A four weeks’ normal course was given in February of 1849 to about thirty teachers in elementary and higher schools, most of them from Darmstadt, but one from Dresden and ten from Mainz, Offenbach, Worms, and other Hessian towns. Instruction was chiefly by means of model classes, conducted by Spiess in their presence, and after observing these the teachers themselves were given an opportunity to practice the same exercises. No other formal courses were given in Hesse, but in response to an invitation he took charge of a similar one in Oldenburg, capital of the Grand Duchy of the same name, in the fall of 1851. He also visited many places in Hesse in the interest of physical training, and teachers from all parts of the state came to Darmstadt from time to time during the next few years to become familiar with his method. To all these he gladly rendered whatever assistance they desired. A list of foreign visitors during the period 1852-1854 has been preserved, and on it are found the names of educators from Sweden[71], Belgium (1), Switzerland (3), Austria (4), Prussia (6), Saxony (2), Württemberg (2), Baden (5), Oldenburg (4), Frankfort-on-the-Main (8), and others from the smaller German states. More than half of the number remained long enough to receive practical instruction under Spiess, and to this group belong Nyblæus, Kawerau and Kluge from the Central Institute (Royal Normal School of Gymnastics) in Berlin, and Moritz Kloss, Director of the Normal School of Gymnastics in Dresden. Another list covering the same period shows that the Spiess method had been, or was about to be, adopted in more than thirty-five schools in ten cities outside of Hesse, including Berlin, Neurippen, Breslau, Frankfort, Dresden, Oldenburg, Vienna, and Bern, besides Basel and Burgdorf. Failing health compelled Spiess to interrupt, in the summer of 1855, his hitherto unceasing activity. Tuberculosis had developed in the lung wounded during his student days, and attempts to stop its progress by residence in the Taunus and for two years at Vevey, on Lake Geneva, proved unavailing. He returned to Darmstadt, visiting the _Turnhaus_ there for the last time in the fall of 1857, and died the following year, on the 9th of May.