Domestic physical education treatises in France in the 19th century and responses to them in Spain. A study of the prologue and translator notes of the Tratado sobre educación física de los niños para el uso de las madres de familia, translated by Antonio del Campo y Llanos (1849)

Abstract

Nineteenth-century reflections on the body and the incipient development of medical science featured a considerable concern on hygiene and health. The rise of new paradigms of exercise imported from Europe began to shape this new educational discipline through the publication and translation of texts on this subject. We will proceed drawing on an analysis of the words of the translator Antonio del Campo y Llanos, who in 1849 translated the work of M. Richard, Traité sur l’éducation physique des enfants à l’usage des mères des familles et des personnes dévouées à l’éducation de la jeunesse. The main aim of this work is to underscore how the French influence was decisive in the field of physical education, through the dissemination of documents whose only manifest purpose, as expressed by their authors, was usefulness.