PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN MODERN EUROPE

The fall of the Roman Empire led to the period of ignorance which is known in history as the Dark Ages. After several centuries, people realized the importance of physical fitness for the defence of the State and devised several ways of giving citizens physical education. In modern Europe, Germany, Sweden and Britain developed different systems which has a great influence on the teaching of physical education in other countries including Nigeria.

Johan Basedow had earlier established a school in 1774, where mental and physical training was given to students in Germany. This type of school became popular in other parts of Europe.

Let us now look at these systems and the role of some important personalities in their development.

 

GERMANY

Germany consisted of many sovereignties by the end of the eighteenth century. These political units had a common fear. This was the fear of domination by Napoleon of France. One of the states, Prussia, fought Napoleon’s army in 1806 and was shamefully defeated. The need for strength and unity in Germany became evident, and Friedrich Jahn vowed to use physical education activities to bring about the unity and strength required by the German States. Jahn developed the knowledge which has its foundation in the earlier works of Friedrich GutsMuths (1749- 1839), who taught physical education and wrote several volumes of books on the subject. GutsMuths had arranged 105 games in his works and classified them into skill groups. These early works of GutsMuths helped Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778 – 1852) to develop his new system of physical education which involved the masses in “Turnplatz” activities. Turnplatz was an open playground like the Greek palaestra where people of all classes had various gymnastic activities to strengthen their bodies. Many Turners joined Jahn in the Turnplatz and all German youths were taught to be strong and resolute, and to be prepared to defeat the French Army.

Jahn opened his first Turnplatz in 1811 and many German youths used it. In 1813, at the battle of Leipzig, the Germans united and defeated the French army, thus driving away Napoleon from Germany. Jahn’s system of physical education became very popular among the Germans as a result of this success.

He thus used physical education to achieve his political objective.

The German gymnastic movement spread to all parts of the country. Adolf Spiess helped to introduce the system to schools. In spite of efforts by some aristocrats to suppress the movements, they continued to flourish. Our apparatus work on equipment, such as parallel bars, vaulting horses, balance beams, climbing ropes, and frames came from the German system of physical education.

Hitler led his nation to wage war against Britain and her allies between 1939 and 1945; but he was defeated. Physical education has continued to grow in Germany and today the country has a very high standard of sport, physical education, and recreation.

When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he reinforced the system of German physical education for his fascist political motives. The Hitler Youth Movement had a well-designed programme of physical education that prepared them for military service. He invested a great deal of money in the organization of the 1936 Olympic Games to show the world that Germany was a strong and virile nation.

 

SWEDEN

The story of physical education in Sweden surrounds a great personality called Per Henrik Ling (1776 – 1839). He had studied the work of GutsMuths and felt that Sweden, a country in the Baltic region, needed a scientific approach to exercises for the development of the human body to keep the youths fit for service to the nation.

Ling taught in the University of Lund where he introduced fencing, gymnastics, and swimming lessons. He studied anatomy and physiology to enable him to familiarize his students with the effects of exercises on the various parts of the human body. He introduced free exercises for the development of a good posture.

Physical education was introduced to schools in Sweden before Ling left Lund to open an institute in Stockholm for the training of people in the subject.

Ling was encouraged by the Swedish government to open the Royal Central Institute for Gymnastics in Stockholm in 1814. The Institute admitted both civilian and military students. He served as Director of the Institute for twenty-five years before his death in 1939. During his life time, educational, military and medical gymnastics had been firmly established and taught in the institution and the knowledge of scientific approach to the use of exercise had rapidly spread to every nook and cranny of Sweden.

Gymnastics still forms the basis of Swedish physical education although sports and games have been introduced into the school system.

 

BRITAIN

In the Middle Ages, Christians and scholars discouraged participation in physical education in continental Europe while the British people continued to take part in outdoor sports with emphasis on archery, football, cricket, wrestling, and tennis on British Islands. This practice by the British people continued up to the beginning of modern times.

In Britain there were two classes of citizens – the aristocrats who were the rich people, and the commoners who were the poor people. Each class respected the other and all citizens had freedom to engage in sports. There were, however, differences in their activities, depending on the type of sports. Expensive sports, such as hunting on horseback and tennis became the activities of the rich while cricket and boxing were for everybody. Football was confined to the poor.

In early times the education of the children of the rich was given by private tutors. But by 1870, some public schools had been built for children of upper-class families. These schools developed fine traditions of sports which helped to train the children to be courageous, honest, and strong. Schools, such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Rugby provided this excellent training for future leaders of Britain through sports, which includes many great British leaders in politics, the military and business. Cricket, boat rowing, football, tennis, swimming, and boxing were popular in the schools.

Children of poor people had their education in parish or charity schools, which did not provide opportunities for the public system of physical education but encouraged children’s participation in those outdoor sports within the reach of the commoners.

Early in the 19th century Ling’s system of gymnastics in Sweden attracted the attention of the British army. In 1822, a gymnastic teacher called Clias was invited from continental Europe by the British Army to give gymnastic training to British military men. He worked in Britain for a few years and left in 1825 as a result of an injury. Before his departure, interest in Swedish gymnastics had become popular in London, and other people who showed an interest in his work formed the London Gymnastics Society.

By the middle of the 19th century, Archibald Maclaren taught fencing in Oxford and popularized Swedish gymnastics. He established a private gymnasium in Oxford in 1858 where he taught Swedish gymnastics.

The army invited Maclaren to revise the syllabus for military physical training which was based on the Swedish gymnastics system.

While Maclaren was promoting the Swedish system of physical education, some teachers from continental Europe came to Britain and established private gymnastic schools in London. The Swedish system thus became popular, and the Navy, the Army and the school authorities in Britain adopted it early in the 20th century.

In 1904, the first school’s syllabus of physical exercises was published by the British Education Authorities. This was revised in 1905, 1906, 1909, 1919, and in 1933. The 1933 physical training syllabus was used in elementary schools in Britain and her colonies. Thus, early Nigerian primary schools used the British 1933 syllabus of physical training.

By 1954, the British syllabus was revised and presented in two volumes:

• Moving and Growing (for lower elementary classes).
• Planning the Programme (for higher elementary classes).

At about the same time as Britain revised the schools syllabus of physical education in 1954, the Western Nigerian Ministry of Education published the first Nigerian Syllabus of physical education which

Harding J. Ekperigin and other education officers introduced in the Western Region when Free Primary Education started in 1955. This new syllabus, which was prepared for primary schools in the Western Region of Nigeria, thus replaced the British physical education syllabus. Thus one can see the great influence the new British system of physical education had on the Nigerian modern system.