Fred Eugene Leonard (1866–1922) was an American physician and physical educator, and the first major historian of physical education in the United States. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College in 1889 and earned his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1892. He returned to Oberlin after medical school as professor of physiology, later of hygiene and physical education, and as director of the men's gymnasium, a post he held for roughly thirty years. He studied European gymnastics systems abroad in 1900–01 and again in 1913, touring German and Swedish institutes. Leonard was the author of Pioneers of Modern Physical Training (1915) and A Guide to the History of Physical Education, published posthumously in 1923 and later revised, and his peers regarded him as the leading American authority on the history of the field. He helped found the Ohio Physical Education Society in 1895 and worked to have physical education granted academic credit on a par with laboratory science courses, a significant step in legitimizing the discipline within higher education. He also served as president of the Oberlin Hospital Association, as a member of the Board of Education, and as chairman of the Oberlin Community Chest, and was a temperance advocate.
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