According to the prospectus issued in December of 1774, five hours a day were to be allotted to studies, three hours to recreation in fencing, riding, dancing, music, etc., and two hours to manual labor. Basedow promises that if the numbers are sufficient and the ages suitable there will be drill in military positions and movements, and frequent marches on foot; he also hopes to have the school dwell under tents in the field for two months of the summer, and in this way to give opportunities for hunting and fishing, boating, bathing, climbing, and jumping, as well as for the study of geography and the natural sciences. The physical training of the pupils was first entrusted, as a part of his duties, to _Johann Friedrich Simon_, a teacher in the Philanthropinum from January 2, 1776, to October 20, 1777; and he was succeeded by _Johann Jakob Du Toit_, whose connection with the school lasted from Easter of 1778 until the end came in 1793. The earliest exercises mentioned are weekly lessons in dancing, free instruction in fencing for the older boys, and six lessons a week in the Duke’s private riding-school. The latter’s riding-master also gave free instruction in vaulting the (living) horse. Thus the “knightly exercises,” as these four were called, had all been introduced, and Basedow himself refers to this fact, evidently recalling the school at Soröe. But children of such tender age plainly required a different sort of bodily training, and accordingly it was not long before Simon began to give his pupils lessons in what he termed “Greek gymnastics,” apparently including under this head nothing more than orderly contests in running, wrestling, throwing, and jumping, such as formed the staple of discipline in the Greek palæstra. For the broad-jumping he used ditches, cut so that they were perhaps eight feet across in the middle, but tapered almost to a point at either end, the pupils starting with a width which they could easily clear and working gradually toward the center as their strength and skill increased. For the high-jump two vertical poles were fixed at a distance of two and a half feet from each other in the ground, reaching about five feet above its surface; into holes bored in these, at intervals of an inch, wooden pegs were set at any desired height, and a stick resting crosswise upon the pegs furnished a barrier which would not injure the person who happened to strike it with his foot. Another of Simon’s devices was a long round beam raised about four feet above the ground and fastened firmly between posts at its thicker end and again near the middle, but with the smaller half left unsupported. The pupils were taught to balance themselves upon this beam, first at the fixed end, while the teacher lent a hand from below, and then, as they accustomed themselves little by little to the feat, upon the swaying portion, and without assistance. A simpler exercise of the same character consisted in crossing ditches on a narrow plank.