The Central Institute in 1900

The influence of the system of school gymnastics perfected by Hjalmar Ling and his associates and successors in the Central Institute at Stockholm began to be felt abroad, in Europe and America, in the years just preceding and following the appointment of Törngren as director. For this reason, as well as its age and intrinsic merits, a description of the institution as it was in the fall of 1900, based on first-hand studies⁠[132] deserves a place here.

Fig. 38.—The Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics.

Leaving behind him the cluster of rocky islands which once held all there was of Stockholm, and passing north on the mainland through one of the linden-bordered promenades of the “King’s Garden,” the visitor soon reaches Hamn-Gatan, its farther limit. If he turn to the left along this busy thoroughfare his eye will be caught by a steep hill just ahead, and at its summit a slight bend of the street to the right reveals on the south side a low and very plain two-story building constructed, like most of its neighbors, of large bricks coated with plaster over the entire free surface, and painted a weather-worn buff. From the crest of this hill the ground is seen to fall away rapidly on the other side, so that the building gains an additional story at its corner on Beridarebans-Gatan. The north front stretches for about two hundred feet along Hamn-Gatan. Beridarebans-Gatan crosses this street obliquely, the two forming an acute angle in which the property of the Institute lies. This explains its unsymmetrical arrangement; for half way down the Beridarebans-Gatan side, which measures about 240 feet, a building forty feet wide has been carried in at right angles to that street. Near the center of the Hamn-Gatan front is a large archway, and over this in raised gilt letters are the words “Kongl. Gymnastika Central-Institutet.” It leads into a triangular paved court (A) surrounded by plain structures of plastered brick, and a second archway, bisecting the opposite side of this court, communicates with a gravelled yard (B) at the rear. The director and some of the other teachers make their homes in the three-story sections C and D, which also contain servants’ quarters and on the ground floor a few dressing-rooms. The lower story of E is devoted to medical gymnastics for free patients, and overhead are the library (remarkably rich in the older literature of physical training) and a reading room, two lecture rooms, and others for student use and for the storage of anatomical collections and the like. A hallway starting from the east angle of the court opens into the men’s dressing room (F), with shower baths adjoining. G and H, two stories in height, contain on the ground floor large halls equipped for school gymnastics and fencing, and above these two other halls intended for patients who pay for treatment by medical gymnastics, and employed also for school gymnastics and as classrooms. There is a small one-story building (I) for practical exercises in anatomy, and opposite this in the yard is a low shed (J) about 80 by 30 feet, with corrugated iron roof and smooth concrete floor, supplied with a variety of gymnastic apparatus. It is open except on the street side. In the narrow rooms marked KK the schoolboys who receive their physical training at the Institute store their slippers and hang up coats and caps.

Fig. 39.—The Stockholm Central Institute of Gymnastics. (Diagram showing arrangement of rooms).

The general control is vested in a Board appointed by the King and composed of a president and three other members, of whom one must belong to the army or navy, one must be a teacher (skolman), and one a physician. The corps of instruction includes a head teacher and a second teacher in each of the three departments, the hygienic or educational, the military, and the medical; two women teachers, one of them in hygienic and the other in medical gymnastics; and extra teachers, both men and women, as these are required—a total of fifteen persons in 1900-1901. The royal statutes provide that all who give instruction at the school must be graduates from its courses. From among the head teachers the King selects one to act as director of the Institute, in immediate charge of the buildings and their contents and of the work that goes on in the halls and classrooms. This appointment is for five years, and is renewable.

The school year, divided into a fall and a spring semester, begins on the 15th of September and closes on the 25th of May, with an intermission of two weeks at Christmas time. For male pupils three courses are offered. The “Instructor’s Course,” extending through a single school year, gives the one who completes it the right to teach gymnastics in the elementary schools (folkskolor) or in one of the lower (five-year) secondary schools (lägre allmänna läroverk). In the “Gymnastic Teacher’s Course” a second year is added, and the graduate is eligible to a position as teacher of gymnastics in any public educational institution, civil or military, in the country. The course in medical gymnastics, leading to the title “Gymnastic Director,” requires still another year of study and practice, although for students of medicine the prescribed work may be shortened. No person, unless he is himself a physician, is allowed to give treatment by means of medical gymnastics in Sweden except in cases where a duly authorized physician has prescribed it in writing. Young women can complete both the gymnastic teacher’s course and that in medical gymnastics in two years, on account of the smaller range of practical exercises to be covered.

Fig. 40.—Students (men) at the Stockholm Central Institute in 1900-1901.

The men in attendance are for the most part young army and navy officers who have received orders to take the course. The balance consists of non-commissioned officers in the army and of young men in civil life. All must have passed such an examination as would entitle them to admission into one of the national universities; they must also possess a sound constitution and some aptitude for gymnastic exercises, and for all but physicians the age limit is thirty years. Young women must present certificates which would allow them to enter the national Higher Normal School for Women. There are no charges for tuition in any of the courses, and foreigners are admitted to them within certain limits. The total number of men present at any one time is commonly about sixty, and the women, formerly not half so numerous, are now rapidly approaching the same figure. During the autumn of 1900 there were in the student body two men from Greece and one each from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and the United States, while Russia, Holland, and England were represented among the women.

Fig. 41.—Class of Women Students at the Stockholm Central Institute.

Fig. 42.—Class of Schoolboys at the Stockholm Central Institute.

Work begins on Monday morning and continues through Saturday afternoon, as in other Swedish schools, for Sunday is the only holiday. The theoretical courses come at nine and at one o’clock, and the practical courses at seven, eleven, and two. At ten o’clock three hundred boys from the New Elementary School (it is a higher school, in spite of the name) visit the Institute to receive their gymnastic lesson in three of the large halls, affording material for practice in teaching, and further opportunity is given at three, when two hundred more arrive from the Jakobs Secondary School. The hours from eight to nine and twelve to one are free, and there are no exercises after four o’clock. The theoretical courses of the first-year men include: (1) Lectures and recitations on the anatomy of the bones, ligaments, and muscles (three times a week through the year); (2) the physiology of the circulation and of the organs of nutrition, including respiration (twice a week during the second semester); (3) the theory of school gymnastics, covering the discussion of the various positions and movements, the commands employed and the common faults observed, the arrangement of exercises in a lesson, and progression in each lesson and from day to day (twice a week through the year); (4) military gymnastics (twice a week during the first semester), and (5) the theory of fencing (twice a week through the year). There is one hour of practical instruction each day in school gymnastics, another in fencing with foils, and a third in fencing with saber and bayonet, together with daily practice in teaching under the supervision of the director and members of his staff. The five hundred boys who come to the Institute meet in the various halls according to school grade, and the hundred or so in each room are subdivided into a half-dozen squads, which exercise separately under the direction of first-year students during part of the lesson and are watched and corrected by them when the whole roomful is receiving commands from a single leader.

The theoretical courses of the second year include (1) the study of anatomy three hours a week in the lecture room, and in addition two exercises a week in the dissecting room during a large part of the year; (2) two lectures a week on the physiology of the blood, the circulation, respiration, digestion, and excretion; (3) lectures on kinesiology or the theory of bodily movements (twice a week); (4) the theory of school gymnastics (twice a week); and (5) instruction and practice in the forms of treatment employed in medical gymnastics, followed by special study of the class of cases likely to be met with in the schools. The practical work, besides that just mentioned, again covers the branches of school gymnastics, fencing with foils, fencing with saber and bayonet, and actual teaching, the students in the two years meeting in each case at the same hour and in the same rooms. In the hour devoted to school or hygienic gymnastics, however, the division of the class into two sections for exercises in hanging and climbing and in jumping and vaulting allows some difference to be made in the work of the two years; and in the fencing, where the men are grouped in squads, the work of each corresponds with the stage of progress reached by its members, and the second-year students also meet twice a week by themselves, in the presence of their instructors, for practise in free fencing. Each man is now required to take his turn at directing one of the classes of a hundred or more schoolboys for a week at a time, making out his own “day’s order” for the opening exercises, in which the entire class work as a unit, then supervising the exercises of the different squads, and handling the whole number again during the marching and running. One of the instructors at the Institute is always present, but the student assumes all the responsibility of leadership for the time being. The second-year man is also called upon to give individual instruction in foil fencing twice a week to men of the lower class, as assistant to the regular instructor, and a somewhat similar plan is followed in the courses in saber and bayonet fencing. Though swimming is not included in the curriculum, no one can receive a certificate as graduate from the “Gymnastic Teacher’s Course” without furnishing evidence that he possesses a satisfactory degree of skill in that art.

Third-year pupils attend lectures six times a week in anatomy, the physiology of the muscles and the nervous system, and pathology, are further instructed in the theory and practice of medical gymnastics, and assist in giving treatment to patients who visit the Institute. Women in both courses receive separate instruction throughout, for there is no such thing as coeducation at the school. Their theoretical work includes anatomy, physiology, the theory of bodily movements and of pedagogical gymnastics, medical gymnastics, and pathology; and there is practise in pedagogical and medical gymnastics, and opportunity to teach gymnastics daily, under supervision, at one or the other of two private schools.