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gymnasium opposite Memorial Hall, now used by the engineering department, was erected.
Immediately after the establishment of the gymnasium at Harvard in 1860, gymnasiums were built at Amherst, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Wesleyan, and several other colleges.
In the early sixties, the present game of baseball was first played at Harvard, and the Cambridge city government granted a petition for the use of the Common near the Washington Elm as a practice ground for the college students.
This was used until the spring of 1864, after which the Delta was used for baseball games.
In the next decade, beginning 1870, several more college gymnasiums were built, including the Hemenway Gymnasium at Harvard University.
The Harvard Athletic Association was established in 1874, and the Rugby football game, which seems to have such a hold upon the American public, was introduced at Harvard at about this time.
With the completion of the Hemenway Gymnasium, and its equipment with a new system of apparatus, a new era was introduced in gymnasium construction and in gymnasium methods.
Some of the features which made the Hemenway Gymnasium unique at the time of its opening may be briefly stated: It was the largest gymnasium in point of floor-room, air space, and the number of its dressing-rooms, lockers, and pieces of apparatus then in the country.
The recent addition given to the university by Mr. Hemenway has placed the Harvard Gymnasium again at the head of the list in all of these particulars.
The Hemenway was the first gymnasium in the country to have special rooms devoted to rowing, baseball, fencing, sparring, trophies, records, photographing, examinations, etc.
In the old-style gymnasium it was necessary for the man to adapt himself to the apparatus; in the new-style gymnasium, the apparatus is adapted to the man. At first, the apparatus was heavy and cumbersome, and the man was obliged to lift his own weight.
In his efforts to do so he was frequently overworked and exhausted, as previously stated by Dr. Jarvis.
Now most of the apparatus is attached to a weight that he can lift, and this is easily adjusted to the strength of the strong and the weakness of the weak.
Formerly, in using the gymnasium, a young man was forced to enter into competition with others in
Cambridge, 1896.
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