LEARNING TO SWIM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9053, 12 February 1908, Page 5

LEARNING TO SWIM.

SCHOLARS AT THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL. .

Yesterday afternoon the scholars attending 'the Masterton District High School receved their first lessons in swimming, when four squads, each containing fifty boys, spent altogether two hours in the baths in Dixon Street, under the supervision of their masters. Each detachment of fifty was given half an hour in the batts, and before all the 200 boys had finished the whole of the school afternoon had been taken up. The hours during which the baths are open for males are such that the boys can only be taken for their lessons on Tuesday afternoons, and this means practically the whole of the bath accommodation will be taken up by the school classes. Although there is no compulsion in the matter of going to the baths, every boy above the third standard is keen on receiving tuition in swimming, and as a good percentage of the lads can swim a little, the matter of dealing with such a hrge number by the masters ia made somewhat easier than- it mght have been. Girls' swimming classes will be conducted on two afternoons in the week, probably Mondays and Wednesdays—the days least required by the female adult swimmers. As few of the girls at the school can swim, smaller squads will have to be sent than is the case with the boys, arid the tuition cannot, therefore, Be confined to one day. It is intended that as far as possible, every boy and girl in the upper classes shall take lessons in swimming, which are entirely free.