While the von Gossler _Spielerlass_ of 1882 met with general approval and exerted a stimulating influence felt beyond the bounds of his own state, the immediate and visible results were disappointing. One experiment which it inspired was, however, momentous in its consequences. The scene was Görlitz, in Prussian Silesia, and the prime mover, soon to become a national figure, was Emil von Schenckendorff (1837-1915), formerly member of the city council and now member of the Prussian chamber of deputies. He had spent ten years in the army (1855-1865) and nine in the telegraph service (1867-1876), resigning from each on account of impaired health, and having made his home in Görlitz occupied himself altogether, for the balance of his life, with public affairs in city, state, and nation.[100] [Illustration: FIG. 31.—Emil Theodor Gustav von Schenckendorff (1837-1915).] In Sweden, in 1872, August Abrahamson (1817-1898) had opened a sloyd school for boys on his estate at Nääs, about eighteen miles from Gothenburg, under the direction of his nephew, Otto Salomon (1849-1907), and in the autumn of 1874 a training school for teachers of that branch of education was added. Adolph Clauson-Kaas (1826-1906) had made societies for home industry popular in Denmark. Von Schenckendorff was familiar with both movements, and in his desire to provide some counteragent to the one-sided mental exertion of the schools organized in 1881 the Görlitz Manual Training Society (Verein für Handfertigkeit) and opened a workshop for boys. He was also, that same year, one of the founders of the German Central Committee for Manual Training and Home Industry (in 1886 the name was changed to _Deutscher Verein für Knabenhandarbeit_). As early as 1882 he was in communication with Hartwich at Düsseldorf, approving his efforts and asking advice with regard to the introduction of games among the young people of Görlitz. In 1883 he persuaded the Görlitz Manual Training Society to add this new form of activity to its program. With the hearty coöperation of his friend Gustav Ernst Eitner (1835-1905), director of the city _Gymnasium_, a beginning was made with boys from the lower classes of that school, who met for the purpose on Wednesday afternoons. Soon the pupils of the intermediate classes became interested, and in the spring of the following year the older boys, who viewed the innovation with indifference at the start, were gradually drawn into the ranks of players. _Oberturnlehrer_ Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan (1842-1896) and several younger teachers in the _Gymnasium_ assumed the direct oversight of the games. The next step was to make provision for the elementary schools, and thus the movement spread from year to year, and methods of organization and administration were perfected, until not only the school children, but older boys and young men and even adults had been reached by the efforts of the society. Annual _Spielfeste_ helped to make