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A Report of Twenty Years Experience in the Department of Physical Education and Hygiene in Amherst College, to the Board of Trustees
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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Elementary Anatomy and Physiology: For Colleges, Academies, and Other Schools - Primary Source Edition
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Edward Hitchcock was an American educator. He served as the first professor of physical education at Amherst College.
Background
Edward Hitchcock was born on May 23, 1828 in Amherst, Massachussets, United States. He was of sturdy New England stock, the son of Professor, later President Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst College, and of Orra (White) Hitchcock, an educated and profoundly religious woman. Almost his entire life was spent in the beautiful valley about Amherst and along the Connecticut River. He grew up a healthy, active youth, developed in body largely by the many chores required of him but fond of the simple sports of the times. The physical benefits from these early years were evident in his vigorous, virile manhood. He had no patience with effeminacy in young men.
Education
Hitchcock attended Amherst Academy, Williston Seminary, and Amherst College, where he graduated in 1849. After completing his medical course at Harvard in 1853, he taught natural sciences and elocution at Williston Seminary until 1860, when, deciding to devote his life to the study of comparative anatomy, he went to England to become the private pupil of Sir Richard Owen of the British Museum.
Career
In 1861 Hitchcock was unexpectedly called to the head of a recently organized "Department of Hygiene and Physical Education" at his alma mater, a position which he held for half a century. His acceptance of this call changed the whole course of his life.
His precedents were the modern developments in popular, school, and military gymnastics in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and England; the gymnastic program of Charles Follen and Charles Beck in Cambridge, Massachussets, and the "New Gymnastics" described by Dio Lewis, started in Boston in 1860. His paramount objectives were health and the development of all the bodily powers. The methods he outlined to gain these ends were, first, instruction in human anatomy, physiology, and the laws of health; and second, required physical exercise for four years for all students. The exercise consisted for a generation of marching and class calisthenics, usually with light wooden dumbbells. He early gave the students a share in his plan, allowing them to elect their own captains, who conducted the drills previously taught them by an instructor. The program later permitted other apparatus and more varied drills, and when athletics came in, work on teams was accepted as a substitute for required exercise.
To determine the physical norms of college students in order to detect and correct abnormal variations, Hitchcock started examining and measuring the Amherst undergraduates in 1861. He devoted many years to anthropometry and his results, published in An Anthropometric Manual (1887), are valuable today. In 1885 he helped organize the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education, of which he was president, 1885-1888; and in 1897 he was a charter member of the Society of College Gymnasium Directors. He published but one book, Elementary Anatomy and Physiology, for Colleges, Academies and Other Schools (1860), prepared in collaboration with his father, but his contributions to the literature of physical education were numerous. Especially notable is his Report of Twenty Years' Experience in the Department of Physical Education and Hygiene in Amherst College (1881).
From 1898 to 1910 he was dean of the faculty of Amherst College, in 1898 being also chairman of the committee administering the college in the absence of President Gates. He was also a trustee of many institutions.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Religion
Hitchcock was deeply religious, the father confessor of generations of students in whose ultimate salvation he thoroughly believed.
Personality
In middle life Hitchcock was a picturesque figure, broad-shouldered but spare, with a long white beard, strong features, and deep-set gray eyes, piercing but kindly. He spoke energetically and in homely terms. He was understanding, human, sympathetic, yet eminently practical, persistent, and endowed with common sense.
His life centered near the Amherst campus; the interests of the college were his.
Connections
Hitchcock married, November 30, 1853, Mary Lewis Judson, the daughter of David Judson of Stratford, Connecticut. Seven of their ten children survived him.