TEACHING CHILDREN TO SWIM Teaching swimming to children under eight or ten years of age offers a problem of peculiar difficulty. They have so little voluntary attention and self-consciousness, that they can ther put their minds steadily on their work, nor direct accurately the ments of their own members. Worse than that, their disproportionately large heads make keeping afloat a far more difficult task for them than for an adult. For both these reasons, the traditional introduction to the art, by way of the breast-stroke, is of all possible methods the worst. Far more than for an adult, must the first attempts of a child be with a stroke which floats the head low in the water, and which has its timing and its movements nearly instinctive.
Logically, then, for a little child it should be a choice between back-stroke and side-stroke, where the artificial move ments of the one offset the complicated timing of the other. Just which of these is better, and how one shall proceed with the instruction, must depend on the in dividual child. Age, intelligence, docility, fear of the water, sex, build, all modify the conditions of the problem. Much, too, depends on the instructor, and the time at his disposal ; and also on the condi tions under which the teaching is to be done, especially the temperature of the water. I can, therefore, only give my own experience for what it is worth.
One point, I think, is pretty clear. For children under seven or eight, with ordi nary conditions, the place to begin is not the open water but the family bath-tub. Little ones are easily frightened, and easily chilled. They always find it easier to play than to do any kind of lessons. A little tot, in a tub of warm water, with no other children about, will learn more in one week of systematic teaching than in a whole summer playing about on the beach. Fortunately, a fair-sized bath-tub is quite large enough for most of the fundamental movements of nearly all strokes. In fact, there are a few matters, such as the breathing of the trudgeon and the crawl, which even a grown man can practice there.
In spite of tales of children who swim before they can walk, I doubt whether any amount of pains will enable any ordinary child really to swim much under six years of age. Much can be done at three and four toward laying the foundation ; but few are the little boys, and still fewer the little girls, who can take care of them selves in e water before they are six or seven. t about this age, however, there
seems to be a rather sudden expansion of muscular control, during which a boy turns from mere running and climbing to organized games, and for the first time in his life becomes able to put a bat in front of a ball. When this stage arrives, the boy can swim. One of my own children, as he passed his sixth birthday, could only flop along for ten yards or so. By the end of the next summer he was doing his hundred yards straight off, and could swim side-stroke, back-stroke, and crawl. There is, therefore, a psychological mo ment for swimming as for other acquire ments.
Much can be done in a bath-tub and during the winter to prepare for this mo ment when it arrives. Even four is not too young to begin. The first point, of course, is to learn to manage the breath under water and to open the eyes. The eyes indeed pretty much take care of themselves, when once the child is per suaded to make the attempt. No one, I suppose, ever fails to do the trick at the first trial, provided the head is fairly submerged. Learners, unfortunately, are apt to put only the nose in the water and thus to wink the eyelids against the sur face —a disconcerting experience which is likely to discourage further attempts. The eyes should be closed, carried well below the surface, and then opened. With this precaution, the knack is learned at once.
The breath, on the other hand, may not be mastered even after many lessons; for children breathe so unconsciously that it comes hard for them to take thought. In the case of very little children, it may be necessary to begin with a course oflessons in holding the breath in the air. During the early trials in the water, the instructor may well hold the pupil's nose at first, have him later hold it for himself, and only after some time dispense with this aid. One need not say that the head must always be carried face downward, until the art is well learned. It is best also to begin from the first to do the breathing after the fashion of swimmers, in through the mouth, out through the nose, and to exhale with equal ease either above the surface or below.