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FRIEDRICH LUDWIG JAHN, AND POPULAR GYMNASTICS IN GERMANY.
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the father of popular gymnastics (_Volks-_ or _Vereinsturnen_) in Germany, was born August 11, 1778, at Lanz, a Prussian hamlet lying midway between Hamburg and Berlin and only a few miles distant from the right bank of the Elbe. His father, the village pastor, was a large and vigorous man, faithful to all the varied duties of his office, and at the same time a thrifty manager of the parochial estate, fond of his garden, and with hop-fields and sheep of his own. The mother was a strong, brave woman of Puritan type, devoutly religious, severely plain in her manner of living, industrious and economical, and not unlike the peasant women of the parish in outward appearance. Their only other child was a daughter, born two years before.