After the death of Frederick VI, December 3, 1839, Nachtegall’s own efforts (he was now sixty-two years old) began to slacken. In 1840 and 1843 he made new tours of inspection among the _Seminarier_. In 1842 he turned over to la Cour the headship of _det militære gymnastiske Institut_, but continued to discharge the duties of _Gymnastikdirektør_ until his death, which occurred May 12, 1847. He was not the inventor of a system of his own, but borrowed his types of exercise from Dessau and Schnepfenthal, and used the manuals of GutsMuths as a guide. He was a good teacher and organizer, tactfully winning the goodwill and support of leading men, skilful in accommodating himself to actual conditions, and indefatigable in his efforts to advance the work to which he had committed himself with so much devotion. Denmark owes it to him that during the first third of the nineteenth century she held the leading place among European nations in the realm of physical education.[142] Captain Niels Georg la Cour (1797-1876), who succeeded Nachtegall as Director of Gymnastics in Denmark (1847-1870), met with little success in his endeavor to improve conditions. As head of the Military Institute he published a new manual for the army, upon which was based his later manual for the elementary schools.[143] But interest was now at low ebb. Beginning in 1859 it came to be the practice to supply the need of teachers of gymnastics in the _Seminarier_ by “loaning” them non-commissioned officers for a term of three years. (This continued to be the rule until 1901!) In the schools of Copenhagen, also, and in garrison towns, such instruction was in the hands of military men. But in the army the broad educational aims of gymnastics had been subordinated to mere attainment of skill, so that the soldier too often regarded it with dread as a means of discipline and punishment. These officers, too, held themselves aloof from the general school life and from the other teachers. When la Cour, who possessed more energy than tact and lacked Nachtegall’s conciliatory manner, called attention to neglect or defective equipment revealed by his tours of inspection, and when official circulars directed the school authorities to exercise a keener and more vigorous oversight, the result in many cases was to arouse a feeling of irritation and indignation.