At first the _Skytteforeninger_ confined their attention to rifle shooting and military drill, but after the war had given great headway to the whole movement gymnastics began to be introduced as a related activity, and gradually won for itself a more and more prominent place. A firmer organization had now been effected, for the smaller clubs, whose number had increased to several hundred, united into county rifle clubs (_Amts-Skytteforeninger_). Denmark is divided for administrative purposes into eighteen counties or _Amter_, and in 1871 the original Central Committee was succeeded by a Board of Directors (_Overbestyrelse_) chosen by representatives of the various units. According to information gathered by the new _Overbestyrelse_, eleven clubs practised gymnastics in 1872, and nine of these had 2100 members actively engaged, of whom 763 belonged in Svendborg county alone, where the efficient leadership and persevering efforts of Captain Edvard Nielsen had contributed largely toward such a favorable showing and had made that club a model for others. The exercises were necessarily limited at the start to what could be done in the open air and with little or no apparatus, or use was made of barns or rooms for public gatherings. In 1871, at Ryslinge (island of Fünen), the first special _Øvelseshus_ (house for exercise, gymnasium) was erected. Other places were quick to follow the example, so that by 1897 there were nearly 300 such buildings, provided by the club members themselves, and in them 10,000 young countrymen were practising gymnastics. Trained instructors could be borrowed from the army in garrison towns and the regions adjacent to them, or school teachers were employed or men who had returned from military service. Many clubs, in order to secure better qualified squad leaders, organized brief teachers’ courses (_Instruktionsmøder_) in charge of army instructors. When various people’s high schools, notably those at Askov and Vallekilde, opened their doors for such leaders’ courses (_Delingsførerkursus_) in gymnastics they became an important source of supply. The first course of this kind at Vallekilde was given in 1878. A handbook of gymnastics (“Vejledning i Gymnastik”) prepared for the rifle clubs by _Hærens Gymnastikskole_ in 1882, at the instance of the _Overbestyrelse_, does not appear to have been widely used, but Captain Amsinck’s manual of 1883 was made the basis of instruction.