Note 220 — Chapter XXI · THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE JAHN GYMNASTICS INTO AMERICA.

In the pines back of the present site of Sargent Gymnasium. A report of the Visiting Committee to the Board of Trustees and Overseers of Bowdoin College, dated September 2, 1828, contains the following: “The committee would introduce to the favorable notice of the Trustees and Overseers the Gymnasium which has been recently established. We have had some opportunity of witnessing its exercises and are convinced that its effects are highly salutary.... These exercises are voluntary, few however decline them. Those who have associated as Gymnics have presented a request that a shed may be erected for their accommodation. But highly as we approve of the association we think that this request cannot now be acceded to. Other and more pressing wants of the college demand all its funds.” This outdoor gymnasium was in existence until the early sixties, when the college fitted up for similar uses a building formerly occupied as a college common.