YOUTH MOVEMENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1939, Page 2

YOUTH MOVEMENTS

EVOLUTION IN PAST DAVS

ACTION AND REACTION.

GLIMPSES OF OLD-TIME EUROPE.

After the 14th century the Church found it necessary to step in and disclaim the unbridled licence which was only too visible in the corrupt society of Europe. The clergy deemed it necessary to teach with their greatest power the subjection of the body. The highest aspiration of life then was the negation of all physical ideals and the voluntary infliction of all kinds of bodily vexations. This caused hermits and monks to carry this subjection to extremes.

The break from the old tradition back to normal thinking, back to the reasonableness of physical well-being, interlocked with mental well-being, began with John Locke who wrote "Some Thoughts on Education” in 1693.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, in 1762, published “Emile.” Both of these famous philosophers urged the necessity for including some measure of physical training in a scheme of education. The year 1774 saw the first real reform in the methods of teaching when, near Leiepsig, Basedow opened his school, “where knightly exercises, dancing, fencing, riding, vaulting and Greek gymnastics, together with simple games, athletic sports, gymnastics, military drill, manual labour, manual training and school excursions were to form the curriculum.”

With the impetus created by this new school, interest spread rapidly. Twenty-five years later it closed its doors because its thought had stagnated and was out of date.

COMPETITION IN CAMPAIGNS./

The general history of Europe shows that about this time the whole Continent was an armed camp. Everywhere it was believed that the fitness of the youth of the country was its only hope for survival. Youth movements under John developed rapidly in Germany; under Nachtegall in Copenhagen; under Ling in Stockholm; under Amoros in Paris. Nations were countering one another in the hope of avoiding war and annihilation by showing to the rest of the world a fitter and more active youth, more ready for defence than any of the other countries. The heavy, apparatus which we still see in the gymnasium—the horizontal bar, the parallel bars and the rings —were developed by Germany. The pummel horse came from the French Fencing Academies; the ladders, ropes and stall bars from Sweden. The American school of thought had its foundation early last century when the most able of the German gymnasts were exiled from their own country at the time of Napoleon’s oppression. The best and most active thought of Germany found a wonderfully fertile field for growth in the new States. ENGLISH MISSIONS. England was most orthodox in her development. In the middle of the 19th century she sent her army officers to enquire of the best in Europe; she borrowed the best available. MacLaren developed along German lines the Oxford University Gymnasium. The army, then with a tremendous strength in England, developed the Swedish system. The army spent the money and produced the results. The Code of Regulations for Elementary Schools, in 1871, made its first recognition of the physical, thus: “Attendance at drill under a competent instructor for not more than two hours a week and twenty weeks in a year may be counted as school attendance.”

An army drill instructor from Aidershot was judged a “competent instructor” in the meaning -of the. Regulations. In New Zealand this regulation was adopted in practice. A recent conversation on this matter with a senior gentleman, brought up in the New Zealand school system, led him to relate an interesting incident of physical drill in the early days. He was in Standard IV. Each boy was issued with a set of full-size clubs. They were too heavy for him to retain exactly in position with his arms extended sideways. The army instructor, carrying a riding-stock, raised two magnificent wales on the calves of his legs.

CHANGE FROM MILITARY STYLE

The Board of Education in England decided in 1902 to adopt a modified form of “exercise” for children from the army curriculum. This partnership with the Army was short-lived, for as a result of the work of an inter-de-partmental committee an entirely new syllabus was issued within two years. The Swedish influence was most marked. The old military drill style faded away. The years 1907, 1909, 1919, 1927 and 1936 are milestones of progress, each famous in the English system. The period 1907-1909 saw a medical influence through the establishment of a Medical Department at the Board of Education. The next decade was notable for a united effort in application, helped by lessons of the Great War. The ten years following the War saw a new generation making a British system, influenced by the Danish Adult Folk School and that leading Dane, Niels Buksh hirrjself. Although the British national games and dances are recognised to be insufficient in themselves for physical education, they found a place with the more formal training.

The British Board of Education published two books in 1936 which show a harmonious blending of Swedish. Danish and British thought.