Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1907 — Learn to Swim. [ARTICLE]

Learn to Swim.

"I don’t know why I should state that every man and woman, boy and girl, should know how to swim, and save life in the water besides,” writes Montague A. Holbein, famous swimmer, in the Technical World Magazine. "The thing is so obvious. And yet, what a strange state of affairs we see. Every year thousands of people lose their 11 res bathing in the sea or rowing and sailing in* small boats on lake or river. And even winter brings its tragic tale 'of drowning because of skaters slipping through the ice. *‘l have no 'hesitation in saying that nearly all these sad events might be prevented if elementary instruction in swimming and life-saving were made compulsory in the public schols. And In the Old World at any rate a new era is dawning in this matter—especially in London, where the various school swimming associations with hundreds of thousands of adherents are teaching first of all “dry-land” swimming in the play-grounds, and then practical instruction in specially erected -swimming baths under competent instructors engaged by the school •uthorities. “And quite apart from the question of saving one’s own life or that of another, swimming opens up a new and pleasurable exercise, as well as quenching forever the dread of deep water which seems to be on the bravest of us who cannot swim.”