The evolution of teaching gymnastics in primary and secondary school in Russian-controlled Ukraine in the second half of the nineteenth – at the beginning of the twentieth century

In the article examines the influence of the military environment on the development of physical education in educational institutions is studied. Military needs played a decisive role in the choice of priorities for physical education. In secondary and primary school, physical education acquired a general orientation, which consisted in the development of physical qualities and strengthening the health of the student contingent. For a long time, gymnastics was taught optionally in civilian educational institutions, having received the status of a compulsory discipline in 1889 year in men`s gymnasiums and real schools. In primary school, military gymnastics acquired compulsory status at the beginning of the twentieth century. Four stages of development of gymnastics in secondary school have been allocated, considering changes in approaches to physical education, which have identified the periodicity of dominance of military gymnastics and general physical training. The state, because young people are the basis of the future armed forces, tried to introduce elements of military gymnastics into educational programs and introduce compulsory teaching of the subject. During the study period, the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Public Education modernized the means, methods and forms of conducting classes to improve physical fitness. Weak methodological, material and technical support and problems with teaching staff did not make it possible to fully implement this idea in civilian educational institutions. Inadequate attention to physical education in educational institutions, as well as the fact that most school-age children remained outside educational institutions, resulted in an insufficient number of the army.