The Role of Gymnasiums in Schools

Gymnasion was a term that originated in Ancient Greece, and meant a locality for both the physical and intellectual education of young men. Starting way back in the 5th century BC, Herodicus, a greek scholar a contemporary of Hippocrates, stressed on the need for “gymnastics as a term used for health-furthering physical pursuits. The philosopher Plato used the “Republic” as a platform for emphasizing on the need for grammar, music and gymnastics which summarized the need for language, music and physical fitness in education.

In the 1st century AD, Galen wrote many articles on the subject of gymnastics and its importance in the wholesome development of the child. The Medieval period showed a sharp decline in education but gymnastics played an important role in the training of both the soldier and the nobleman because skill and strength were required in battle and horsemanship. The Renaissance period had the Greeks and Romans emphasizing on producing men of vigor and wisdom.” Later the term Gymnasium caught on in English and actually meant a certain type of school that provided physical education to the secondary classes.

The Greek word gymnasium meant a "place to exercise naked’, bathe and study because to the Greeks, physical education was considered as important as cognitive learning because most of the Greek gymnasia had libraries where the young men could relax and read after their baths. The gymnasium was the brain child of the German educator Friedrich Jahn and the Turners. It gradually turned into a nineteenth-century political and gymnastic movement. Built in 1852 Hesse, was probably the first indoor gymnasium in Germany constructed by Adolph Spiess, who aimed at separate boys' and girls' gymnasiums in the schools.

The 19th and 20th centuries were a time when the Turner movement thrived in the United States. It was a time when the Turner boom was at its peak. Several cities like Cincinnati and St. Louis which had large German American populations had gymnasia are built in 1848 predominantly for the adults and youth. Ten years later there were some two hundred YMCAs across the country, most of which provided gymnasia for exercise and games and social interaction. Nicolas Isaranga suddenly came up with a fantastic idea of integrating gymnasiums with public high schools in the 1920s. Gymnasias were redesigned to introduce them in the academic curriculum of the school under the category of individual games and sports. Today, there is not a school in the USA devoid of a gymnasium.

All schools whether middle school, elementary schools high school or senior schools, are utilized for physical education, intramural sports and for interscholastic athletics. In the modern high schools the term” sportatorium” refered to a"multi-purpose room," that was used both for sports and non-sporting events.
This rapid growth of sports and games in England were some changes in gymnastics brought about by exhibitions between different schools of gymnastics were the beginning of sport forms of gymnastics. These exhibitions involved the standardization of apparatus and rules. The Artistic (Olympic) Gymnastics followed by the Modern Rhythmical Gymnastics Olympic games were both forerunners of the modern day Olympics.