Statistics, gymnastics and the origins of sport science in Belgium (and Europe)

摘要

This paper analyses the introduction of statistics in the field of gymnastics and its effect on the institutionalisation of physical education as a fully fledged academic discipline. Soon after Belgian independence, Adolphe Quetelet's research already resulted in large-scale anthropometric statistics - indeed, he developed an index that is still being used and is better known under the name of the body mass index. His insights were applied by promoters of gymnastics who wanted to make physical education more scientific. Thus, Clement Lefebure, director of the Ecole Normale de Gymnastique et d'Escrime in Brussels, set up a comparative experiment (with pre- and post-test measurements) by which he intended to show that the 'rational' method of Swedish gymnastics produced much better results than the 'empirical' method of Belgian/German Turnen. Lefebure's experiment, which was cited internationally but which was also strongly contested by opponents, was one of the factors that led to Swedish gymnastics being officially institutionalised in 1908 at the newly founded Higher Institute of Physical Education of the State University of Ghent, the first institute in the world where students could obtain a doctoral degree in physical education. Although it rested actually on very weak scientific foundations, the bastion of Swedish gymnastics built in Belgium in that pre- war period collapsed only in the 1960s. From then on, sport science could develop fully within the institutes for physical education.