A good idea of the methods adopted by the Central Committee, and the results of its work during the twenty years 1891-1911, can be gained from a review of that period which von Schenckendorff, still chairman, prepared and published in 1912.[106] The Committee has endeavored from the start to supplement and support the work of individuals or local organizations and to prepare the way for the actual introduction of games into any community. Its membership is limited to one hundred, selected from men and women in all parts of the empire who have had experience and met with success in the field of physical education. Besides games in the narrower sense, it aims to foster all forms of active exercise in the open air, such as excursions on foot, swimming, rowing, skating, skeeing, bob-sledding, etc. There were the following sub-committees in 1912: (1) Technical, (2) on public exhibitions of games (_Jugend- und Volksfeste_), (3) on the German universities, (4) on continuation and professional schools, (5) on promotion of national defense (_Wehrkraft_) through education, (6) on country children and youth, (7) on excursions (_Wandern_) and winter exercises in the open air, and (8) on measures for increasing the physical fitness of girls and women. The activities of the Central Committee may be classified in three main groups, as follows: information, constructive work proper, and indirect measures. _Information._ To bring its work to the attention of the public at large the Committee has made use of the organs which mould and give expression to public opinion, _i.e._, about three hundred newspapers and other periodicals—political, social, pedagogical, and medical, as well as those published in the interest of physical education and athletic sports. It possesses also two organs of its own, the semi-monthly _Körper und Geist_, started in 1892 (April 1) under the title _Zeitschrift für Turnen und Jugendspiel_,[107] and a year-book[108] averaging more than three hundred pages. In addition to these a long list of pamphlets and small volumes have been issued. The first of a series of national congresses in the interest of games was held in Berlin, February 3 and 4, 1894, and others have followed, in different parts of the empire, at intervals of one or two years.[109] Persons whose official position gave them an influence which might be of great value in furthering the objects of the Committee were approached directly. In this way permanent relations have been established with about five thousand town and city authorities, district magistrates and school inspectors, provincial school commissioners, heads of institutions for the training of teachers, and members of state ministries of instruction.