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MY BKKATHING SYSTEM

notwitlistanding that they exercised for a whole hour almost every day. They were not healthy until tliey went in for my exercises. And I have scores of letters from Swedish officers and prominent privatc pcople, wlio State that they gave up their national system because it was du]J and tcdious and not capable of curing their yarious troubles, but now, after doing “ My System," they are ńt and well.

Thirty years ago the Swedish system was perhaps the best. But unfortunately, it was always considered by its patrons and follow'crs as a religious institution, any alteration of whicti would be blasphemous. Conseąuently, for ioo years (the Central Institutc in Stockholm was founded in 1813 by Per Henrik Ling) it has bcen improved only very little, and now it has naturally become antiąuated. The means by which the patrons and professors of this system try to pre-serve its former renown, and thereby to preserve for their country the lucrative industry of producing and exporting gymnastic teachers for the whole w'orld, are not always ąuite fair.

Since the appearance of “ My System," the professors of Sweden have abused mc personally like a pickpockct, because they rcalised that my system contained great dangers to their own. It is only in self-defence that, in this chapter, I have taken the opportunity of showing by scientific argument that it is an old superstition to suppose that the Swedish system is the best of all. The Swedish experts themselves like to cali their system the only " rational, scientific gymnastics."

I think I have proved that we have here three lies in three words, just as in the old days one spoke of the “ Holy Koman Empire," which was neither Holy, Roman, nor Empire.

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