Lowell, Thomas Motley, and John B. Davis. Two hundred and fifty shares, at twenty dollars each, were offered by the committee, and according to Dr. Warren the contributions were “very liberal,” permitting the opening of the establishment “on a large scale.” The open-air gymnasium or _Turnplatz_ was ready for the public on September 28, not on the site originally selected, but in Washington Gardens, at the corner of West and Tremont Streets, opposite the Common. A notice in the _American Journal of Education_ for October mentions “the large number of pupils of various ages, and the high gratification it seems to afford;” and the November number of the same Journal uses these words, in the course of a more extended reference: “A month’s opportunity of observing its progress and participating in its exercises enables us now to say that thus far it gives the utmost satisfaction to those who have made the experiment of taking a course of lessons. The physical effects of the gymnastic exercise, on pupils of very different ages—from ten to fifty—are surprising. Many have doubled their vigor.... Pupils belong to great diversity of situations in life—physicians, lawyers, and clergymen are intermixed with young men from the counter and the counting house, and with boys from the public schools.” Follen was assisted by George F. Turner, a Harvard student. Mrs. Follen, then Miss Eliza Lee Cabot, first met her future husband in the autumn of 1826. She says: “He accompanied us and some other ladies to his gymnasium, to see his class of boys go through their exercises. He took us, when we first entered the place, to look at a very amusing caricature of his school, particularly of his elder pupils and himself, in the act of performing some of their most difficult exercises.”[200] In June of the following year (1827) Follen resigned his position at the Boston Gymnasium. To a committee of pupils there, who sent him a letter[201] expressing their appreciation of his services and their regret at losing him, he replied under date of July 3, referring to “the patriotic views to which the Boston Gymnasium owes its existence, and the efficient zeal with which these exercises have been carried on.” Meanwhile an attempt had been made to secure the services of no less a person than Friedrich Ludwig Jahn himself. Dr. Warren tells us[202] that he “addressed a letter to the distinguished philosopher and gymnasiarch, Professor Jahn, through my friend, William Amory, Esq., who was at that time residing in Germany. Mr. Jahn was so situated that we could not, without obtaining more means than were at our disposition, lead him to abandon his own country and establish himself for life in ours. The idea of obtaining his aid was therefore relinquished; and I afterwards addressed Dr. Lieber....” [Illustration: FIG. 69.—Francis Lieber (1800-1872). (From Harley’s “Francis Lieber”).]