Dr. Szabó Lajos: A magyar ifjúság testi nevelésének története (A Sportmúzeum Kincsei 5. Budapest, 2004)

A testnevelés Johannes Amos Comenius műveiben

j. A. COMENIUS was bom in Magyarbrod, Moravia in 1592 and died in Amsterdam in 1670. He came to Hungary for the invitation of Zsuzsanna Lórántffy, wife of György Rákóczi I, Prince of Transylvania, to teach in the Reformist College of Sárospatak between 1650 and 1654. Comenius deals with body care and physical education in almost all of his works. He is talking about the education of young children in his work Mother-school: "The more the children do, run and work, the better they sleep, digest and grow, and they are more fresh and lively in body and soul." - he wrote. In his work Diäacticd Magna he explains that physical activity in good proportion is suitable not only for maintaining health, but to ease the tiredness of schools. He proposed to have longer playtimes between the lessons and to spend most of the afternoons with doing physical exercises. The introduction of separate physical exercises lesson did not appear among his proposals, but physical education became organic part of education in his syllabus for the first time. According to him different games and physical exercises have great effects on mental training, too. His pansophian school, the school of universal wisdom was open to everyone. He accompanied his students from early morning till late evening. According to his agenda mental work of the mornings was followed by vivid games of great physical activity in the afternoons. Walking, running, jumping are the most suitable for it. "Try the castor, marbles, bowl, ball, but moderatly and in the presence of the teacher, only with his allowance. Forbidden games are: dices, cards, wrestling, boxing, swimming in water and other useless and very dangerous games." Sobriety is very important. Children should enjoy games and become fresh after it. He stressed the importance of keeping moral education in mind. One of his most well-known works is the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, written in Sárospatak, in which several chapters are devoted to physical exercises. In this encyclopeadic textbook, through which he wanted to make his students acquainted with the world surrounding us, its phenomena, and the most important activities of practical life; he presented the most favourite physical exercises both orally and with pictures. A separate chapter (article) is devoted to running, ball games, combat games, hunting and bird-catching. He is dealing with the different styles of swimming and fencing. The life-work of Comenius was determinant in terms of physical education in schools. It added to the establishing of modem school physical education with determining the rhythm of work (studying) and rest (8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working, 8 hours body care, entertainment, "active rest") and he collected the materials (exercises) of physical education.