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therefore essential to know both, in order to be able to use the
medical part of the system properly for the purpose assigned
to it.
Being anxious to found a gymnastic institution, Ling applied
for help to the Government, but the Minister of State to whom
he addressed himself replied, “We have enough of jugglers and
dancers on wires without also subsidising them by the State.”
But in the year 1812 his efforts were crowned with success,
and the Government of Sweden founded “The Royal Central
Gymnastic Institution” in Stockholm, with Ling as its chief.
Here regular courses of lectures on anatomy and physiology
were given, the pedagogic and medical gymnastics taught,
together with fencing in all its branches. No pupil was allowed
to enter the institution who had not passed the University
entrance examination, which corresponds to the “Abiturienten
Examen” in Germany. At the present time a nine months’
course of instruction is given each year, viz. from the 1st
September to the 15th of May.
When Ling died, on the 3rd of May 1839, he left to his
country, that numbers him among her greatest sons, in the
form of his system of exercises, a legacy by which thousands
have regamed their health, and by which, thanks to the
pedagogic portion, there still lives in Sweden a strong and healthy
people.
The path, however, of this new method was not a smooth
one, for so soon as the effect of the treatment began to show
itself, the Swedish medical profession did everything in their
power to prevent its further progress. At first they tried to
kill the system by silence or assailed it with sarcasm, but
finding these means useless, in the face of cures resulting from
its application, they began an active resistance.
Those, however, who advocated the system,—and amongst
them, proving exceptions to the general rule, were several medical
men,—were by far too enthusiastic in favour of the treatment
to be easily frightened from what they considered the right path.
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