Current usage

Today the term gymnasium (plural: gymnasiums or gymnasia) is used in the sense of a sports facility. Gyms today are multi-use facilities, offering a range of sporting and physical activities, alongside such things as massages, and other things usually attributed to a health spa.

''Gymnasium'' is also the German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish word for a specific kind of high school, or secondary school. (See Gymnasium (school)).

Etymology

The word is derived from the Greek word ''gymnos'' which means naked. The Greek word ''gymnasium'' means "place to be naked" and was used in ancient Greece to designate a locality for the education of young men, including physical education (''gymnastics'', i.e. exercise) which was customarily performed naked, as well as bathing, and studies. For the Greeks, physical education was considered as important as cognitive learning. Most Greek ''gymnasia'' had libraries that could be utilized after relaxing in the baths.

History

Gymnasiums (''i.e''., places for gymnastics) in Germany were an outgrowth of the Turnplatz, an outdoor area for gymnastics, promoted by German educator Friedrich Jahn and the Turners, a nineteenth-century political and gymnastic movement. The first indoor gymnasium in Germany was probably the one built in Hesse in 1852 by Adolph Spiess, an enthusiast for boys' and girls' gymnastics in the schools. In the United States, the Turner movement thrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first Turners group was formed in Cincinnati in 1848. The Turners built gymnasiums in several cities like Cincinnati and St. Louis which had large German American populations. These gyms were utilized by adults and youth. For example, a young Lou Gehrig would frequent the Turner gym in New York City with his father.

Gymnasiums in the United States predate the Turner movement. A public gymnasium movement sprung up in the 1820s and 1830s but was eclipsed by the growth of school, college, and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) gymnasiums. The first college gymnasium probably was the one built at Harvard University in 1820. Although privately owned, it was maintained for the use of the students. Like most of the gymnasiums of the period, it was equipped with gymnastic apparatus. The United States Military Academy at West Point built a gym during the same era. A few other American colleges built gyms by the 1850s. Harvard opened a new brick gymnasium in 1860 with two bowling alleys and dressing rooms in addition to the gymnastic facility.

YMCA first organized in Boston 1851. Ten years later there were some two hundred YMCAs across the country, most of which provided gymnasiums for exercise and games and social interaction.

The 1920s was a decade of prosperity that witnessed the building of large numbers of public high schools with gymnasiums. Over the course of the twentieth century, gymnasiums have been reconceptualized to accommodate the popular team and individual games and sports that have supplanted gymnastics in the school curriculum.

Today, having a gymnasium is the norm for virtually all American colleges and high schools, as well almost all middle and many elementary schools. These facilities are utilized for physical education, intramural sports and for interscholastic athletics.