"LEARN TO SWIM"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 58, 1 December 1937, Page 4

"LEARN TO SWIM"

There can scarcely be any question in an^body's mind as to the need for sonie sucli movement as is now being set afoot in order that the art of swimming may be acquired by a very mnch larger proportion of the population than at present enjoy that advantage. In this relation it is, of course, the number of fatalities that arise from lack of ability fo swirn that makes the most direct appe^l. In this respect the statistics that have recently been published will no doubt have constituted a revelation for most of us. With the record of deaths afising from motor-vchicle aceidents we have all been very strongly impressed and full credit must be given to our 'Minister of Transport for tlie lead lie has given in an effort to reduce these as much as possible. There will be few, however, who, until faced with the figures recently given to us, have at all realised that, during w.hat may be ealled the bathing s eason, when, too, motorvehicles are most in evidence, the deaths from drowning in this country far cxceed those afributable to highway aceidents. Thus, if only with a view to the saving of valuable lives a "learn to swim" campaign would have ample justification. But, apart from this'rather gruesome aspect of the case, we have to consider the health and pieasure-giving advantages that accrue from ability to move freely and confidently through deep waters. There is perhaps no other exercise that so perfectly brings into harmonious play the whole muscular system of the human body, thus affording it a chance of uniform development, while at the same time, in a favourable atmosphere, bringing the lungs into the fuller action that most of them, especially among town-dwellers, very badly need. From thehealth point of view — which may also be regarded as a matter of life-saving— there can therefore be no doubt as to the value of swinming. As for the pleasure, amounting almost to joy, to be derived from it only those can really speak with full appreciation who have learned the art a little late in life and can thus realise what they have missed in their earlier and perhaps more vigorous years. While it is thus to everybody's great advantage to "learn to swim," it is during youthful years that the art can be most easily and most beneficially acquired. It is therefore in connection with our schools that our main efforts should be directed towards providing facilities for learning "to swim. For those in the immediate neighbourhood of our ocean beaches and bigger streams Nature has furnished the first essential and all that is required is to provide competent teachers. This, however, applies to only a relative few of our schools throughout the country, so that with most the provision of artificial swimming pools is necessary, and this need should be recognised as fully as is that for ordinary playing fields. Nor may it be going too far to say that — even in these days when we are getting sometliing of an overdose of legislative and regulatiye compulsion — in all schools where the necessary facilities can be made available, swimming should he made a "compulsory subject' in the eurriculum. From all points of view, therefore, the campaign that is now being entered upon with the object of demonstrating and bringing home to a greater number of people the advantages to be gained from an acquirement of the natatorial art and the comparative ease with which it is to be learned is worthy of the fullest possible snpport from all members of the community.