Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1913 — MUST SWIM FOR DIPLOMA [ARTICLE]

MUST SWIM FOR DIPLOMA

Columbia University Student Passes Other Tests, but Balks at Swimming Pool. New York.—Columbia university has taken a new stand In the matter of graduation requirements. The authorities declined to award a diploma to Felix Metzger Rosenstock at the commencement exercises unless he could prove himself cured of caroanserinusabmetu- ' In other words, there is a rule at Columbia' that no college degree can be won unless the candidate has learned to swim the length of the pool In the gymnasium. The only exception is allowed in case of physical disability, attested by a physician’s certificate. Rosenstock, who passed all the other examinations, completely balked at swimming throughout his college course, aud as an excuse declared he was suffering from a terrible skin disease known as the caroanserinusabmetu. He obtained a physician’s signature to this statement. The physical director could find no visible trace of such a malady, but from a Latin lexicon he evolved this explanation of the student’s affliction: “Caro, meaning flesh; anserinus, resembling the goose; abmetu from fear; or, freely translated gooseflesh from fear.” The authorities, however, did not have sufficient sense of humor to cause them to extend leniency to Rosenstock.