Gymnasium

(jim-na'zhūm,) pl. GYMNASIA. [Gr. gym nasion-gymnos, nude.) (Gr. Antiq.) The name given in Greece to the public building or place where the young men, naked, exercised themselves in leaping, running, throwing the discus and spear, wrestling, . In that country, as at Rome, the le ons taught by the gymnasia were considered one of the most, if not the most, important branches of education. Athens po e ed three public gymnasia, the Lyceum, Academia, and Cynosarges, the two first being respectively rendered famous by the lectures of Aristotle and Plato. The institutions were each under the control of a superior officer styled gymnasiarch, who was a isted by ten subordinates, or Saphronistæ (teachers of wisdom). Gymnasia were not single edifices, but a collection Fig. 371.-LEAPING. of buildings united; (From a Greek entaglio.) being so capacious as to hold many you sands of people at once, and having room enough for philosophers, rhetoricians, and the profe ors of all the sciences, to read their lectures, and for wrestlers, dancers, ., to exercise at the same time without the least mutual disturbance or interruption.-(Educ.) In Germany, one of a cla of high schools into which pupils are admitted for a 6 or 7 years' course of study, preparatory to entering a university. Gymnastics, (jim-năstiks.) [Gr. gymnast i kos, having reference to bodily exercises.] The art of practising those exercises which serve to develop the muscles of the body and invigorate the limbs, such as wrestling, running, boxing, rowing, fencing, hurling, . Gym no clad us, (jim-nok'la-dūs.) (Bot.) A gen. of the O. Fabaceæ, having but one species, G. Can a dens is, the Kentucky Coffee-tree, a large N. American tree, so called in consequence of the early settlers in Kentucky having made use of its seeds as a substitute for coffee, at a time when they could not procure the genuine H. the 8th letter and 6th consonant of the English lanH, guage, is a guttural aspirate found in most alphabets-both ancient and modern, and until abt. the 5th cent. B. c. was so used by the Greeks. Afterwards, however, they made their capital e long, the aspirate being indicated by ('); but it was retained by the Latins, who, neverthele , employed it indifferently in the writing of certain words: thus,AsdrubalandHasdrubal, article. It is called Chicot in Canada, and is frequently cultivated, either as an ornamental tree, or for its timber, which is strong and of a compact fine grain. (jim-no-don'le-de.) (Zool.) A fam. of marine fishes, O. Plectognathes, whose jaws are furnished with a bony substance resembling enamel, and divided internally into lamina. -The odo us, and the Swellfish or Puffer, Tetrodon turgiFig. 372.- PUFFER. dus (Fig. 372) of the Atlantic, po e the faculty of inflating themselves like a balloon, by swallowing air. The Sun-fish of the Atlantic, Orthagoriscus Mola, which has the body flat and compre ed, attains the length of 4 feet, and a weight of500pds. [s. 432]