Gymnastics, men's
- Daily chores
- Gymnasiums are built
- Competitions
- Decline
Competitions
Male students at the University performed their first gymnastics exhibition and competition in spring 1887, one year before the Ladies' College students gave their first calisthenics demonstration. William Seaman, a student at the University, wrote to his mother on 19 March 1887, describing a "swarm" of young athletes training daily in the gymnasium for the exhibition in the spring.
Gymnastics exhibitions and competitions were held regularly by male students of the University during Mount Allison's closing week ceremonies between 1891 and 1897, and by Academy students between 1895 and 1911. The students at both institutions gave performances on parallel bars, rings, high bars, German horse and tumbling. Prizes at the University competition were awarded by a visiting judge. An unidentified writer, in an anniversary edition of The Argosy (9 March 1940), recalled one of the judges:
"Every spring at closing time, there was a gymnastic competition and Sergeant Major Webb, a famous gymnastic instructor used to come up from Halifax to judge the display and award medals to the most proficient. At the end, he himself always gave an exhibition of his skill with the sabre, splitting an apple in two on an undergraduate's neck without touching the skin of his assistant."
Mount Allison University, gymnastics exhibition programme, 1892
Mount Allison University, gymnastics exhibition programme, 1894
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