HEALTH, EXERCISE, AND AMUSEMENTS


Perhaps in no other country in the world have health and exercise been
united and formed into a national institution, as they have been in
Sweden. The true Swede believes that exercise will cure everything,
and that as a preventive of disease there is nothing like it. If you
go to a Swedish physician for advice, he will invariably prescribe the
movement cure, and send you to a gymnasium or a massage establishment
instead of to a drug store. Physical exercise is therefore the
national remedy, particularly for complaints due to sedentary
employment, neglect of nature's laws, and high living. The movement
cure for invalids, which is practically the same as that we have in
the United States, is used in all the hospitals as well as in private
practice. It was invented about a century ago by Dr. Ling, a patriot,
a gymnast and a poet, who was inspired to revive the ancestral
national spirit in the Swedish people by the aid of sports and songs,
and to develop once more the great qualities of strength, courage,
and endurance which in old times distinguished the Scandinavian
race. After a hard struggle he succeeded, in 1814, in securing the
recognition of the government and founded the Royal Gymnastic Central
Institute, where all persons desiring to teach gymnastics in the
public schools or in private institutions must take a course of
training and take a degree. The Swedes are quite as particular about
this as they are about the study of medicine. No medical practitioner
can hang out a sign without a diploma from one of the universities,
and no person can teach gymnastics in that country without a similar
certificate of competency from the Royal Institute. Every officer of
the army is required to undergo a course of instruction, not only