York City public schools, has just submitted a statement in regard to the athletic clubs formed among the male scholars in the schools. These clubs are maintained by the boys themselves with the aid of the teachers and some outside friends. President Roosevelt is honorary vice-president of their athletic league and other distinguished men are serving as its officers. Especial stress is laid in the statement upon the devotion of the teachers, of whom 411 did volunteer service during the past year in helping the boys with their athletics after school hours. Had they been paid for this work at the same rate which they are paid for their regular duties, they would have received in the aggregate $120,000, a very handsome contribution to the cause of school athletics; especially when it is remembered that many teachers require the hours after school for post-graduate and other work necessary for their own professional advancement.
Two hundred and twenty-four schools in Greater New York reported on athletics last year, of which 83 had regular organizations and 165 had available grounds for practise. The students pay dues into the athletic treasury at an average rate of twenty-eight cents per term, and 21,873 of them took part in the athletic sports during the year. Dr. Gulick has under him a supervisor of physical instruction in each borough and a total of fifty or sixty teachers in this branch of public instruction. The work has been admirably organized. Similar organizations have been started and have made excellent progress in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and other cities. Emissaries from various foreign governments have visited the physical training schools of New York to study their methods. Two or three delegations have been here from Japan.[1] The director of physical training in the schools of the City of Mexico has recently visited New York on his tour around the world to inspect the various systems of physical instruction now in use, and upon his recommendation three men and three women will be sent to New York to receive the technical training requisite to fit them to teach physical education in the City of Mexico. One such teacher (a woman) has already gone from New York to work in the City of Mexico.
The United States government is now sending the director of physical training at West Point to visit England, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Sweden for the purpose of thoroughly studying the systems
- ↑ The great interest which Japan has always taken in matters of physical education showed itself in 1876 by the visit which her vice-minister of education paid to Amherst College under orders from his government to study and report upon the system of physical instruction in use there. This was followed by a request from the Japanese government that an instructor be sent from Amherst to introduce Dr. Hitchcock's system into the government schools in Japan. The request was complied with to the great satisfaction of the Japanese.
