Stephan Wassong Pierre de Coubertin's American Studies and Their Importance for the Analysis of His Early Educational Campaign _____________ ERGON VERLAG Stephan Wassong Pierre de Coubertin's American Studies and Their Importance for the Analysis of His Early Educational Campaign. English translation by Neil King 2004 All publication and distribution rights to English edition – Stephan Wassong Originally published as Pierre de Coubertins US-amerikanische Studien und ihre Bedeutung für die Analyse seiner frühen Erziehungskampagne © ERGON Verlag, Würzburg, Germany 2002 ii CONTENTS Contents Preface Introduction 1. The analysis of Coubertin’s research trips to the United States in current research 2. Remarks regarding the research methodology and sources, as well as the time period and content parameters of the research topic 3. Structure Chapter I: Coubertin’s early national and international education campaign as portrayed in current research 1. Coubertin‘s national education campaign 1.1 Reasons for the genesis of Coubertin’s early reformative attitude 1.2 The focus on Coubertin’s orientation towards England 1.3 The focus on Coubertin’s French mentors 2. Coubertin’s international education campaign 2.1 Controversial interpretations of Coubertin’s motivation to reintroduce the Olympic Games 2.1.1 The blossoming internationalism as the basis of the foundation of Coubertin’s Olympic plans 2.1.2 The national fixation thesis 3. Summary Chapter II: Coubertin’s interest in the American university and sport scene 1. Coubertin’s introduction to the reformed American university system 1.1 Initial impulses 1.2 The reform of American university system in the late nineteenth century 1.2.1 A.D. White – First President of Cornell-University 1.2.2 D.C. Gilman and the founding of Johns Hopkins University 1.2.3 The expectations of the American public towards reformed institutions of higher education 1.3 Coubertin’s contacts to White and Gilman 2. Coubertin’s insights into gymnastics and athletic education at US universities 2.1 Early stimuli 2.2 Gymnastics and athleticism at US universities in the second half of the nineteenth century 2.2.1 ‘The Battle of Systems’ 2.2.2 Tactical professionalism in US university sports 2.3 Coubertin’s contacts to representatives of gymnastic and athletic education at American universities 3. Coubertin’s interest in the public sport scene of the United States 3.1 The spreading of athleticism in the United States iii CONTENTS 3.1.1 The class-orientated amateur idea 3.1.2 The educational-democratic amateur idea 3.2 Coubertin’s insights into the public American sports scene Chapter III: Conclusions on Coubertin’s views on national and international education 1. The United States as legitimization authority for Coubertin’s national education campaign 1.1 Confirmation and example 1.1.1 The confirmation of the reformatory approach 1.1.2 The model function of the American public sports scene for Coubertin 2. The American influence on Coubertin’s concept of international understanding 2.1 Coubertin’s efforts to promote the rapprochement of France and the United States 2.1.1 Coubertin’s medal campaign at American universities 2.1.2 The publications of L’Evolution Française sous la Troisième République in the United States and Coubertin’s contributions in the American Monthly Review of Reviews 2.1.3 Sport meetings for promoting French/English and French/American friendship 2.2 The American patronage of reintroducing the Olympic Games 2.2.1 Early talks with Sloane and White 2.2.2 Sloane and the Congress of 1894 in Paris 2.2.3 The founding of the American Honorary Committee for the Olympic Games Results New insights for Coubertin research and their impact on the reintroduction of the modern Olympic Games Appendix Documents and Illustrations Bibliography 1. Archival Documents 2. Primary and Secondary Literature iv PREFACE Preface This monograph was accepted by the German Sport University Cologne as a dissertation in November 2000. It is slightly abridged and revised for print. This study analyses the early educational thinking of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who travelled through the United States for several months in 1889 and 1893. The choice of this topic was encouraged by attending research colloquiums on the formative process of the modern Olympic movement, offered by Professor D. R. Quanz, to students about to sit for their diploma or doctorate at the German Sport University Cologne in the 1996/97 academic year. In these colloquiums I discovered sources on Coubertin that encouraged me to further analyse his study trips of the New World. This task also appealed to me because at the time of Coubertin’s stays in the United States he determinedly pursued the idea of reviving the Olympic Games in a modern form and with a pedagogic mission that is still much-discussed. I gained the opportunity to pursue my interests fostered in the colloquiums and to eventually develop them as a sound dissertation concept when I was awarded a scholarship by the German Sport University for research at the State University of New York College at Cortland. I was able to combine my stay in Cortland with investigations in the archives of the universities of Harvard, Cornell and Johns Hopkins; the Library Congress in Washington D.C. and the New York Public Library (NYPL) in Manhattan. The assumption of finding data by and on Coubertin in these university archives and public libraries was confirmed. I would like to warmly thank the friendly and enduring staffs of the archives and libraries for their indispensable assistance. Assistance was also given to me by Prof. Dr. Norbert Müller from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. As an expert on research on Coubertin and Olympic Historiography he was always willing to give me access to rare documents that are collected in his library. In addition to this he invited me to the conference The Ancient and Modern Heritage of Greece – Visions for Athens 2004. At this symposium that took place from 29 August to 3 September v PREFACE 1999 at the International Olympic Academy (IOA) in Ancient Olympia, Greece I had the opportunity to present some of my first research results to experts on ancient and modern Olypmpic historiography. I owe various ideas to this inspiring atmosphere at the IOA. The German version of the Ph.D. thesis was published by Ergon pubishing company in 2002. The translation was funded by the Amateur Athletic Foundation. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the officials of the AAF and particularly to Wayne Wilson, who made the translation project and its publication possible. Last but not least I owe my deepest gratitude to my wife and my parents without whose tolerance and patience the dissertation would have taken much more time to be finished. I devote the English publication to my daughters Johanna and Julia. vi INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction 1. The analysis of Coubertin’s research trips to the United States in current research This work endeavors to systematically illustrate the importance of Pierre de Coubertin’s American studies for the analysis of his early educational deliberations. Although there is a particularly vast amount of sport pedagogic, historical, sociological specialized literature on Coubertin’s plans to modernize the education system in his home country as well as the creation of “contact possibilities” (LENK 1972, 120) between representatives of different nations with the reintroduction of the Olympic Games, Coubertin’s studies of the United States have heretofore been neglected. This is surprising since Coubertin’s extended stays in the ‘New World’ in 1889 and 1893 clearly formed his early thinking on education, which after all is the basis for the most important international sport event. It would be wrong, however, to claim that current research completely lacks any treatment of Coubertin’s research trips to the United States. Thus, existing research states that Coubertin undertook his trips to the United States to free himself from the accusations Anglophilia put forward by his countrymen as a result of Coubertin’s desire to introduce into the French school system sport disciplines that were extremely popular at English public schools and universities. By turning to the United States Coubertin intended to convince his countrymen that athleticism was also regarded as an important educational instrument for pupils and students outside England. (cf. MACALOON 1984, 113). Accordingly current research includes descriptions of universities that Coubertin visited (cf. CALLEBAT 1988, 131ff.), as well as his interest towards high school sport (cf. GUTTMANN 1992, 10) and the public sport scene (cf. MACALOON 1984, 113ff.) in the United States. The brevity and the descriptive character of these comments alone show that Coubertin’s research trips to the United States are not regarded as very significant in the analysis of his educational ideas. Coubertin’s ideas on education are portrayed as being already formed by his research trips to 2 INTRODUCTION England. Thus Coubertin is characterized as a complete Anglophile (cf. YOUNG 1996, 69), whose shining example seemed to be the “English sporting Gentleman” (LUCAS 1976, 27). The book Pierre de Coubertin: Olympism – 1 Selected Writings published by the sport historian and Olympic scientist Müller from Mainz is definitely an exception. Although Coubertin’s interest in the United States is not interpreted in regard to possible effects on his early education campaign in this collection of English-language documents, the imprint of various documents of Coubertin does show that it is worth taking a closer look at Coubertin’s interest in the United States. However, it must be made clear that a comprehensive analysis of Coubertin’s assessments of reformed American colleges, of university sport and gymnastic programs as well as the public sport scene in the “New World” are far less interesting for current research than Coubertin’s efforts to win the United States as a supporter for his Olympic project.