Perhaps in no other country in the world have health and exercise been united and formed into a national institution, as they have been in Sweden. The true Swede believes that exercise will cure everything, and that as a preventive of disease there is nothing like it. If you go to a Swedish physician for advice, he will invariably prescribe the movement cure, and send you to a gymnasium or a massage establishment instead of to a drug store. Physical exercise is therefore the national remedy, particularly for complaints due to sedentary employment, neglect of nature's laws, and high living. The movement cure for invalids, which is practically the same as that we have in the United States, is used in all the hospitals as well as in private practice. It was invented about a century ago by Dr. Ling, a patriot, a gymnast and a poet, who was inspired to revive the ancestral national spirit in the Swedish people by the aid of sports and songs, and to develop once more the great qualities of strength, courage, and endurance which in old times distinguished the Scandinavian race. After a hard struggle he succeeded, in 1814, in securing the recognition of the government and founded the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute, where all persons desiring to teach gymnastics in the public schools or in private institutions must take a course of training and take a degree. The Swedes are quite as particular about this as they are about the study of medicine. No medical practitioner can hang out a sign without a diploma from one of the universities, and no person can teach gymnastics in that country without a similar certificate of competency from the Royal Institute. Every officer of the army is required to undergo a course of instruction, not only to develop his physical constitution, but to qualify him to teach gymnastics to his soldiers. The teachers of physical culture in the public schools, both men and women, are obliged to take a similar course in order to drill their pupils properly, for in every schoolroom in the country, down to the kindergartens, daily physical exercise upon Ling's plan is required to promote the development of the body and improve the health. This is required in private as well as public schools, and the methods of instruction are subject to the inspection and approval of the Central Institute. In every town of any size there are gymnastic clubs and associations, which are generally guided by instructors educated at the Central Institute. They include women as well as men in their membership, and in many of them fencing and other sword exercises are also taught. In common with all the gymnasiums are bath-houses. You will find them in every part of the city of Stockholm and in other large towns. Some of them occupy entire buildings. It is the habit of business men to go to their stores or offices at nine o'clock in the morning and remain there until two or three in the afternoon, when they go to their club or gymnasium and take an hour's exercise and afterward a bath. These establishments in the business quarter of Stockholm and other cities are considered just as important as clubs, restaurants, or other places of resort, and usually have connected with them reading and smoking rooms where patrons can read the daily newspapers and current magazines and sip coffee and smoke while they are cooling off. It would surprise a visitor in New York or Chicago to be informed that his broker or his lawyer or his banker or a contractor with whom he has business, had gone to a bathhouse or gymnasium at three o'clock in the afternoon, but in Stockholm it is a common reply to an inquiry. During winter afternoons you can usually find anybody you want by going to his favorite gymnasium or bathhouse, just as you would look for him at his club in Chicago.

There is a distinctive dress for the exercise. The patrons take off their street clothing and put on light woolen shirts and trousers, and canvas shoes on their bare feet, and, standing in rows, go through a series of motions under the command of their instructor to exercise the arms, legs, neck, and every other part of the body, gently, not violently. The idea is movement, not exertion, and the muscles are restrained. The arm is raised slowly with self-resistance. No clubs or dumb-bells are used, only a gentle motion like the exercise of the children in the schools. After twenty minutes or half an hour of this the class marches in a column, still going through the same movements; then they run, following their leader, doing everything that he does, until at the end of an hour the body is in a glow, the blood is pulsating in every vein, the perspiration is oozing from every pore, every muscle is limbered up and strengthened, and every nerve tingles. There is regular gymnasium apparatus for those who like more violent exercise. Then a bath is taken, followed by a cold plunge and violent rubbing with massage, after which a man is in shape to go home to his dinner with a good appetite.

In October every year the Scandinavian Gymnastic Instructors' Association meets in Stockholm for several weeks, at which lectures are delivered, papers are read, and discussions are held upon all branches of their work. These meetings are quite as important as annual conventions of the bar or medical associations, and are not only attended by gymnastic instructors, but by physicians generally, for every Swedish physician must be well versed in medical gymnastics, particularly in what is known as kinesitherapym or movement cure, which embraces active, passive, and resisting movements, as well as massage, for the latter is the basis of medical gymnastics.

The Swedes have accepted this treatment as a specific for nearly all diseases, deformities, and weaknesses of the body; for internal complaints, for the lungs, the heart, and the digestive organs. It removes superfluous tissue, and this is the reason you see so few fat men in Sweden, notwithstanding their beer-drinking propensities, and why the women keep their youthful shape until old age.

It is a spectacle to witness in some of the gymnastic institutes venerable and dignified gentlemen going through comical motions and assuming ridiculous postures with great activity and zeal, keeping time to the music of a band in the adjoining cafÉ.

In Sweden doctors never send bills to their patients, but trust entirely to their generosity. Each family has an attending physician, who expects them to pay him by the year for his services, according to their wealth and the amount of attention they receive. Ten dollars a year in our money is a good fee; one hundred dollars is princely. At the beginning of the year you put the amount in an envelope and send it to the doctor by a messenger with your card. He sends back his card with an acknowledgment of thanks and the compliments of the season. It is very bad form to talk about it, although grateful patients often write their physicians affectionate letters of gratitude for his devotion and the benefit he has brought them. It is a good deal like the relation between a minister and his parishioners in other countries, and the annual contribution for the support of the doctor is just as voluntary as the contribution to the treasury of the church. If there is any reason why one should feel grateful to the doctors; if you or your children have suffered a severe illness and he has pulled you through, he expects a present in addition to the annual honorarium, just as you would send the minister a present after a marriage or a funeral or some other special occasion at which his services are required. The amount you pay depends upon your ability and the value of his services, but it is a violation of the most sacred canon of professional etiquette for a doctor to ask compensation or question the amount he receives. He keeps no accounts of his visits and no books. If a stranger or an acquaintance who does not contribute regularly makes one call or two upon the doctor to ask his advice or a prescription, he leaves something on the table, but it would be equivalent to an insult if he should ask for a bill.

When a person is very sick, he is taken to a hospital. Sweden has some of the best hospitals in the world. His own doctor looks after him there, assisted by the house physician and nurses, who expect fees, but the regular doctor gets none. He supervises the treatment and acts as adviser to the house physician.

The government pays subsidies to doctors in remote parts of the country, just as it pays the salaries of the ministers where the people are so poor that they can not support a doctor and a parson. In fact, all the clergymen of the established church are paid by the government and are government officials. The members of their parishes give them presents, something on the donation party order, because their salaries are small, and if there happen to be rich men in the parish, it is their custom to send around a handsome present to the minister's wife or to himself on Christmas Day.

The Swedes have a short summer, and so far as possible spend it in the open air. Every citizen of Stockholm who can afford it has a place in the country, no matter how humble or primitive it may be, and if he can not afford a cabin, he pitches a tent in the woods under the pine trees, and if necessary cooks his own meals. The banks of the lakes and rivers throughout the entire kingdom—and there are more than 1,400 lakes in Sweden and 1,700 islands in the Stockholm SkÄrgard—are surrounded by such dwellings and camps, for the Swedes love the water. Those who are compelled to remain in town take their meals and spend their evenings at the open-air cafes, which are found in every part of the city with bands of music, and take daily excursions on the boats which ply through the fjord and the lakes which encircle the town. In the suburbs are circuses, open-air theaters, concert gardens, and other forms of entertainments, simple and serious. A number of fine restaurants are maintained in the parks, where people can get a good dinner and spend the evening under the cool foliage, listening to an orchestral concert or a band. Every form of outdoor amusement is furnished, and the people eat, drink, and are merry, making the most of their time from June to September before the long and dreary winter comes upon them.

The working classes have their simple amusements also, and during the summer evenings in every village there is music and dancing, even if an accordion or jewsharp is the only instrument to be obtained. The national dances are quite energetic, and furnish a form of exercise which lazy people would not admire, but both the men and women of Sweden are famous for their muscular strength, and the young woman who can dance down her companions is as much of a hero as the champion wrestler of the town. Those who can not enjoy the opportunity of visiting rural Sweden will find in the suburbs of Stockholm, at the favorite resort and place of amusement of the common people, a perfect representation of Swedish country life. It is called Skansen, and is rural Sweden in miniature. It is a patriotic and scientific enterprise, conceived and undertaken by the late Dr. Artur Hazelius, an eminent ethnologist, for the purpose of preserving the habits and customs of the Scandinavian races. In no country of Europe, excepting perhaps Russia and Turkey, have the people adhered to the manner and costumes of their fathers so tenaciously as in Sweden, and the life of past generations is preserved in its picturesqueness. The conservatism of the people, their tenacious preference for their own ways and means has kept out innovations, and very few changes have been made since the beginning of the eighteenth century. But fearing that the peasants of Sweden, like all other peoples, would sooner or later surrender to modern fashions, Dr. Hazelius attempted to collect at Skansen actual types representing every industry, activity, and national trait. His thought was expressed in a motto inscribed over one of the gates of this outdoor museum:

"The day will come when all our gold will not be sufficient to buy an accurate picture of the times long past."

He procured from the king a rocky plateau on the edge of a royal park known as Djurgarden, covered with crippled pines and resembling the wild, uncultivated, neglected landscape in Dalecaria or Norrland, the two most interesting portions of Sweden. By careful landscape gardening, without destroying its natural beauty, he introduced broad paths, restaurants, cafes, band stands, and other places for the merry to meet and hold their festivals, and for the students to sing their songs, and he reserved a part of the grounds in its natural condition, where the lovers of nature can find a quiet retreat among the gloom of a pine grove. It has become the most popular resort in Sweden, particularly in the long summer evenings, and when a man can not reach the country, Skansen is never too far. It is accessible by street-cars and by boats, and is not more than half an hour's walk from the palace.

Here the "folk festivals," for which the Swedish poets have composed their most beautiful songs, are held every spring; here the national holidays are celebrated as in olden times, both in summer and winter, and national customs are preserved with great care and amid surroundings that give them a realistic tone, like the true thing. Dr. Hazelius secured original types of peasant houses from every part of the country where they have individual or unique character. From the huts of the fishermen on the south coast of the Scandinavian peninsula to the camps of the Lapps in the frozen zone, every feature of Swedish country life is represented. The Lapps brought their dogs and reindeer, and live exactly as they do upon the snowy plains of the polar regions.

With the forty acres that compose the park are about one hundred and twenty-five people, living exactly as their forefathers lived and practicing the primitive customs that prevailed two centuries ago in the agricultural districts of the kingdom. They wear the same costumes, eat the same kind of food, use the same kind of dishes, and preserve so far as possible every feature of their daily life. Every one of the provinces of Sweden which has a distinctive dress or unique custom is represented by the actual people who have always lived that way. Every man and woman continues their former occupations. There is no theatrical business about it, no imitations on the grounds; everything is genuine.

Three or four times a week at sunset, after their daily work is done, the peasants gather for a dance at a central place, which is always surrounded by a large crowd of spectators, and is the greatest attraction of Skansen. On alternate nights the dancing is by the children, of whom there are thirty-seven under fifteen years of age living in the cabins with their parents, dressed just like their great-great-grandfathers and grand mothers when they were of the same age. The music for the dancing is furnished by old-fashioned instruments, and none but old-fashioned tunes are allowed. There is a society in Sweden known as Svenska Folkdansens VÄnner for preserving the Swedish national peasant dances and for encouraging their use in the higher circles of society in preference to the French dances.

There are several fine museums and picture galleries in Sweden. The national gallery in Stockholm, which is across the bay from the royal palace, and the Northern Museum founded in 1872 by Dr. Hazelius. Then there is the Royal Opera and the National Theater, so that the people of Stockholm do not want for places of amusement in winter as well as summer.

The father of athletic sports in Sweden is Lieutenant Colonel Victor Gustaf Balck, who holds a military position in the garrison at Stockholm. He introduced lawn tennis, cricket, baseball and football, and has established numerous athletic clubs in different parts of the country. Sailing is popular, there being many yacht clubs with good houses and fleets. And swimming is a part of the national education, nearly every man, woman, and child in Sweden taking naturally to the water and being able to swim. Everybody can skate as well as swim. In the cities rinks can be found with music and many conveniences. In Stockholm there is a general skating club, with a rink large enough to accommodate six thousand skaters, and popular fÊtes given there at intervals during the winter are attended by the royal family and members of the court, and are regarded as important social functions. All skating is done upon the numerous lakes, and often during the long nights of the winter hundreds of people, young and old, will gather at an early hour—it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon—and spend the entire night skating by moonlight. A big fire is built in some convenient place for the crowd, and smaller fires by individual parties, who bring luncheon with them and have a picnic in the snow in the winter. In various parts of the country, national and international skating contests are held, and winners in local tournaments, both for speed and fancy skating, are sent to Stockholm to contest for the grand prizes against the crack skaters of Norway, Denmark, Russia, and northern Germany.

But the national winter sport of all Scandinavia is skeeing—skimming over the snow on snow-shoes. There is no more vigorous or exciting exercise. In the country districts men and women alike are educated to the use of snowshoes from childhood. As soon as boys and girls are old enough to skate, they put on skees of a size appropriate to their stature, and are quite as agile and daring as their elders. It requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them. It is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood. A skilful "skeer" can make a mile in two minutes.

Ice yachting and sailing on skates are two of the oldest and most popular national sports, and are practiced in both Sweden and Norway by all classes. All the ice yachts and snow-shoes are home-made, and in the country districts many of the skates.[p]