[167] some of the feats of the rope dancer, and some of the labors of the sailor. These exercises were active and laborious. Those who engaged in them made, or endeavored to make, the exertions which only strong men could make. But they were soon fatigued, and left the gymnasium; or, if they persevered, were nearly exhausted. The error was not adapting the mode to, and measuring the amount of exertion by, the strength of those who needed it. The students of Cambridge in 1826 complained that they were fatigued and sometimes overcome, rather than invigorated, at the gymnasium, and were unfit for study for some hours afterward. The final result of this attempt to introduce this system of exercises into our colleges, schools, and cities was a general failure.Colonel Higginson speaks of this gymnasium on the Delta as being in existence in 1830, but thinks there was nothing left of it by 1840, and he is sure that when he graduated in 1841 there was nothing like a gymnasium existing in Cambridge. In 1843 or 1844, a private gymnasium was established back of Wyeth's store on Brattle Street, in an old building which formerly stood where Lyceum Hall now is, originally used as a court-house.1 This private gymnasium was conducted by a man named T. Belcher Kay, who devoted most of his attention to boxing. Parkman, the historian, and many of the men in college at that time, were pupils of Kay, though the gymnasium had no official connection with the university. During this period considerable interest was awakened in recreative games, football, baseball, and cricket then being played. College boat-clubs were formed in 1845, and the first boat-house was built in 1846. From this year on, boating was freely engaged in by the students, partly for exercise, but principally for pleasure. Although boat races began as early as 1845, there were no contests with Yale and other colleges until after 1850. During the next decade the seed sown by Harvard was beginning to bear fruit in other institutions. Match ball games and boat races were occasionally arranged, and a renewed interest in gymnastics was awakening. In 1860, the old
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1 It may be interesting to note that this building forms part of the rear of the Whitney building on Palmer Street, where forty years later (in 1883) the writer opened a gymnasium for the students of the Harvard Annex, as it was then termed.
Cambridge, 1896.
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