Before the season was over the attendance had reached five hundred, new arrivals streaming in from all classes of society. On Sundays adults were allowed to take part. In general, the popular attitude toward the movement was very favorable. Spectators of every rank and by the hundred gathered at the sides of the Turnplatz, and the evident physical benefit from the work, the harmony that existed and the strong national feeling cultivated there were at once appreciated. Jahn worked alone, for the most part, assisted, however, by the older and more experienced pupils, whom he was now able to employ as squad leaders (_Vorturner_). If something new was to be practised he selected a few of the most skilful and showed them the exercise himself, and they in turn spread it from group to group. In spite of the numbers, accidents were unknown during this and the preceding summers. Occasionally gentle measures were not sufficient to preserve discipline. It it said that Jahn knew how to use a rope-end, and that when two boys had quarreled he used to furnish each of them with a pliant root, with which they fought it out in the presence of their comrades, clad in their thin linen breeches, and striking with all their might lest they should appear cowardly. In the winter of 1812-13 some of the best turners, with Friesen at their head, organized a society for the critical study of gymnastics and to work out an artistic arrangement of the material which had accumulated. A hall was also rented, a wooden vaulting horse was purchased with a hundred thalers which some of them had collected, and practice in vaulting and fencing was continued.