Instructions in All Kinds of Gymnastic Exercises (extract)

preface. V healthy action, all the muscles of the body. Health, vigour, elasticity, robustness and beauty of frame, are the rewards which this system holds out to those who will persevere in the practiceof its precepts. The attemptswhich have been made of late in Germany to revive the ancient exercisesof the Greeks, have been attended with com­ plete success. No seminary whatever, in that country, is now consideredperfect,which does not admit a courseof gymnastic exercises into its system of education. Towards the close of the last century, a course of elemen­ tary gymnastic exercises was framed at Schnepfenthal, a small town near Gotha,un­ der the direction of Salzmann , which were subsequently improved, augmented, and sys­ tematically arranged, by Gutsmuth , who published the first modern treatise on this subject in 1793, the second edition of which appeared in 1804, entitled " Die Gymnastik." Gutsmuth not only attracted attention to­ wardsthe importance of a systematical phy- a