Siklódi Csilla szerk.: Tradicionális sportok, népi játékok (A Sportmúzeum Kincsei 2. Budapest, 1996)

Tradicionális játékok a magyar középiskolákban a századforduló előtt (Szabó Lajos)

supported before in the decree became prohibited. "Up till now the plays of the Hungarian youth have consisted of violent motions, running and jumping. We would not have prohibited them but would have supported it to be passed to the next generation if we believed that they were useful for the future and did not make harm." It is an unfortunate fact that while the modern ideas of the Ratio Educationis did not come to existence, the prohibition of the games and plays were realized. We can find the games of this time in the yearbooks of many schools for example of the secondary school of Máramarossziget, which describes 40 outdoor games, 27 of them prohibited, mostly the traditional folk ones

. The enlightened absolutism was defeated after Maria Theresia'

s and Joseph 2nd'

s rein. Playing at schools also was effected by the conservative, German influence and the traditional Hungarian folk games were put aside which led to their supersession at the secondary schools. This trend could be seen during the next eighty years, only the period of the Hungarian revolution and war of indipendence against the Habsburgs in 1848-49 was an exeption. After the fall of the revolution the situation became worse because all types of assembling were strictly forbidden including playing folk games as they could give possibility for the youth to come together. The establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1867 changed the situation. It became possible to found associations which brought activity in the field of sports and physical education. State sponsored and acknowledged courses started for training physical education teachers and physical education became a general subject at secondary schools. As a result of the fight for the national emancipation the desire for revitalizing of the traditional Hungarian folk games arose up. In 1877 count Miksa Esterházy who two years before had established the first modern sport club in the continent invited applications for collecting the ball games. His goals were: 1. to save the Hungarian ball games from disappearance; 2. to disseminate them; 3. on the basis of the book which could be written for the application the Hungarian Athletic Club could begin to organize the Hungarian ball game competitions and to codify their rules. Using the six applications which had arrived a new book was published in 1885 with the title "The Book of Hungarian Ball Games". (You can have a look at the reprint copy of it.) The illustrated with drawings book described 110 various games and showed the most wellknown children'

s ditties As this collecting work and application were very successful many sport clubs began to play ball games and some special associations for playing ball games also were established although they did not exist for too long time. From our point of view we have to underline their importance as many secondary schools held their gymnastics lessons in the sports halls of sport clubs and the teachers were often the trainers of the clubs.