Part 2

It was not until near the end of the 19th century that gymnastics were recognized in England as anything more than a recreation; their value as a specifically therapeutic agent, or as an article in the curriculum of elementary schools, was not realized. More recently, however, educationists have urged with increasing insistence the need for systematic physical training, and their views received greater attention when evidence of deterioration in the physique of the people began to accumulate. During the first decade of the 20th century more than one commission reported to parliament in England in favour of more systematic and general physical training being encouraged or even made compulsory by public authority. Voluntary associations were formed for encouraging such training and providing facilities for it. Gymnastics had already for several years been an essential part of the training of army recruits with exceedingly beneficial results, and gymnasia had been established at Aldershot and other military centres. Physical exercises, although not compulsory, obtained a permanent place in the code for elementary schools in Great Britain; and much care has been taken to provide a syllabus of exercises adapted for the improvement of the physique of the children. These exercises are partly gymnastic and partly of the nature of drill; they do not in most cases require the use of appliances, and are on that account known as "free movements," which numbers of children go through together, accompanied whenever possible by music. On the other hand at the larger public schools and universities there are elaborate gymnasia equipped with a great variety of apparatus, the skilful use of which demands assiduous practice; and this is encouraged by annual contests between teams of gymnasts representing rival institutions.

Gymnastic apparatus.

The appliances vary to some extent in different gymnasia, some of the more complicated requiring a greater amount of space and involving a larger cost than is often practicable. But where these considerations are negligible, substantial uniformity is to be found in the equipment of gymnasia not designed for specifically medical purposes. The simplest, and in many respects the most generally useful, of all gymnastic apparatus is the dumb-bell. It was in use in England as early as the time of Elizabeth, and it has the advantage that it admits of being exactly proportioned to the individual strength of each learner, and can be adjusted in weight as his strength increases. The exercises that may be performed with the dumb-bell, combined with a few simple drill-like movements, give employment to all parts of the body and to both sides equally. Dumb-bell exercises, therefore, when arranged judiciously and with knowledge, are admirably suited for developing the physique, and are extensively employed in schools both for boys and girls. The bar-bell is merely a two-handed dumb-bell, and its use is similar in principle. The Indian club is also in use in most gymnasia; but the risk of overstraining the body by its unskilful handling makes it less generally popular than the dumb-bell. All these appliances may be, and often are, used either in ordinary schoolrooms or elsewhere outside the gymnasium. The usual fixed sorts of apparatus, the presence of which (or of some of them) in a building may be said to constitute it a gymnasium, are the following: a leaping-rope; a leaping-pole; a vaulting-horse; a horizontal bar, so mounted between two upright posts that its height from the ground may be adjusted as desired; parallel bars, used for exercises to develop the muscles of the trunk and arms; the trapeze consisting of a horizontal bar suspended by ropes at a height of 4 to 5 ft. from the ground; the bridge ladder; the plank; the inclined plane; the mast; swinging rings; the prepared wall; the horizontal beam.

Before the end of the 19th century the therapeutic value of gymnastics was fully realized by the medical profession; and a number of medical or surgical gymnasia came into existence, provided with specially devised apparatus for the treatment of different physical defects or weaknesses. The exercises practised in them are arranged upon scientific principles based on anatomical and physiological knowledge; and these principles have spread thence to influence largely the practice of gymnastics in schools and in the army. A French medical writer enumerates seven distinct groups of maladies, each including a number of different complaints, for which gymnastic exercises are a recognized form of treatment; and there are many malformations of the human body, formerly believed to be incurable, which are capable of being greatly remedied if not entirely corrected by regular gymnastic exercises practised under medical direction.

The value of gymnastics both for curing defects, and still more for promoting health and the development of normal physique, is recognized even more clearly on the continent of Europe than in Great Britain. In Germany the government not only controls the practice of gymnastics but makes it compulsory for every child and adult to undergo a prescribed amount of such physical training. In France also, physical training by gymnastics is under state control; in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, systems more or less distinct enjoy a wide popularity; and in Finland gymnastics are practised on lines that exhibit national peculiarities. The Finns introduce an exceptional degree of variety into their exercises as well as into the appliances devised to assist them; women are scarcely less expert than men in the performance of them; and the enthusiasm with which the system is supported produces the most beneficial results in the physique of the people. International gymnastic contests have become a feature of the revived Olympic Games (see ATHLETIC SPORTS), and in those held at Athens in 1906 a team of Danish ladies took part in the competition and proved by their skilful performance that gymnastics may be practised with as much success by women as by men.

The chief work on the ancient gymnastics is Krause, _Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen_ (1841); of more recent works mention may be made of Jäger, _Gymnastik der Hellenen_ (1881); L. Grasberger, _Erziehung und Unterricht im klassischen Altertum_ (1881); J. P. Mahaffy, _Old Greek Education_ (1883); A. S. Wilkins, _National Education in Greece_ (1873); E. Paz, _Histoire de la gymnastique_ (1886); Wickenhagen, _Antike und moderne Gymnastik_ (1891); Becker-Göll, _Charicles_ ii.; Brugsma, _Gymnasiorum apud Graecos descriptio_ (1855); Petersen, _Das Gymnasium der Griechen_ (1858). See also N. Laisné, _Gymnastique pratique_ (Paris, 1879); Collineau, _La Gymnastique_ (Paris, 1884); _L'Hygiène à l'école_ (Paris, 1889); P. de Coubertin, _La Gymnastique utilitaire_ (Paris, 1905); H. Nissen, _Rational Home Gymnastics_ (Boston, 1903). (R. J. M.)

GYMNOSOPHISTS (Lat. _gymnosophistae_, from Gr. [Greek: gymnos, sophistês], "naked philosophers"), the name given by the Greeks to certain ancient Hindu philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought. From the fact that they often lived as hermits in forests, the Greeks also called them _Hylobioi_ (cf. the _Vana-prasthas_ in Sanskrit writings). Diogenes Laërtius (ix. 61 and 63) refers to them, and asserts that Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of pure scepticism, came under their influence, and on his return to Elis imitated their habits of life, to what extent does not appear. Strabo (xv. 711, 714) divides them into Brahmans and Sarmans (or Shamans). See JAINS.

GYMNOSPERMS, in Botany. The Gymnosperms, with the Angiosperms, constitute the existing groups of seed-bearing plants or Phanerogams: the importance of the seed as a distinguishing feature in the plant kingdom may be emphasized by the use of the designation Spermophyta for these two groups, in contrast to the Pteridophyta and Bryophyta in which true seeds are unknown. Recent discoveries have, however, established the fact that there existed in the Palaeozoic era fern-like plants which produced true seeds of a highly specialized type; this group, for which Oliver and Scott proposed the term Pteridospermae in 1904, must also be included in the Spermophyta. Another instance of the production of seeds in an extinct plant which further reduces the importance of this character as a distinguishing feature is afforded by the Palaeozoic genus _Lepidocarpon_ described by Scott in 1901; this lycopodiaceous type possessed an integumented megaspore, to which the designation seed may be legitimately applied (see PALAEOBOTANY: _Palaeozoic_).

As the name Gymnosperm (Gr. [Greek: gymnos], naked, [Greek: sperma], seed) implies, one characteristic of this group is the absence of an ovary or closed chamber containing the ovules. It was the English botanist Robert Brown who first recognized this important distinguishing feature in conifers and cycads in 1825; he established the gymnospermy of these seed-bearing classes as distinct from the angiospermy of the monocotyledons and dicotyledons. As Sachs says in his history of botany, "no more important discovery was ever made in the domain of comparative morphology and systematic botany." As Coulter and Chamberlain express it, "the habitats of the Gymnosperms to-day indicate that they either are not at home in the more genial conditions affected by Angiosperms, or have not been able to maintain themselves in competition with this group of plants."

These naked-seeded plants are of special interest on account of their great antiquity, which far exceeds that of the Angiosperms, and as comprising different types which carry us back to the Palaeozoic era and to the forests of the coal period. The best known and by far the largest division of the Gymnosperms is that of the cone-bearing trees (pines, firs, cedars, larches, &c.), which play a prominent part in the vegetation of the present day, especially in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere; certain members of this class are of considerable antiquity, but the conifers as a whole are still vigorous and show but little sign of decadence. The division known as the Cycadophyta is represented by a few living genera of limited geographical range and by a large number of extinct types which in the Mesozoic era (see PALAEOBOTANY: _Mesozoic_) played a conspicuous part in the vegetation of the world. Among existing Cycadophyta we find surviving types which, in their present isolation, their close resemblance to fossil forms, and in certain morphological features, constitute links with the past that not only connect the present with former periods in the earth's history, but serve as sign-posts pointing the way back along one of the many lines which evolution has followed.

It is needless to discuss at length the origin of the Gymnosperms. The two views which find most favour in regard to the Coniferales and Cycadophyta are: (1) that both have been derived from remote filicinean ancestors; (2) that the cycads are the descendants of a fern-like stock, while conifers have been evolved from lycopodiaceous ancestors. The line of descent of recent cycads is comparatively clear in so far as they have undoubted affinity with Palaeozoic plants which combined cycadean and filicinean features; but opinion is much more divided as to the nature of the phylum from which the conifers are derived. The Cordaitales (see PALAEOBOTANY: _Palaeozoic_) are represented by extinct forms only, which occupied a prominent position in the Palaeozoic period; these plants exhibit certain features in common with the living Araucarias, and others which invite a comparison with the maidenhair tree (_Ginkgo biloba_), the solitary survivor of another class of Gymnosperms, the Ginkgoales (see PALAEOBOTANY: _Mesozoic_). The Gnetales are a class apart, including three living genera, of which we know next to nothing as regards their past history or line of descent. Although there are several morphological features in the three genera of Gnetales which might seem to bring them into line with the Angiosperms, it is usual to regard these resemblances as parallel developments along distinct lines rather than to interpret them as evidence of direct relationship.

_Gymnospermae._--Trees or shrubs; leaves vary considerably in size and form. Flowers unisexual, except in a few cases (Gnetales) without a perianth. Monoecious or dioecious. Ovules naked, rarely without carpellary leaves, usually borne on carpophylls, which assume various forms. The single megaspore enclosed in the nucellus is filled with tissue (prothallus) before fertilization, and contains two or more archegonia, consisting usually of a large egg-cell and a small neck, rarely of an egg-cell only and no neck (_Gnetum_ and _Welwitschia_). Microspore spherical or oval, with or without a bladder-like extension of the exine, containing a prothallus of two or more cells, one of which produces two non-motile or motile male cells. Cotyledons two or several. Secondary xylem and phloem produced by a single cambium, or by successive cambial zones; no true vessels (except in the Gnetales) in the wood, and no companion-cells in the phloem.

I. _Pteridospermae_ (see PALAEOBOTANY, PALAEOZOIC). II. _Cycadophyta_. A. Cycadales (recent and extinct). B. Bennettitales (see Palaeobotany: _Mesozoic_). III. _Cordaitales_ (see PALAEOBOTANY: _Palaeozoic_). IV. _Ginkgoales_ (recent and extinct). V. _Coniferales_. A. Taxaceae. B. Pinaceae.

There is no doubt that the result of recent research and of work now in progress will be to modify considerably the grouping of the conifers. The family _Araucarieae_, represented by _Araucaria_ and _Agathis_, should perhaps be separated as a special class and a rearrangement of other genera more in accord with a natural system of classification will soon be possible; but for the present its twofold subdivision may be retained.

VI. _Gnetales_. A. Ephedroideae. B. Gnetoideae. C. Welwitschioideae (Tumboideae).

CYCADOPHYTA.--A. _Cycadales._--Stems tuberous or columnar, not infrequently branched, rarely epiphytic (Peruvian species of _Zamia_); fronds pinnate, bi-pinnate in the Australian genus _Bowenia_. Dioecious; flowers in the form of cones, except the female flowers of _Cycas_, which consist of a rosette of leaf-like carpels at the apex of the stem. Seeds albuminous, with one integument; the single embryo, usually bearing two partially fused cotyledons, is attached to a long tangled suspensor. Stems and roots increase in diameter by secondary thickening, the secondary wood being produced by one cambium or developed from successive cambium-rings.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Stem of _Cycas_. F, foliage-leaf bases; S, scale-leaf bases.]

The cycads constitute a homogeneous group of a few living members confined to tropical and sub-tropical regions. As a fairly typical and well-known example of the Cycadaceae, a species of the genus _Cycas_ (e.g. _C. circinalis_, _C. revoluta_, &c.) is briefly described. The stout columnar stem may reach a height of 20 metres, and a diameter of half a metre; it remains either unbranched or divides near the summit into several short and thick branches, each branch terminating in a crown of long pinnate leaves. The surface of the stem is covered with rhomboidal areas, which represent the persistent bases of foliage- and scale-leaves. In some species of _Cycas_ there is a well-defined alternation of transverse zones on the stem, consisting of larger areas representing foliage-leaf bases, and similar but smaller areas formed by the bases of scale-leaves (F and S, fig. 1). The scale-leaves clothing the terminal bud are linear-lanceolate in form, and of a brown or yellow colour; they are pushed aside as the stem-axis elongates and becomes shrivelled, finally falling off, leaving projecting bases which are eventually cut off at a still lower level. Similarly, the dead fronds fall off, leaving a ragged petiole, which is afterwards separated from the stem by an absciss-layer a short distance above the base. In some species of _Cycas_ the leaf-bases do not persist as a permanent covering to the stem, but the surface is covered with a wrinkled bark, as in _Cycas siamensis_, which has a stem of unusual form (fig. 2). Small tuberous shoots, comparable on a large scale with the bulbils of _Lycopodium Selago_, are occasionally produced in the axils of some of the persistent leaf-bases; these are characteristic of sickly plants, and serve as a means of vegetative reproduction. In the genus _Cycas_ the female flower is peculiar among cycads in consisting of a terminal crown of separate leaf-like carpels several inches in length; the apical portion of each carpellary leaf may be broadly triangular in form, and deeply dissected on the margins into narrow woolly appendages like rudimentary pinnae. From the lower part of a carpel are produced several laterally placed ovules, which become bright red or orange on ripening; the bright fleshy seeds, which in some species are as large as a goose's egg, and the tawny spreading carpels produce a pleasing combination of colour in the midst of the long dark-green fronds, which curve gracefully upwards and outwards from the summit of the columnar stem. In _Cycas_ the stem apex, after producing a cluster of carpellary leaves, continues to elongate and produces more bud-scales, which are afterwards pushed aside as a fresh crown of fronds is developed. The young leaves of _Cycas_ consist of a straight rachis bearing numerous linear pinnae, traversed by a single midrib; the pinnae are circinately coiled like the leaf of a fern (fig. 3). The male flower of _Cycas_ conforms to the type of structure characteristic of the cycads, and consists of a long cone of numerous sporophylls bearing many oval pollen-sacs on their lower faces. The type described serves as a convenient representative of its class. There are eight other living genera, which may be classified as follows:--

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Cycas siamensis._]

_Classification._--A. _Cycadeae._--Characterized by (a) the alternation of scale- and foliage-leaves (fig. 1) on the branched or unbranched stem; (b) the growth of the main stem through the female flower; (c) the presence of a prominent single vein in the linear pinnae; (d) the structure of the female flower, which is peculiar in not having the form of a cone, but consists of numerous independent carpels, each of which bears two or more lateral ovules. Represented by a single genus, _Cycas_. (Tropical Asia, Australia, &c.).

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Cycas._ Young Frond.]

B. _Zamieae._--The stem does not grow through the female flower; both male and female flowers are in the form of cones. (a) _Stangerieae._--Characterized by the fern-like venation of the pinnae, which have a prominent midrib, giving off at a wide angle simple or forked and occasionally anastomosing lateral veins. A single genus, _Stangeria_, confined to South Africa, (b) _Euzamieae._--The pinnae are traversed by several parallel veins. _Bowenia_, an Australian cycad, is peculiar in having bi-pinnate fronds (fig. 5). The various genera are distinguished from one another by the shape and manner of attachment of the pinnae, the form of the carpellary scales, and to some extent by anatomical characters. _Encephalartos_ (South and Tropical Africa).--Large cones; the carpellary scales terminate in a peltate distal expansion. _Macrozamia_ (Australia).--Similar to _Encephalartos_ except in the presence of a spinous projection from the swollen distal end of the carpels. _Zamia_ (South America, Florida, &c.).--Stem short and often divided into several columnar branches. Each carpel terminates in a peltate head. _Ceratozamia_ (Mexico).--Similar in habit to _Macrozamia_, but distinguished by the presence of two horn-like spinous processes on the apex of the carpels. _Microcycas_ (Cuba).--Like _Zamia_, except that the ends of the stamens are flat, while the apices of the carpels are peltate. _Dioon_ (Mexico) (fig. 4).--Characterized by the woolly scale-leaves and carpels; the latter terminate in a thick laminar expansion of triangular form, bearing two placental cushions, on which the ovules are situated. _Bowenia_ (Australia).--Bi-pinnate fronds; stem short and tuberous (fig. 5).

[Illustration: From a photograph of a plant in Peradeniya Gardens, Ceylon, by Professor R. H. Yapp.

FIG. 4.--_Dioon edule._]

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Bowenia spectabilis_: frond.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Macrozamia heteromera_. A, part of frond; B, single pinna.]

Stem and leaf.

The stems of cycads are often described as unbranched; it is true that in comparison with conifers, in which the numerous branches, springing from the main stem, give a characteristic form to the tree, the tuberous or columnar stem of the Cycadaceae constitutes a striking distinguishing feature. Branching, however, occurs not infrequently: in _Cycas_ the tall stem often produces several candelabra-like arms; in _Zamia_ the main axis may break up near the base into several cylindrical branches; in species of _Dioon_ (fig. 4) lateral branches are occasionally produced. The South African _Encephalartos_ frequently produces several branches. Probably the oldest example of this genus in cultivation is in the Botanic Garden of Amsterdam, its age is considered by Professor de Vries to be about two thousand years: although an accurate determination of age is impossible, there is no doubt that many cycads grow very slowly and are remarkable for longevity. The thick armour of petiole-bases enveloping the stem is a characteristic Cycadean feature; in _Cycas_ the alternation of scale-leaves and fronds is more clearly shown than in other cycads; in _Encephalartos_, _Dioon_, &c., the persistent scale-leaf bases are almost equal in size to those of the foliage-leaves, and there is no regular alternation of zones such as characterizes some species of _Cycas_. Another type of stem is illustrated by _Stangeria_ and _Zamia_, also by a few forms of _Cycas_ (fig. 2), in which the fronds fall off completely, leaving a comparatively smooth stem. The _Cyas_ type of frond, except as regards the presence of a midrib in each pinna, characterizes the cycads generally, except _Bowenia_ and _Stangeria_. In the monotypic genus _Bowenia_ the large fronds, borne singly on the short and thick stem, are bi-pinnate (fig. 5); the segments, which are broadly ovate or rhomboidal, have several forked spreading veins, and resemble the large pinnules of some species of _Adiantum_. In _Stangeria_, also a genus represented by one species (_S. paradoxa_ of South Africa), the long and comparatively broad pinnae, with an entire or irregularly incised margin, are very fern-like, a circumstance which led Kunze to describe the plant in 1835 as a species of the fern _Lomaria_. In rare cases the pinnae of cycads are lobed or branched: in _Dioon spinulosum_ (Central America) the margin of the segments bears numerous spinous processes; in some species of _Encephalartos_, e.g. _E. horridus_, the lamina is deeply lobed; and in a species of the Australian genus _Macrozamia_, _M. heteromera_, the narrow pinnae are dichotomously branched almost to the base (fig. 6), and resemble the frond of some species of the fern _Schizaea_, or the fossil genus _Baiera_ (Ginkgoales). An interesting species of _Cycas_, _C. Micholitzii_, has recently been described by Sir William Thiselton-Dyer from Annam, where it was collected by one of Messrs Sanders & Son's collectors, in which the pinnae instead of being of the usual simple type are dichotomously branched as in _Macrozamia heteromera_. In _Ceratozamia_ the broad petiole-base is characterized by the presence of two lateral spinous processes, suggesting stipular appendages, comparable, on a reduced scale, with the large stipules of the Marattiaceae among Ferns. The vernation varies in different genera; in _Cycas_ the rachis is straight and the pinnae circinately coiled (fig. 3); in _Encephalartos_, _Dioon_, &c., both rachis and segments are straight; in _Zamia_ the rachis is bent or slightly coiled, bearing straight pinnae. The young leaves arise on the stem-apex as conical protuberances with winged borders on which the pinnae appear as rounded humps, usually in basipetal order; the scale-leaves in their young condition resemble fronds, but the lamina remains undeveloped. A feature of interest in connexion with the phylogeny of cycads is the presence of long hairs clothing the scale-leaves, and forming a cap on the summit of the stem-apex or attached to the bases of petioles; on some fossil cycadean plants these outgrowths have the form of scales, and are identical in structure with the ramenta (paleae) of the majority of ferns.

Flower.