Games which require agility and strength, the Minister said, deserve a place side by side with formal gymnastics, not only as healthful forms of recreation, but because they train the players to make decisions promptly and carry them out energetically, rouse a feeling of responsibility, require subordination and coöperation, and play a large part in the development of personality. Hitherto this valuable educational agency, which supplements, but should not replace, gymnastics, has been left too much to the initiative of the young themselves and the results have been largely a matter of chance. School authorities should make it their business to provide playgrounds of sufficient size and conveniently located. Teachers must interest themselves in the matter, joining the pupils in their sports, preserving order, and supplying the necessary supervision and direction, and a place ought to be found in the curriculum for such activities, in addition to voluntary practice outside of school hours. The Minister announces his readiness to render assistance in furthering the movement, by including the subject of organized play in the annual vacation courses for teachers. Attention is called to a list of books containing directions for a variety of games. The Commission of 1889, appointed to work out a new manual of gymnastics, was also preparing a brief guide to the use of appropriate games,[154] and this, it was hoped, could be sent out to all public and private schools. On December 1, 1896, three months after the appearance of the Bardenfleth circular, the Copenhagen Playground Association proposed to the ministry an annual grant from state funds to be used in making it effective, and offered to form a committee which should undertake to manage the practical details of the project. The suggestion was approved, the _Rigsdag_ voted an appropriation of 5000 Kr. a year for three years, and the expenditure of the fund was entrusted to a group of men and women from all parts of the country who met in Copenhagen April 11, 1897, at the invitation of the Playground Association, and constituted themselves a National Committee for Promoting Group Games among School Children.[155] The original membership included Fru Rigmor Bendix, Copenhagen, chairman; school principal Emil Slomann, Frederiksberg, vice-chairman; wholesale merchant Carl H. Melchior, Copenhagen, treasurer; Dr. med. H. Forchhammer, Copenhagen, secretary; district physician Axel Hertel, Copenhagen, and school director Joakim Larsen, Frederiksberg, additional members of the executive committee; and fifteen other persons residing in various parts of Denmark, among them Professor Poul la Cour of the Askov people’s high school, and Cand. theol. K. A. Knudsen, then living in Frederiksberg.