A guide to the history of physical educationLeonard, Fred Eugene
History
A guide to the history of physical education
Leonard, Fred Eugene
Physical education and training; Physical education and training -- History
In the summer of 1890 the Springfield Training School, hitherto a
department of Rev. David Allen Reed’s “School for Christian Workers,” was
separately incorporated under the name “Young Men’s Christian Association
Training School,” changed early the next year to “International Young
Men’s Christian Association Training School,” and in the spring of 1891
thirty acres of land bordering on Massasoit Lake, on the outskirts of
Springfield, were secured as a site for future buildings. A gymnasium,
the first structure erected on the new grounds, was completed in the
summer of 1894 and formally opened October 26, a dormitory and recitation
hall was added in 1896, Woods Hall, a social center, in 1904, Pratt Field
in 1910, the west gymnasium in 1911, and a library and a natatorium in
1913. Dr. James Huff McCurdy, who was to become Gulick’s successor as
director of the physical course, joined the staff in the fall of 1895,
and at that time the course of study and practice was extended to cover
three years. In 1905 the Massachusetts Legislature authorized the school
to confer the degrees bachelor and master of physical education (B.P.E.
and M.P.E.), and in April, 1912, its name was changed to “International
Young Men’s Christian Association College.” Three years later the
trustees voted to make the course for physical directors a four-year one,
beginning in September of 1916.
At a secretaries’ conference held in Montreal in June of 1884 the plan
of a permanent summer camp and “institute” was proposed, and in August,
while a number of Association men were together at Camp Collie, Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, a committee settled upon that lake as the site of
such a camp, adopting the name “Western Secretarial Institute.” Land was
purchased in the spring of 1886 and on the 6th of October the institute
was incorporated under the laws of Wisconsin. July 1-29, 1890, a summer
school for physical directors was held on the camp grounds, under the
auspices of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Training School and the
direction of Dr. Luther H. Gulick. Meanwhile, on June 28 of the same
year, the “Young Men’s Christian Association Training School” (Chicago)
had been incorporated, with the object of training young men for the
duties of general secretary, physical director, and other Association
officers. It opened its first two-year course September 10th, in rooms of
the Central Young Men’s Christian Association, 148 Madison Street, with
Dr. E. L. Hayford “principal of the physical department,” and in 1891 and
following summers conducted at Lake Geneva courses similar to those given
there in July of 1890. In May of 1896 the Chicago school and the Lake
Geneva Institute were consolidated under the title “Secretarial Institute
and Training School of Young Men’s Christian Associations,” changed to
“Institute and Training School of Young Men’s Christian Associations” in
1903, and ten years later to “Young Men’s Christian Association College.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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