In view of this multiplicity of interests it is not strange that the history of physical training in the early societies was a checkered one. For a time the official _Turnzeitung_ contained excellent articles on gymnastics by Magnus Gross and Eduard Müller. The first Executive Committee of the _Turnerbund_ distributed drawings of pyramids, and employed Louis Winter, an expert turner from Leipzig, to visit the smaller societies as itinerant teacher and to assist them in fitting up outdoor gymnasia. Among the members of the larger societies were usually to be found men able to direct the exercises of adults and older boys. At the Cincinnati Convention of 1852 the Committee was asked to arrange for the preparation of a suitable manual of gymnastics. The task was committed to Eduard Müller (1803-1886), who completed it before the end of the year.[268] Müller was born in Mainz, and becoming acquainted with the Jahn _Turnen_ while a student of drawing and painting at the Munich Academy organized a _Turnverein_ in his native city, and later became its leader, city teacher of gymnastics, and editor and publisher of the _Mainzer Turnzeitung_ (p. 103). When the disturbances of 1848 drove him to America he continued his activity in the New York _Turnverein_, and until 1858 was teacher of gymnastics in its school. His manual of nearly 350 pages was illustrated with numerous lithographed plates. It did not prove as satisfactory a guide as had been hoped, partly on account of the clumsy terminology adopted, and not half of the thousand copies printed were sold at the published price (seventy-five cents).