Experience with all grades of pupils had proved to Spiess that the material and methods of Jahn’s “Deutsche Turnkunst” were not sufficient for his needs. Little by little he began therefore to develop and test new groups of exercises, and first of all what he called “Free Exercises,” or those which require either no apparatus at all, or only such as can be carried in the hands. They were intended to secure ready control and graceful carriage of the body under ordinary conditions, while the pupil was standing or walking on the usual supporting surface, and differed in this particular from the forms commonly practised on the old Turnplatz. The attempt to instruct large numbers of pupils at once in these free exercises led to the elaboration of another group, the class exercises in marching (_Ordnungsübungen_), by means of which the entire mass was made to move as one individual, and in this way discipline and order were improved, since each pupil learned to handle himself as part of the whole, and any desired arrangement of the units could be promptly secured. The next step was a review of all the gymnastic material in the effort to devise a more satisfactory classification than the one adopted in the books of GutsMuths, the “Deutsche Turnkunst,” and Eiselen’s “Turntafeln” (1837). The result of this study was the publication in 1840 of the first part (Free Exercises) of his “System of Gymnastics” (_Lehre der Turnkunst_),[68] followed by a second (Hanging Exercises) in 1842, and a third (_Stemmübungen_ or supporting exercises, including balancing and vaulting) in 1843. In the summer of 1842 Spiess returned to Germany, drawn by the signs of approaching gymnastic revival in Prussia and the desire to discuss his own views with other men of like interests. He found Massmann,[69] at Munich, too firmly wedded to the _Turnen_ of student days to receive with any sympathy the proposed innovations; but Jahn, whose guest he was for two days in Freyburg, and Eiselen, whom he saw at a watering-place near Berlin, were more cordial in their attitude. The visit to Minister Eichhorn (August 10), and the formal statement of his ideas regarding the essential features of a state system of physical training for the schools which followed it, have been mentioned already in the opening paragraph. Two years before Spiess had married a former pupil, Marie Buri, and the need of finding a larger and more remunerative field of usefulness no doubt had much to do with the journey to Berlin; but the summons of Massmann to the Prussian capital in 1843 put an end to all hopes in that direction. [Illustration: FIG. 23.—The Basel _Turnplatz_, from a plate in the _Turnbuch_ of Spiess (1847).]