1888, and revised and reissued the pamphlets (Tabeller and Tillägg) prepared by Hjalmar Ling. His last and most important book was a manual of gymnastics⁠[129] for use in institutions which train teachers for the elementary schools. Major Carl Silow (1846-), second teacher in the section of school gymnastics 1883-1906, was very active and successful in the work of his department and made further improvements in the construction and arrangement of apparatus. The official handbook of gymnastics for the Swedish army and navy published in 1902⁠[130] is largely his work. For careful arrangement of material, detailed treatment of the different exercises, and clearness and beauty of the illustrations it is probably the most satisfactory manual of gymnastics yet issued anywhere.

Törngren was succeeded as director by Col. Viktor Gustav Balck (1844-) in 1907, and two years later retired from his position as head teacher in the section of school gymnastics. Balck, who in turn gave place to Major Nils Fredrik Sellén in 1909, had been head teacher of military gymnastics since 1887, following Nyblæus. He has been an ardent advocate of outdoor and other sports for young and old, organizing societies for their promotion, editing a series of a dozen volumes devoted to the various forms,⁠[131] and founding in 1881 the Tidning för Idrott (Sporting Times). He has also done much to promote the formation and spread of popular gymnastic societies, and to make Swedish gymnastics known in other countries. With this object in view he accompanied squads of fellow countrymen to Turnfeste at Brussels in 1877 and 1880, and in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Exhibitions were also given in London, Copenhagen, and Berlin, in connection with these trips. Together with Major Silow and other teachers he was a member of the committee which prepared the new handbook of gymnastics for the Swedish army and navy.