In the flourishing days of Attica, the gymnasium was in its perfection.
It degenerated with the license of later times. It was absorbed and sunk
in the fashions and vices of imperial Rome. Though Nero built a
public gymnasium, and Roman gentlemen attached private ones to their
country-seats, it gradually fell into disuse, or existed only for
ignoble purposes. The gladiator succeeded naturally to the athlete, the
circus to the stadium, and the sanguinary scenes of the amphitheatre
brutalized the pure tastes of earlier years. Then came the barbarians,
and the rough, graceless strength of Goths and Vandals supplanted the
supple vigor of the gymnast. The rude, migratory life of the Dark Ages
needed not the gymnasium as a means of physical culture, and was too
changeable and evanescent to establish permanent institutions. Chivalry
afforded some exception. The profession of knighthood and the calling
of the men-at-arms gave ample scope to warlike exercises, reduced to
something like a science in armor, horses, and modes of combat. The
tournament recalled somewhat the generous emulation of the gymnasium;
but bodily exercise for physiological ends was lost sight of in the
midst of advancing civilization, until its culture was resumed in
Sweden, in the latter half of the last century.

The reviver of gymnastics was PETER HENRY LING. Born of humble
parentage, and contending in his earlier years with the extremest
poverty, he completed a theological education, became a tutor,
volunteered in the Danish navy, travelled in France and England, and
began his career of gymnast as a fencing-master in Stockholm. He died
a professor, a knight, and a member of the Swedish Academy, and was
posthumously honored as a benefactor of his country.

While fencing, he was struck with the wholesome effects which may
be produced on the body by a rational system of movements, and this