Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths
GutsMuths birthplace in Quedlinburg
GutsMuths memorial not far from his birthplace in Quedlinburg (the square was named after him)
GutsMuths monument in Schnepfenthal

Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths , also Guts Muths or Gutsmuths (born August 9, 1759 in Quedlinburg , † May 21, 1839 in Ibenhain near Waltershausen ) was a well-known German teacher and co-founder of gymnastics .

Life

GutsMuths was born on August 9, 1759 in Quedlinburg (birthplace Pölle 39 ) as the son of a red tanner . He attended the old-language grammar school in his hometown and left it as a Primus. When GutsMuths was 14 years old, his father died, which is why, in addition to attending high school, he took up a position as private tutor with the medicus Friedrich Wilhelm Ritter in Quedlinburg. He taught the two eldest sons of the family and was able to finance his school attendance and support the family. GutsMuths, who was self-employed at an early age, dealt with the issues of pedagogy , focusing primarily on the writings of the enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the pedagogue Johann Bernhard Basedow .

GutsMuths began studying at the “first modern university” in Germany in Halle an der Saale at the age of 20 with a grant from the municipal authorities in his hometown . There he studied theology , physics , mathematics , philosophy and history from 1779 to 1782 and attended lectures on education by the philanthropist Ernst Christian Trapp . He also learned French , Italian and English and continued to work as an educator and private teacher for the Ritter family. During this time he transferred his interest in geography to the eldest of the two sons Carl Ritter , who later became a well-known geographer. A lifelong paternal friendship developed between the two of them.

After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm Ritter in 1784 GutsMuths accompanied his sons to the newly opened educational institution in Schnepfenthal . There he met Christian Gotthilf Salzmann , who recognized his educational skills and thereupon offered him a position in his institution. GutsMuths was inaugurated in 1785 and held it for over half a century.

He mainly taught traditional school subjects and in 1786, as a layman, took over the management of " gymnastics ". There he found "a tree-lined practice area and a repertoire of useful skills as they have been developed at the Philanthropinum Dessau under Basedow". GutsMuths recognized a pedagogical deficit in this and began with the practical and methodical expansion. He introduced physical exercises and games that he combined with hiking, gardening and crafts. This would later become an integral part of school life in Schnepfenthal.

In 1797 he married the pastor's daughter Sophie Eckardt from Bindersleben near Erfurt . In 1798 the young couple moved to Ibenhain, a neighboring village of Schnepfenthal, and had eight sons and three daughters. In Ibenhain, in addition to his teaching activities and within the framework of his large family, he was engaged in horticultural and craft activities. GutsMuths celebrated his 50th anniversary in office in 1834 four years before his death. GutsMuths was honored for his many services throughout his life. He was buried in the forest cemetery next to the first German gymnasium near Schnepfenthal, next to Christian Gotthilf Salzmann.

Act

GutsMuths found from the beginning of his activity in Schnepfenthal the opportunity to deal with educational problems in addition to his geographical interests. When he took office, he was given the gymnastic direction. Already when Christian Gotthilf Salzmann founded the educational institution in 1784, he introduced the physical exercises, which were of great use in the Dessau Philanthropinum, in his educational institution. Following on from the beginnings of philanthropy brought by Salzmann to Schnepfenthal, GutsMuths initially took up these physical exercises and developed them further. The strengths of philanthropic reform were the pursuit and testing of new developmental methods. Since GutsMuths himself was a philanthropist, he recognized that it was not only the task to convey gymnastic content according to plan, but above all that the youth had to be brought back to the physical exercises that society had repressed.

Before he took over the management, the following physical exercises, taken from the Dessau Philanthropin, were practiced in Schnepfenthal: “Walking according to the beat; run into the bet; jump with caution upwards or forwards, on a narrow piece of wood, for example over a ditch; carry one to several pounds with outstretched arm; playing with the flounces, the ball and the balloon; bathing in summer; and finally vaulting. ”After GutsMuths had worked in gymnastics for two years, a new picture emerged. The following physical exercises were now part of the gymnastics lesson: "Running, vaulting , jumping over a ditch, jumping over a whip that can be raised at will, forced marches, throwing at the target, [...] walking on the sharp end of a board, [ …] Lifting a weight with a stick, […] skating, sledding. ”In all of these examples GutsMuths did not come up with completely new exercises, but added new methods in terms of method. He strove for a growing perfection and enhancement of the achievements of his pupils.

In his method he took into account the individual requirements of the students. These differed in their “constitution” and also in the level of their personal training. GutsMuths realized that a careful gradation of the practice process was necessary. In doing so, he created methodically graded lessons suitable for young people based on the principle of controlled increase in performance. He exerted a strong influence on the development of physical exercises worldwide by developing the first systematic, pedagogically based physical education.

GutsMuths can be seen as the first ideal sports educator, as he taught himself and at the same time reflected on it in writing. He placed his teaching practice in the context of a complex general theory of education and made it accessible to a wide audience through his journalistic activities.

The effect GutsMuth had with his writings on gymnastics and games can hardly be overestimated, especially for the theory and practice of physical exercise in schools and clubs. GutsMuths, as a teacher and as a German patriot, recommended to the Prussian government the general introduction of gymnastics and gymnastics lessons in their schools, also as a measure of military training.

He succeeded in transferring the individualistic physical education concept of the enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the institution of the school and thus was the first to create a civic physical and physical education that had clear goals and purposes in mind. At that time, self-control , the shifting of external constraints into an inner, controlled attitude, the individual performance principle and the rationality of the movements as the epitome of the "bourgeois" were still valid .

GutsMuths was an educator personality of great charisma and role model effect . He has Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), who studied physical exercises with GutsMuths in Schnepfenthal in 1807 and later became known as "Turnvater Jahn", as well as the great contemporary Scandinavian physical educators Franz Nachtegall (1777-1847) and Per Henrik Ling (1776–1776). 1839) significantly influenced.

Shortly after his death he received the reputation of being the "grandfather and patriarch of German gymnastics". His work was and is tradition-building.

Works

Gymnastics for the youth

GutsMuth's most important works include gymnastics for the youth , written in 1793 , which earned him the reputation of a "classic". It was the first textbook for physical education to combine theory and practice. In return, GutsMuths reflected on the educational practice taught in Schnepfenthal. He rejected the possibility of structuring his work according to training purposes or even according to anatomical points of view, and instead opted for a general system that corresponded to a practice-oriented system.

Gymnastics for the youth is based on the idea of ​​stopping the physical decline of modernizing society. The idea of ​​physical education and upbringing should be integrated into the school and the ancient ideal of harmonious building of strength should be brought into line with the “German purpose”. The findings of contemporary doctors played a major role for him. He collected physiological and dietary knowledge of his time and created a scientific system of gymnastics from it.

The work received a great response and was translated into many other languages ​​around the world and repeatedly reprinted and plagiarized until 1893 . In Denmark and Sweden in particular, this book made an important contribution to the differentiation of sport as an independent social system. Since he started from the most varied of justifications and derivations of his gymnastics (military, health, educational), he can also be seen as a forerunner of today's multi-perspectives in physical education.

The second edition of the book Gymnastik für die Jugend from 1804 had the subtitle A contribution to the necessary improvement of physical education . It turned out that GutsMuths followed the zeitgeist of the French Revolution and Napoleonic foreign rule and changed from a cosmopolitan educator, cosmopolitan and enlightener to a German national educator. He handed the new version of the work to the Prussian Minister of State von Massow with the assurance that his gymnastics was also intended for the lower classes and contributed to using the "body for the service of the state". In this edition of 1804 he included exercises showing soldier rifle grips and marching exercises.

Gym book for the sons of the fatherland

In accordance with the idea of ​​military training that became popular through Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's German gymnastics , GutsMuths wrote the formative work Gymnastics Book for the Sons of the Fatherland . An extract from this book was the Catechism of Gymnastics . In this work Gutsmuths converted his gymnastics into a patriotic soldier gymnastics. The individual and purely educational gymnastics was lost in favor of general military training.

Others

From 1800 he was the editor of the journal Library of Pedagogical Literature , which appeared under various titles. Among other things, since 1808 it has been called the New Library for Education, Schools and all of Germany's newest educational literature . Between 1800 and 1819 a total of 53 volumes were published under GutsMuth's direction.

GutsMuths also wrote the book Games for Exercise and Recreation of Body and Mind (1796), in which the first known description of the rules of baseball can be found, as well as his Small Textbook of Swimming Art (1798).

  • Games for the exercise and relaxation of body and mind for young people, their educators and all friends of innocent youthful joys (1796) ( digitized version ),
  • Mechanical secondary occupations for young men and men (1801),
  • Elementary book for city and country schools (1813),
  • Handbook of Geography (1810),
  • An attempt at a methodology for geographic teaching (1835),
  • German Land and German People (1820–1832)
    • with Johann Adolph Jacobi : German land and German people . First volume, third part, published by Johann Friedrich Leich, Leipzig 1828 digitized
  • with HJC Beutler: General subject index of the most important German magazines and weeklies. Leipzig 1790.
  • Games for exercise and relaxation of the body and mind. Buchhandlung der Erziehungsanstalt, Schnepfenthal 1796. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive ).
  • My trip in the German fatherland. Lissa / Breslau / Hirschberg 1799 ( digitized version ).
  • Gymnastics for the youth. [based on the original 1793 edition by Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths], Wilh. Limperth, Dresden 1928.
  • Description of the South American states in: Complete manual of the latest description of the earth. Vol. 19 and 20; Leipzig 1827-1830.

Honors

The GDR's highest state award for scientific achievements in the field of sports science and sports medicine, the GutsMuths Prize , was named after J. C. F. GutsMuths.

There is a GutsMuths grammar school in Quedlinburg and a GutsMuts elementary school in Großräschen (since 2003). In addition, the city of Quedlinburg named the GutsMuths sports hall , a football stadium, a street and a square after him. The athletics club located here is called TSG GutsMuths 1860 e. V.

The largest landscape run in Central Europe, the GutsMuths Rennsteig run in the Thuringian Forest , was also named after him .

There are also in Jena the SV GutsMuths Jena and Sportgymnasium Johann Chr. Fr. GutsMuths that with FC Carl Zeiss Jena works closely, the TuS Jena, Jena FSC and the USV Jena.

Different streets are named after him, but sometimes with different spellings:

In Magdeburg there is a GutsMuths-Weg and a GutsMuths-Stadion.

In Berlin-Moabit there is a TSV GutsMuths 1861 e. V. GutsMuths primary school is located in Berlin's Mitte district.

At GutsMuths' house in Ibenhain (Waltershausen) - next to the small former village church - the German Gymnastics Association installed a memorial plaque in 1861 . On August 9, 2009, Waltershausen celebrated a "National Ceremony" in Schnepfenthal in honor of GutsMuths' 250th birthday with hiking, festive worship, a folk festival, inauguration ceremony and exhibition opening.

literature

  • Reinhard Fauer: "To the memory of the international Rennsteig run JCF GutsMuths after its name", 1997. Excerpts reproduced and edited in "Hörselberg-Bote" No. 77/2009.
  • Luise Gerbing : Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths . In: Mitteldeutsche Lebensbilder , Volume 2, Lebensbilder des 19. Jahrhundert, Magdeburg 1927, pp. 46–59.
  • Ommo Grupe:  Guts Muths, Johann Christoph Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 350 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Heinrich Julius Kämmel :  Guts-Muths: Johann Christoph Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 224 f.
  • Willi Schröder: Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths . Life and work of the Schnepfenthal teacher. Sankt Augustin 1996.
  • Karl Waßmannsdorf: Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths . Heidelberg 1884.
  • Rolf Geßmann (Ed.): Articles and bibliography on GutsMuths research , Sankt Augustin: Academia-Verl., 1998, ISBN 3-88345-747-7 .
  • Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths. Eminent philanthropic educator . (= Series of publications by the Klopstockhaus [Quedlinburg]; 4). Halle an der Saale 1999.
  • Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths: Small textbook on the art of swimming for self-teaching . Annotated reprint of the edition of 1789. Arete Verlag, Hildesheim 2013. ISBN 978-3-942468-14-5 .
  • Hajo Bernett: Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, in: Horst Überhorst: History of physical exercises, Vol. 3: Physical exercises and sport in Germany , Bartels & Vernetz 1982, pp. 197–214 ISBN 3-87039-054-9 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j GutsMuths.eu - website
  2. ↑ a b c d Horst Ueberhorst : History of physical exercises. Vol. 3: Physical exercise and sport in Germany. Bartels & Wernitz 1982, p. 200, ISBN 3-87039-054-9 .
  3. ^ Willi Schröder: Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths , Academie-Verlag Berlin 1996, p. 185, ISBN 3-88345-447-8
  4. ↑ Reinhard Fauer: In memory of the namesake of the international Rennsteig run JCF GutsMuths. Updated excerpts in: Hörselberg-Bote. No. 77/2009, pp. 14-17.
  5. ^ Arnd Krüger : Multiperspectivity as a basis of current German physical education, in: Movement & Sport Sciences 2012/4 (n ° 78), pp. 11-23. http://www.mov-sport-sciences.org/articles/sm/abs/2012/04/sm120020/sm120020.html
  6. ↑ Chapter: Ball with Freedom. (Or the English Baſe-ball.) in: Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths: Games for exercise and relaxation of the body and mind. Buchhandlung der Erziehungsanstalt, Schnepfenthal 1796. P. 78ff. Digitized and full text in the German Text Archive ;
  7. ↑ 100 years TSV Guts Muths Bühren (PDF) .
personal data
SURNAME GutsMuths, Johann Christoph Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guts Muths, Johann Christoph Friedrich; Gutsmuths, Johann Christoph Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and co-founder of gymnastics
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1759
PLACE OF BIRTH Quedlinburg
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1839
Place of death Ibenhain