The Enlightenment&ideas of sport&the body

The Enlightenment drew on the 17th century scientific investigations by thinkerswho emphasized belief in human reason and the scientific method.Two such men were John Locke2，who developed influential theories of the human mind and of political philosophy，and Isaac New ton3，whose work on the laws of nature advanced the scientific revolution.The intellectualmovement forged an age of reason and pursuit of progress and scientific discovery.In America，the gentry and well-educated colonists began to focus on rationalism and science rather than on Calvinist doctrines of faith.The Enlightenment also influenced thoughts about sport and how the human body functioned.

Physical education became part of the effort to train white Protestant American boys and young men of the upper class to fulfill their prescribed gender roles in themid-eighteenth century.These boys，sons of better-educated fathers and members of genteel families，learned about health ofmind and body as partof the enlightenmentmind-set.Because of their privileged way of life，many of these males did not perform physical labor in agriculture or othermanual tasks to exercise their bodies.The expansion of sport formale students at collegeswould not occur until the early decades of the nineteenth century.In 1826，Harvard would become the first American college to start a gymnasium and organized competitive sports would follow even later.As part of the culturalmatrix in which these elite youngmen assumed their gender and socioeconomic privilege，certain kinds of sporting activity signified civility versus vulgarity and helped mark one's place in the new democracy.