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PHYSICAL TRAINING.

Elective Courses Given at the Harvard Summer School.

The CRIMSON gave on Jan. 4 a review of Dr. Sargent's report on Physical Training, on Jan. 7 a list of colleges where exercise is required and is counted, on Jan. 12 a list of some of the universities and colleges where exercise is required but no credit is given, and on Jan. 18 several institutions where elective courses in physical training are offered, counting towards a degree. Today is given a short account of the work done in the Harvard gymnasium during the Summer School period.

In the Physical Training Department of the Harvard Summer School for 1897 there were seven lecturers, eighteen instructors, and nine student instructors. Lectures were given on thirteen subjects; such as, Applied Anatomy, Physical Training, Elementary and Experimental Physiology, Physical Basis of Mental Life, etc. In addition, practical class exercises were given in the following courses: Free Movements, Calisthenics, Light Gymnastics, Military Drill, Methods of Conducting Squad, Class or Division Exercises, Gymnastic Games, Delsarte Movements and Relaxing Exercises, Swedish Gymnastics, Heavy Gymnastics, Track and Field Athletics, Boxing, Fencing, Rowing, Swimming, Voice Training, and Special Exercises on the various Developing Machines of the Gymnasium.

Former students of the Summer School are physical instructors at such universities and colleges as the following: Brown, Johns Hopkins, Indiana, Illinois, Bowdoin, Dickinson, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Amherst, Bates, Dart mouth, Oberlin, Chicago, Kansas, Lehigh, Wesleyan, Colby, Haverford, Trinity, Rutgers, Tufts, Williams, Oregon, Oberlin and Leland Stanford, Jr. In all over 700 physical instructors have been trained in the Hemenway Gymnasium during the last ten years. The Harvard system of apparatus forms the equipment of 740 gymnasiums of the country, 263 of them belonging to schools and colleges.

From this it will be seen what an important part the Harvard Gymnasium has taken in the advancement of physical training throughout the United States. It might be possible that the elective courses which the Harvard Gymnasium is capable of giving, and does give every summer, should be offered to the regular undergraduates of the University. Even the adoption of the most radical of the three plans suggested by Dr. Sargent, that a graded series of physical courses extending over the four years be offered as electives, would simply be the extension of a policy which Harvard has pursued in her Summer School for several years.

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