ETON The advantages of learning to swim when young cannot be over-estimated, and this has to a large extent been recognised by the heads of our public schools. In his excellent work on ' Health at School,' Dr. Clement Dukes, physician to Rugby School, and senior physician to Rugby Hospital, says : I lay special stress also upon the value of the swimming bath and bathing. Every school that can possibly manage it should have a place in which the boys can learn and practise swimming. If there be a river, it may be utilised with advantage for summer bathing ; but it is not as good as a swimming bath under cover, the water of which can be warmed, and thus used all the year rdund. Swimming should be taught, if necessary, though as a general rule nearly every boy will learn by himself or from his schoolfellows.
As a careful perusal of the chapter on the 'Teaching of Swimming' will show, it is absolutely essential that a practical teacher should be appointed to eve!), school. As a general rule a boy can learn by himself or from his schoolfellows, but he will rarely by this method become a perfect swimmer. Some very good suggestions are made by Dr. Dukes as to the ar rangements of baths at public schools. He insists that the entrance should not be at the end from which the boys dive, a fault noticeable in many baths, and that it should be so guarded by a porch as to prevent the wind coming in with a direct rush.
With boys particular care should he taken that they do not stay too long in the water. They can bathe as often as they like provided that they are in good health, and that the plunge is not taken too soon after a meal ; but the stay in the water should not be long. Unfortunately, the initial plunge is so exhilarating that boys are wont to stop in longer than is de sirable, and very often do not come out until they are shivering with cold. To this may be attributed many of the evil effects which parents complain of as the result of their children bathing in baths or open water, and as the remedy is easy—the appointment of a competent official to supervise—stringent rules should be laid down governing the length of stay in the water.
The teaching and practice of swimming at Eton differs from that which prevails at most other schools, in so far that it is entirely carried on in the open river, as there is no swimming bath. Swimming and its natural accompaniments, the taking
of 'headers' and diving, have no doubt been popular at Eton from days too early to admit of any record ; it could hardly be otherwise, seeing that the greatest of English rivers flowed at the very doors of the school. But no systematic attempt to teach swimming seems to have been made till the year 1839• In that year, owing to the death by drowning of a boy named Montagu, who was dragged out of his boat by a barge rope, the idea was started of teaching swimming systematically, and requiring all boys to pass an examination in it before they were allowed to go in a boat upon the river.
The originators of this scheme were George Augustus Selwyn, then a private tutor at Eton, afterwards successively Bishop of New Zealand and Lichfield, and William Evans, a member of an old Eton family and teacher of drawing in the school. They prevailed upon the then head master, Dr. Hawtrey, to establish the rule of compulsory passing' on all those who wished to row. So far as the writers can discover, before this time the instruction in swimming, if given at all, was given in the most casual way by waterside men, and the places for bathing were both ill-defined and unguarded.
Co!legers were supposed to bathe at The Oak,' a place in the playing-fields well known to all Eton men, and rendered dangerous by strong cross currents. Oppidans bathed higher up the river, between the two points locally known as The Hopes.' It followed as a necessary consequence from the above-mentioned rule established by Dr. Hawtrey that the whole system of bathing was organised. Regular bathing-places were constructed, one in a shallow backwater known as Cuckoo Weir, whidh was suitable for young boys and those who could not swim ; watermen were appointed, wearing a special dress, and charged not only with attending to the bathing places, but with watching the river and preventing accidents which might happen from boys being upset. At the same time the super vision of all these arrangements was put by the head-master into the hands of Mr. Selwyn. His successors in this office up to the present time have been Mr. Harry Dupuis, Mr. W. A. Carter, Dr. Edmond Warre, and Mr. Walter Durnford, who has kindly furnished much of the information about the school.