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THE BEGINNINGS OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR DELIVERING PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASSES IN CROATIA – 140 YEARS OF TRADITION

The aim of this research is to analyze the activities and events preceding and enabling to establish system of education and training of personnel for delivering physical education (PE) classes in Croatia after the introduction of obligatory PE classes in the Croatian education system in 1874. The archival materials, mostly unprocessed until now, of the Croatian State Archives, the Croatian Sports Museum and the National and University Library in Zagreb were used. The beginnings of education of PE professionals in Croatia are related to the introduction of PE as an obligatory subject into the elementary school curricula in the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia in 1874. Until then PE teaching was mainly optional and delivered by foreign gymnastic teachers (Germans, Austrians, Czechs), who implemented the principles of the German and later Czech gymnastic system. Most of the other teachers in the elementary schools, however, did not have even a minimal knowledge for conducting PE classes nor was there any reference or literature from which they could attain basic knowledge of the prescribed PE curriculum. We recognized two parallel systems of training introduced in 1875. First system was short training courses for the elementary school teachers that already taught at the schools. Second was the introduction of Gymnastic as an obligatory course/subject at the teachers training colleges. Twenty years after the obligatory PE classes had been introduced into the Croatian schools, Franjo Bucar (1866-1946), after he had returned from his two-year education at the Royal Central Gymnastic College in Stockholm (Sweden), organized and managed a two-year Course for the Secondary School Gymnastic Teachers (1894-1896). In fact, it was the first high school (college) for PE in Croatia and in this region of Europe. The curriculum and syllabus, devised by Franjo Bucar, were modern and comparable to any curriculum of the most popular European schools of that time. In the three-semester course thirty attenders (one woman among them – Ivana Hirschmann) took 16 theoretical and practical course subjects. The beginnings of education and training of personnel for conducting PE classes in Croatia was very important not only for the development of PE but also for the development of sports and exercise movement in Croatia. However, all activities regarding education and training for PE was also powerfully influenced by political circumstances in the 19th century Croatia.