Fred H. Harrison
Athletics for All

CHAPTER IV

Health and Physical Education

TO THE LARGE MAJORITY of "Old Blues" most discussions of athletics as they were in their schooldays on the Hill revolve around nostalgic recitals of Andover-Exeter contests in which they participated, actually or vicariously. The physical education program of Phillips Academy, however, encompasses far more than those annual struggles with our rivals from New Hampshire. As has already been noted, "sport for sport's sake" had not been part of the academic gospel in the early history of the school. On the contrary, that boys should stretch their muscles for sheer delight in physical exercise, that the school should arouse in the students a love for games for the simple pleasure of matching skill against skill and brawn against brawn, that there might be moral lessons to be learned through competitive games, were notions entirely inconsistent with the educational philosophy of the New England Puritans. To suggest further that success in games is desirable and not wasteful or hypocritical, and that there should be all kinds of games---for the feeble, the clumsy, and the timid, as well as for the strong, the agile, and the swift---would have been heretical and totally unacceptable on Andover Hill in the early 19th century.(1) Rather, the tone of the school was almost exclusively pietistic and intellectual. The Preamble of the Society for Promoting Good Morals, established in 1826, stated what ought to be the personal objectives of all students:

We will endeavor to maintain an impressive sense of the being and omnipresence of God, who will hereafter judge us according to our works; sensible that a belief of this truth is the most dissuasive from sin.(2)

As the century reached the midpoint, the idea that the care of the body is an essential part of education gained credence among certain schools and colleges. If the soul is to be nurtured so carefully, then the body must also be looked to. "Glorify God in your body and in your spirit."(3) What had become very apparent by the late 1850's and early 1860's was that increasingly an Andover education had become, among other things, a struggle for physical survival. Phillips Academy has always had the reputation of being a "tough school," but never more so than in the closing years of Samuel Harvey Taylor's stewardship. The rhetoric relative to this period, both documentary and pictorial, redounds with tales of poor boys struggling to cope with too many demands at the expense of their health. In a highly melodramatic novel written by a member of the Class of 1880 and entitled The New Senior at Andover, John Strong, the hero of the piece, is a partially crippled, indigent boy from a farm in New Hampshire, where he has been the sole support of a widowed mother. By working at odd jobs for the Principal, "Uncle Jim Tyler," eating bare subsistence fare at Mrs. Grooge's boarding house, and exercising by throwing a baseball occasionally in the gym, he completed the year second in his class, was the pitcher-hero of the Exeter game, and was ultimately admitted to Harvard on scholarship. His closest friend, an old boy, "Doc" Shelby, whom Strong had earlier protected from Selfrich, the affluent bully, was of less rugged constitution. Psychologically and physically defeated by the unending "grind," he died of pneumonia in John Strong's arms.(4)

A clear indication that the student body was dissatisfied with the system of education offered at Andover appeared in the Mirror for March 1863. This time once again the hero is a healthy specimen fresh from the hills of New Hampshire. Soon the pressure of study occupied all his time, and proper exercise was neglected. At the close of his term at Phillips Academy he was graduated with honor, but his health was broken; color had left his cheek and strength his muscles. The writer-editor of "Mens Sana in Sano Corpore" sums up the paradox:

If a student fully understands and masters all the requirements of his courses, he sacrifices his health; and if he spends a proper amount of time in healthful exercise and other general duties, he gets no deeper than the surface in his studies. The system of working, also, terminates in superficial scholarship and besides, dishonesty of character.(5)

A final exhortation follows:

If our Maker has given us strong constitutions we are under lasting obligations to keep them so far as it lies in our power. The pulpit, the bar, our national halls, all positions of influence and responsibility, call for men of practical views. We do not undervalue scholarship, but the world has been cursed long enough with book worms. American scholarship needs to be vitalized.(6)

Essentially the Mirror, at the time, was echoing a definite change in attitude toward physical education and health among academicians outside the walls of Phillips Academy. Symptomatic of the changing temper was the consideration for the first time of the introduction of physical education into college curriculums. The leader in the fight for organized physical education as a significant addition to the college program was Dr. William A. Stearns, a graduate of Phillips Academy in the Class of 1823 and the grandfather of Alfred E. Stearns, the ninth Headmaster of Andover. In his inaugural address as President of Amherst College in the year 1855, Dr. Stearns had strongly urged the Trustees to institute a program of physical education and hygiene, and for the next five years he repeated the plea. After 1856 he had vigorous support from Nathan Allen, a new trustee elected by the Commonwealth Legislature. Allen was an Amherst Alumnus of the Class of 1836, a physician in Lowell, and a prolific writer on hygiene and its relations to demography.(7)

It was scarcely necessary for Stearns and Allen to argue their proposals on any abstract grounds; all about could be seen the dire consequences of ignorance and of disregard for the simple axioms of hygiene. The records of the college so abound with references to precarious health that one can readily understand why contemporaries viewed study as a hazardous occupation.(8)

At Amherst, or at Andover, in some cases it was penury, but usually it was carelessness that caused students to assume habits of diet and schedule that contributed to the prevalence of chronic disease.

After a five-year struggle, the President and his doctor-friend won the battle; Amherst was the first American college to establish a professorship of hygiene and physical education. In 1859 a gymnasium building was erected with funds contributed by a physician in nearby Northampton, and in the following year a doctor was appointed to the new chair. His responsibilities went far beyond the care of the sick; he was also to assume general supervision of the physical education program and lecture on anatomy and hygiene. The college also initiated at this time the requirement that each student should take supervised exercise four days a week, and a special training program was devised for the weak and the handicapped.(9) Amherst had taken the lead in showing other colleges how to organize a department of physical education.

Professor Edward Hitchcock of Amherst College.
A pioneer in the development of Physical Education.

In educational circles the impact of the Amherst experiment, under the leadership of its first doctor, Edward Hitchcock, was sensational. The new department became one of the distinctive features of the college. Hitchcock, possessed of enormous enthusiasm for his work, was endowed with much common sense and a genius for handling boys. Under his direction, the health of the students improved, and their interest in physical activity enlarged. Here was a medical scientist with interest in physiology and anatomy measured in terms of human evolution. He believed that human stature would increase as men practiced principles of good hygiene and exercise. He learned what anatomical measurements were significant, and in 1861 began to gather precise statistics for the student physique. He was one of the pioneers in the field of anthropometrics.(10)

The physical training devised by Hitchcock consisted largely of formal calisthenic drill in the gymnasium, while exhibitions and interclass contests stimulated the competitive spirit. Later, field and team sports, which had grown up spontaneously among the students, were successfully introduced into the curriculum as adjunctive to the required physical education program.(11) Contemporary observers noted the improvement in the mental, as well as the physical, health of the students. One alumnus-historian lamented that the new outlets for energy came to absorb more and more of the undergraduates' time and interest and thus reduced the leisure available for religious reflection; and he concluded that if the aim was to improve the health of the students so that they might better serve and worship their Lord, it must have been a bitter irony to discover that the rise of physical vigor coincided almost precisely with the decline of the religious revival.(12) But regardless of some dubious opinions about the program from the clerical members of the Amherst community, its prestige among the students, the faculty, and the alumni was soon firmly established; it was hailed by such eminent educators as President Eliot of Harvard as one of the great curricular innovations of the period. Moreover, the successful experiment was to exert a strong influence on the gradual development of a similar program at Phillips Academy.

While a direct line of communication between Amherst and Andover regarding this particular matter cannot be documented, it was more than coincidence that in August 1859, the Trustees of Phillips Academy for the first time made a direct financial commitment to physical education by authorizing the expenditure of a "sum not to exceed fifty dollars for providing apparatus to provide exercises for the students of the academy."(13) This newly purchased apparatus probably came to rest in the large wooden building euphemistically called a gym and used commonly by the "Cads and Theologues" after the stone building used in the early days by the Theologues as a gymnasium building had been turned over to Professor Stowe and his wife in 1852. In any case, neither this structure nor the top floor of the Brick Academy, sometimes used as a gymnasium of sorts, was nearly adequate from the students' viewpoint. Nevertheless, it was not until six years later, after the stone academy had burned down, that Phillips Academy took the first major step to develop a physical education program. On 24 July 1865, the Trustees resolved that When the Old Brick Academy is no longer needed for the purpose of recitations, the same be surrendered to a Gymnasium Committee to be fitted up as a gymnasium for the students of the Theological Seminary and the Academy."(14) To support the renovated structure the Trustees at the same time authorized the Committee of Exigencies and Finance to make such increase of tuition and charges for use of the gymnasium "as they may deem best."(15) On 20 November of that same year they authorized the grading of the ground on what we know as the "Old Campus" and requested all the students to contribute to the project, "as it is specially designed for their enjoyment."(16) Within the next two years twenty-five hundred dollars were expended to complete the "new gym" and provide for the expense of operating it.(17) On 14 February 1867, the new gymnasium opened its doors. So that all those interested in using the facility would have equal opportunity, each class was scheduled at a different time; the seniors were to come at 4:50 o'clock, middlers at 5:25, and juniors at 8 in the morning. The building housed four bowling alleys on the first floor and gymnasium apparatus on the second. Sereno D. Gammeli, a physical education instructor from Boston, was hired to teach gymnastics to those interested. Unfortunately, the equipment was minimal and poorly kept, and after the early enthusiasm waned, the training there was desultory and usually confined to rainy afternoons. Exercise was not yet compulsory at Phillips Academy, and it would take another forty years to approximate the full-fledged program of physical education and hygiene instituted at Amherst. Many students, however, derived considerable benefit from the gym; more importantly, a beginning had been made. (18)

It is impossible to gloss over lightly the significance of that beginning at this particular juncture in the history of the school. The "Cads" and "Theologues" both had become much more sensitive to the relationship between physical exercise and health. The conversion of the Brick Academy to a gymnasium indicated that the Trustees recognized the validity of the students' demand for a program of individual body care and development. Despite a slow start, the new facility was used extensively in the next four decades, attendance largely dependent on the weather and the attraction of outdoor activities. (19) Students had a place where they could work out; the baseball team used it for pre-season training; and although bowling never did survive as a sport at Phillips Academy, five others were fostered in this "new gym": boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, fencing, and indoor track. As early as March 1869, the Mirror reported an exhibition by the leading gymnasts of the school and lauded their skill and ability.(20)

Beginning in 1878, with the publication of the first Phillipian, student demands for better athletic facilities and greater participation by all in sports activities were continuous and increasingly strident.

Every student in an academy like this should be interested in athletic sports. The very scholarly student often makes the excuse that he doesn't understand the games and really has not time for them. And so the physical sports are left to a certain class, who while they are perfectly willing to incur all the expenses, are obliged too frequently to resort to the subscription list or hat passing.(21)

The editorial then concluded with a plea for an athletic assessment on all students. The fifth issue announced on 14 December 1878 that a Professor Frazier of Boston was giving boxing lessons to a large class in the academy, that he had come from Amherst and Williams, and that he would return to Andover if he got enough students to sign up for further lessons.(22) A later issue proclaimed that the exercises of the Exhibition to be held in the gym on 12 March 1879 would be conducted according to the rules of the New York Athletic Association. The program of events was a potpourri whose implications for the future were obvious: "parallel, horizontal bars; club-swinging, light and heavy weights; spring board, high jump; wrestling, Greco-Roman, middle and heavy weights, sparring, three weights, the heavy weight is 158, the light is 130 and the middle in between."(23)

Two undergraduates squaring off as part of
the new Physical Education program.

A group of students standing before Bulfinch Hall illustrate the variety of the new Physical Education activities.

A group of boys in the exercise room on the upper floor of Bulfinch Hall.

In 1889, however, the entreaties were much more specific and pointed at an earlier model. Noting the fact that Amherst had been the first college to establish a department of physical education on a proper basis almost thirty years ago, the editor then proceeded to explain the reasons for the establishment of a similar department at Andover:

The man who goes forth into the world after an eight or ten years course of study with a mind sharpened by a long process of mental drill and a body wasted by long continued physical neglect is destined to play but a meagre part in the active affairs of the busy world about him. A vigorous body generally indicates a vigorous intellect, and a due amount of attention to each stimulates both.(24)

Apparently these requests were being listened to, for a committee of students and faculty was to meet with the Trustees to consider the possibility of hiring a "teacher in athletics."(25) A student named Colt, the Associate Editor of the Phillipian, was to talk to the President of the Board in regard to the matter after the return of Principal Bancroft.(26) The larger issue was a compulsory system of exercise to be put into operation under the instruction of a competent teacher. It was foreordained that much good would result from it both in health and mental vigor, and the tone of the whole school would be elevated thereby. The lion's share of the expense was to be borne by the students. Apparently the discussions led to Trustee approval; at a school meeting in November, a month later, it was voted to hire a Mr. Dole of Boston as instructor in physical education at a salary of $200 for the remainder of the year, $100 to be provided by the students and the other half by the school, to be obtained by taxing each student 50 cents. Finally, the school took pride that a new interest in general athletics had developed in the fall of 1882 with the addition of fencing and a tug-of-war to the program of the Winter Exhibition: "We can be proud of our school in the matter of athletics as well as everything else!"(27)

Far more important to the future Andover than the new converted gym or the grading of a decent playing field, these two decisions by the Trustees in 1865 signified their tacit acceptance of a fundamental change in the philosophy of education, which was born in this country just prior to the Civil War and grew to maturity in the ensuing generation. Although Mr. Dole was essentially a teacher of boxing and the program of compulsory physical training would have to wait thirty-two years for Dr. Peirson S. Page and another new gymnasium, a precedent had been established. The seed from Amherst had not fallen on barren soil.


Chapter Five

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