men who think
of taking up work in special schools. They should be thoroughly strong
and healthy, or they will prove unequal to a strain which tells at
times even on the strongest. But to women of good health who possess
the right temperament, these schools offer a field of useful and
congenial work.

[Footnote 1: Something in this direction will be achieved by the new
Act, to which, however, there are counterbalancing grave objections
which cannot be considered here. [EDITOR.]]

[Footnote 2: Open-air schools, and school sleeping camps such as those
established experimentally in various urban slum-districts, are other
efforts to meet the needs of physically defective children. Teachers
in open-air schools in provincial towns, work under approximately
similar conditions to those described by Mrs Thomas. [Editor.]]

VI

THE TEACHING OF GYMNASTICS

No school of any importance is considered properly equipped unless
the staff includes a gymnastic and games mistress. Several systems
of gymnastics are practised in England, but the Swedish system is
steadily proving its superiority; so much is this felt that a number
of teachers who have previously taken a two years' course of training
in some other system, are at the present time taking, or have just
completed, a second two years' course in the Swedish system. As long
ago as 1878 the London School Board introduced the Swedish system into
its schools, but it was not till 1885 that the first physical training
college was opened in this country, and this was for women only. In
1903 this system was adopted for the navy, and in 1906 for the army;
it has also been adopted in the Government schools and Training
Colleges, as well as in all the principal private schools and colleges
for girls, and in many boys' schools, including, among others, Eton,
Winchester, Clifton, and Repton. The following remarks, therefore,
apply only to the Swedish system.

Until 1885, the rationally trained teacher of gymnastics was unknown
in England, and the physical training of the girls in this country was
monopolised by dancing mistresses and drill sergeants, most of whom
were ignorant of the laws which govern the human body. In that
year Madame Osterberg started a Physical Training College for women
students at Hampstead, the college being removed to Dartford Heath,
Kent, in 1895. Since then similar institutions have been opened at
Bedford, Erdington, Chelsea, etc., and there is a g