ABSTRACT
As a general rule the exercises described in the gymnastic literature will, when they are employed with sufficient circumspection and discretion, prove serviceable, at any rate in the case of young children or male pupils, men and boys. The obvious aim of the theory of gymnastics is to determine the rôle of physical exercises in general from a physiological point of view, and their place in the school curriculum in particular, and also to characterise the larger and smaller groups of the system. The aim of the order exercises is a twofold one, partly the purely external aim of bringing each pupil into the place found most convenient for the exercises to follow, partly the no less important disciplinary aim of accustoming the pupils to simultaneousness, order, and precision. By practising gymnastics in the way stated a crime is committed against the structure of the normal spinal column.
