File:Phokion Heinrich Clias, American-born Swiss gymnastics instructor.jpg

Identifier: pioneersofmodern10leon (find matches)
Title: Pioneers of modern physical training
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Leonard, Fred Eugene, 1866-1922
Subjects: Physical education and training
Publisher: (New York) Physical Directors' Society of the Young Men's Christian Association of North America
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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fore passed in comparative obscurity, most ofthem in the Thuringian town of Freyburg-on-the-Unstrut,about thirty miles southwest of Leipsic. After the succession of Frederick William IV. to thethrone of Prussia in 1840, when the old gymnastics beganto revive, Jahn followed the development of the movementwith interest and received hospitably its promoters whosought him out at his home; but he no longer took an activepart in the work. His countrymen still hold him in gratefuland loyal remembrance, as the apostle of German unity andthe man who gave to the German people a love for gym-nastics. The one hundredth anniversary of his birth andthe fiftieth anniversary of his death were celebratedthroughout the entire land. Monuments in his honor havebeen erected in Berlin, Lanz, Freyburg and many otherplaces; a memorial gymnasium covers his grave» at Frey-burg, and in the Jahn Museum there numerous relics ofthe man and his work have been brought together forpermanent preservation and display.
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Phokion Heinrich Clias V. Phokion Heinrich Clias * Although his influence has not been so far-reaching asthat of GutsMuths, Nachtegall, Ling, and Jahn, Clias(1782-185-1) nevertheless deserves honorable mention forhis ability as a practical gymnast, his efficiency as a teacher,and the important service he rendered as a pioneer of physi-cal training in three European countries. His father hademigrated from Switzerland in 1?7() to settle in what werethen the English colonies in North x\merica. After servingas an officer in the War of Independence he left the armyto enter business in Boston, and there the boy was born.The mother, descended from an old French Huguenotfamily, died soon afterwards, and the father in ITDl, whilehe was on the way to Holland with his tw^o sons, to placethem in a famous school in Groningen. The younger Clias,finding school life irksome, ran away after a few years, be-came cabin boy on a Dutch vessel, fell into the hands of theEnglish as a prisoner of war (1803),

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