[Illustration: FIG. 66.—Georges Demeny (1850-1917).] Demeny, at first won over to the Swedish system by what he saw and heard at Paris in 1889 and during a mission to Sweden with Dr. Fernand Lagrange (1845-1909) in the autumn of 1890, afterwards withdrew from association with men like Dr. Philippe Tissié who advocated the Ling gymnastics for French schools, and sought to build up an eclectic (“French”) system of his own. Both parties were represented at the _Congrès Olympique international de Sport et d’Éducation physique_ in Brussels June 9-14, 1905, and the _Deuxième Congrès international de l’Éducation physique de la jeunesse_ at Liège, August 28-September 1 of that year,[184] and there were preliminary skirmishes at the latter; but the first real battle was fought a few weeks later, at the _Congrès international d’Expansion économique mondiale_, in Mons (September 24-27). Five years later each group organized its own congress, the friends of the Swedish system a _Congrès international de Gymnastique pédagogique, militaire, médicale et esthétique_, which met in Brussels, August 4-6, 1910,[185] and Demeny and his followers a (third) _Congrès international d’Éducation physique_ in the same city a week later (August 10-13).[186] A Danish committee representing friends of the Ling system organized another international congress, which held its sessions in Odense, Denmark, July 7-10, 1911.[187] The last congress to be called together before the outbreak of the Great War met in Paris under the auspices of the _Faculté de Médecine_, March 17-20, 1913.[188] FOOTNOTES: [180] Annuaires des Fédérations Européennes de Gymnastique, 1898 (14 pages), 1899 (16), 1900 (21), 1901 (47), 1902 (32 pages of text and 17 plates containing portraits), 1906 (49), and 1913 (? Not seen, but reviewed in _Deutsche Turn-Zeitung_ 1913, pages 138 and 141). [181] In “The Evolution of France under the Third Republic,” by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Translated from the French by Isabel F. Hapgood. Authorized edition with special Preface and Additions and Introduction by Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor of _The Review of Reviews_. New York and Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1897. See Introduction, pages iii-xxiii. [182] First American member of the International Olympic Committee. Quoted from his chapter (pages 71-83) in “Report of the American Olympic Committee, Seventh Olympic Games, Antwerp, Belgium, 1920.” [183] See his “Procès-verbaux sommaires,” Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1900. [184] See the _Règlement et rapports préliminaires_ and the _Compte rendu_ of the second congress (Nivelles, Lanneau & Despret). [185] See the _Rapport-général_, Brussels, 1910. [186] There is a report by the delegates from the United States in the Bureau of Education Report for 1910 (I: 598-601). [187] See “Procès-verbal du Congrès international de l’Éducation physique à Odense (Danmark)” (Copenhagen, J. H. Schultz, 1911).