Maurits Verdonck

Maurits August Verdonck was a Belgian professor of physical education, who enhanced the Swedish method of gymnastics with aesthetically demonstrative, rhythmic and harmonious elements. At the 1900 Paris Olympics, he won a silver medal in eights rowing with the Royal Club Nautique de Gand crew. He left school after the sixth year to help his father run his gymnastics equipment manufacturing business.

By 1903, Verdonck was leader of the new gymnastics and weapons society “Ganda”, which he labeled “Higher People’s School for Physical Education” and which achieved numerous national and international successes. At age 30, Verdonck studied physical education at the Institut supérieur d’Education physique of the University of Ghent (RUG), and in 1920 obtained his doctorate.

Verdonck taught at the Royal Athenea of Antwerp and Bruges and at the Rijks Secondary Normal School in Ghent. In 1925 he was appointed as lecturer, and in 1939, a professor at the Medical Faculty of the Higher Institute for Physical Education in Gent teaching “Gymnastics and esthetics of movements” as well as “Play and sport.”

In 1932, “Ganda” was temporarily excluded from the Belgian Catholic Gymnastics Union because of his progressive approach towards women’s gymnastics. In 1936, his portfolio was amended by “Special methods of physical education.”

Verdonck was a fervent Flamingan and in 1913 proposed a Flemish-Walloon separation in the Catholic Gymnastics Union. Due to his Flemish patriotism and alleged sympathies for Germany, Verdonck was dismissed as a professor after World War II. He was reinstated in 1951 and given emeritus status, retroactive to 1949.

His entry in the Art Competitions, a 78-page essay, was published in 1927 under the title Éducation esthétique populaire et éducation physique (Popular Aesthetic Education and Physical Education).