Education Theories
The Author
On December 4 1865, Lurther Husley Gulick was born at Honolulu, Hawaii as the fifth member in a family (Berg 1965) of seven siblings to a Congregationalist missionaries couple, Luther Halsey Gulick and Louisa Lewis Gulick. The first fifteen years of his life Gulick spent away from Hawaii mainly traveling in Japan, Spain and Italy with his parents. In 1880, his family returned to the United States where he was enrolled in a preparatory school until 1882 where he joined Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire. In 1884 he began studying physical education at Oberlin but had to quit in 1885 due to serious health complications including heart problems and chronic headaches. In the same year, he resumed his education at the Cambridge School of Physical Training, Cambridge Massachusetts Winter (2004).
Gulick later joined the Medical College at the City University of New York where he was awarded the M.D, after four academic years. In August 30, 1887, he married Charlotte Emily Vetter whom he had six children with.
Throughout Luther Gulick’s career, he showed a keen interest in physical education and hygiene. For instance, while undertaking studies for his medical degree between 1885-1889, he became the physical director of the Jackson, Michigan YMCA. He was also the head of the gymnasium department of the Young Men’s Christian Education’s Springfield Training School during this time period. He is also considered to be the author and the inventor of basketball game in 1891 where he gave a student, James Naismith, a set of rules and asked him to design a game. apart from the position Gulick held at Springfield, he was also serving as international secretary for the physical training department of the YMCA. In addition to all these, he also served as secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education between 1892 to 1893.
Contribution to Public Administration
Most of Luther Gulick’s work was accomplished during the first decade of the 20th century. Some of the major works that he was involved in are as mentioned chronologically in the following: He became the principal of Pratt Institute High School between 1900 to 1903. In 1903, he became the first director of physical education in the public schools of New York City where he managed a staff of 36 personnel. He also chaired the Physical Training Lecture Committee of the St. Louis exposition in 1904. In the following year, Gulick founded the Public School Physical Education Society at the St. Louis Exposition and the Academy of Physical Education in New York. He later joined and became a member of the American Olympic Games Committee for the Athens games in 1906 (and the London games in 1908) Winter (2004) .
In 1907, Gulick was a member of an important delegate where he attended the Second International Congress on School Hygiene in London. Between 1906 to 1909, he acted as a lecturer at the New York University where he taught hygiene. During this time period, he also acted as a consultant for the New York Hospital for Deformities and Joint Diseases and acting chairman of the Playground Extension Committee and of the “Backward Children Investigation” of the Russell Sage Foundation. In 1910, co-founded the Boy Scouts of America.
With much interest in Physical education, Luther Gulick went on further founding several associations which include the American Physical Education Association where he served as president between 1903 and 1906, he founded the Public School Training Society in 1905 and acted as president until 1908. He also helped in setting up of the American School Hygiene Association in 1907, and the Playground and Recreation Society of America in 1906 where he led until 1908. Working with his wife Charlotte, Dr. Gulick began developing a similar program for girls as the Boy Scouts of America which he called the Camp Fire Girls which is currently known as the Camp Fire USA. He served as President from 1912 until just before he died in 1918.
Being an author, Luther Gulick also managed to come up with an impressive number of publications mostly in the fields of hygiene and physical education. The first book he wrote was Physical Measurements and How They Are Used(1889), Physical Education by Muscular Exercise(1904);The Efficient Life(1907) and Mind and Work(1908) which were published while he was serving on the Olympics games committee for the Athens and London games respectively;The Healthful Art of Dancing(1910); Playground book;The Dynamics of Manhood(1918); and Medical Inspection of Schools(1907), written with Leonard Ayres. Winter (2004).
In 1913, Luther Gulick became the director of physical education of the Department of Child Hygiene of the Russell Sage Foundation which promoted school medical inspections (Berg 2012) and decided to quit his directorship of physical education in New York City’s Public Schools, he was however forced to resign from this position due to his worsening medical complications. In 1918 during World War I, Dr. Gulick was appointed chair of the YMCA’s International Committee on Physical Recreation of the War Work Council. He traveled to France where he conducted a survey concerning recreational needs and hygiene of the American Expeditionary Force . He was in the midst of organizing YMCA recreational workers for overseas military assistance when he died on August 13, 1918 at age 53 in South Casco, Maine, at his camp at lake Sebago.
The main point/thesis of Gulick’s Works
It is quite difficult to explain the exact position of what Gulick believed in since he appeared to embrace many contradictions. For instance, he sometimes seemed to obsess with following rules and setting clear cut boundaries while at other times he acted spontaneously not giving much heed to order and conditions he once seem to be obsessed with. At times, he could argue in a manner portraying support for sexual repression while at other times he “ he displayed rational moderation in the realm of human sexual behavior”. He was however a supporter of eugenics and believed in social Darwinism, service and self sacrifice as the highest form of religion. Winter (2004).
Major Ideologies
Gulick’s thoughts were based on the foundation of what is known as the ‘Recapitulation Theory’. According to this theory, each individual just like every existing human race or ethnic group, recapitulates human evolution. According to Luther Gulick, a human could achieve this through the proper training and development of spirit mind and body which helps “overcome the mind-body dualism in social thought and to understand human beings as holistic entities instead” Winter (2004). This belief inspired Luther Gulick to come up with a new symbol for the YMCA, a red inverted triangle with the words ‘mind’, ‘body’ and ‘spirit’ inscribed in it. In 1895, this was adopted as the official YMCA logo at the YMCA Convention in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Gulick also held the belief and supported the argument that an individual’s character traits are strongly affected and established through interpersonal relations and that values are more of a collective phenomenon than something that originates from the inside out. This was specifically the driving force behind his belief in building team-spirit and team work and basically guided his ideologies for games and other physical education exercises that mostly require team work. As a good example, when Gulick instructed James Naismith to design a game using a set of rules that he had provided, he was thinking of an indoor game that could be played throughout th year without weather interference, it also had to promote the unity of the body mind and spirit and lastly, a game that promoted team work as opposed to individuality, in essence, a game that is based in all the core values that he believed in.
Contribution to Education
Luther Gulick had a special liking to physical education which could not be shared by any other people at the time. As a matter of fact, when he started the first course for gymnasium instructors at the YMCA College at Springfield together with Robert .J. Roberts, members did not approve physical training as the core of this program but saw it as just a way Gulick had designed for the youth to find interest and come to the YMCA and while at that get involved with religious activities more than just physical education. However, the physical directors in the YMCA were of diverse fields including athletes, pugilists, ex-soldiers, and former circus performers who were not commitment to religious practices as such. For this reason, Luther Gulick launched an institution which provided physical training to the staff who would then be able to integrate physical education with Christianity and also enhance their teaching skills.
This was a great contribution which paved way for physical education to be regarded as a professional field on its own. Gulick’s physical education theory was aimed at bodily symmetry, muscular strength and control, endurance, agility, grace, courage, self-possession, and expression (Winter 2004).In 1889, the YMCA adopted Gulick’s physical education program at the International Convention of the YMCA in Philadelphia.(Butler, 1965)
While acting as the director of physical education of the public schools of New York, Gulick was able to create the Public School Athletic League for boys which was funded by contributions from wealthy citizens, he also helped form a Girl’s Branch which instituted folk dancing for girls with an aim to instill the girls with a sense of ethnic tradition, this project inspired the book he authored The Healthful Art of Dancing (1910) which was used as a reference in the 1930s by dance teachers.
As shown above, Gulick Luther committed his entire lifetime to physical education, recreation and hygiene. Though his theories to education cannot be very accurately laid out, because of his regular change of position, fields and organizations, he is regarded as a planner and initiator rather than an executor. He had an uncanny way of picking up new ideas and transforming them into actual project through different offices and institutions.(Butler, 1965)
Despite his early death, he remains one of the most significant individuals in the physical education sector. Since 1923, the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD)provides annual awards called the Luther Halsey Gulick Medal to individuals who have shown exemplary performance in any of the Alliance’s fields.
References
Butler, George D., 1965. Pioneers in Public Recreation. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company, p. 55.
Luther Gulick (1865-1918). American Education. < http://american-education.org/972-gulick-luther-18651918.html > 20 Apr. 2012.
Winter, T. , 2004 ‘Luther Halsey Gulick’,the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/gulick.htm. 20 Apr 2012.
Berg, Ellen L. “Gulick, Luther (1865-1918).” Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society. < http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Gr-Im/Gulick-Luther-1865-1918.html > 20 Apr. 2012.
Luther Gulick.” Hoopedia, National Basketball Association. <http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php?title=Luther_Gulick > 20 Apr 2012.
