Ling, the founder of Swedish gymnastics : his life, his work and his importance / [Carl August Westerblad].

  • Westerblad, C. A. (Carl August), 1873-
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ling, the founder of Swedish gymnastics : his life, his work and his importance / [Carl August Westerblad]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/70 page 14
    yearning for mediaeval faith and mediaeval devotion and he, besides, struck another new note when conjuring up the Ancient Scandinavia, its heroes, its gods and its legends, which he re- sorted to from his own materialistic times. In Copenhagen, too. Ling’s thoughts were led into a field in which he was to be a leading man, the domain of gymnas- tics. Since the last decenniums of the i8th century a great activity had been displayed within the domain of education. Rousseau had spoken rousing words in favour of a more natural method of education and in Germany the pedagogues tried to go from sounds to things when adding physical exercises to the ordinary school subjects. New ideas of education had reached as far as the capital of Denmark, where in seventeen-ninety-nine a Dane, Nachtegall by name, set up a private gymnastic institute, the first of that kind in the North. At that institute he imparted a gymnastic instruction, that may be called good when we consider the state gymnastics were then in. The gymnastic exercises that were practised at the institute of Nachtegall were drawn up on the model of Gutsmuths, a German, known as author of the first handbook of gymnastics that has been published in modern times. A great number of persons profited by the instruction given at Nachtegall’s institute and one of them was Ling. His slender, sinewy figure was seen among the visitors of the in- stitute in question. The future gymnastic reformer seems not to have been quite content with the things Jie saw there. A friend of Ling’s of that time observes that the young Swede was not satisfied to regard the gymnastic exercises as a mere vehicle for physical health; he maintained that gymnastics had a higher and larger significance, considering gymnastics as an art and a science. Only later on in his life, was Ling to give an example of his gymnastic inventions, but these might have stirred up his mind as early as during these years of wandering.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3