Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths

[4] The full title of the manual is Gymnastics for Youth: Or a practical guide to Delightful and Amusing exercises for the Use of Schools, An Essay Toward the Necessary Improvement of Education Chiefly as It Relates to Body.

[5] Wolff is acknowledged as being an influence on the writing, and especially the intellectual movement called naturalism, embodied in the work of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and using the prior gymnastics of ancient Greece.

[4][7] The second, longer volume contained additional information on balancing, bathing, carrying, declamation, fasting, leaping exercises, lifting, manual labour, organising an open air gymnasium, pulling and wrestling.

[5] Gutsmuths described gymnastics as culture for the body, which is integral to an holistic education with the aim of building a foundation of strength of character and achieving self-control.

The first principle of an education in gymnastics for him was that it might:[8] ... fully develop the aptitudes of the physical individual and attain the body's potential beauty and perfect usefulness.A chapter of the book (Ball mit Freystäten (oder das Englische Base-ball) (English: Ball with Free Station, or English Base-ball)) contains a description of a precursor to modern baseball, including the first description of what would evolve into the strikeout rule.