Physical culture in Amherst College. Presented to the Board of Trustees of Amherst College at their annual meeting, July 8, 1869.

Abstract

AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF the Trustees, August 8th, 1861, Edward Hitchcock, M.D., a graduate of the College and of the Medical School of Harvard University … was appointed professor [of hygiene and physical education] in this department [of physical culture]. And in his first report to the Trustees, Dr. Hitchcock remarks: “I am agreeably surprised that the interest has been kept up during the year in this department, as it certainly has… . During a portion of the exercises, I urge … the necessity of introducing playful exercises, such as running in grotesque attitudes, singing college songs, &c. Sometimes this may seem boisterous and undignified, but it seems desirable to me that a portion of the animal spirits should be worked off inside the stone walls of the gymnasium, under the eye of a college officer, rather than out of doors, rendering night hideous… .”