The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-16
By George T. Holm,
Director of Swimming of Columbia University, Barnard College, Teachers College and Hcr-
 ace Mann School.


 Teachers College and Hor-
 ace Mann School.
 K TO student in Columbia Uni M versity, Barnard College, 4 Teachers College nor the Horace Mann School can graduate without knowing how to swim, and no one thoroughly knows how to swim unless he or she can dive, if need be, in street attire. When the unexpected moment suddenly comes to save drowning person somebody usually has to plunge overheard with shoes, hat and all clothes on. And that is exactly the way to practise and make sure you are at home in the water with all your clothes on.
 No young woman will go out of the Teachers College with diploma and the right to teach unless she can teach her pupils to swim. The test of her expertness is made be- fore Commencement Day, when in the presence of the Faculty and in- vited guests she can swim twice the length of the sixty-foot pool in Thompson Hall, dressed as she would be for walk or for shopping.
 There is an excellent reason for this, as has been said, a reason of everyday expediency. Drowning persons do not wait until their res cuers are arrayed in bathing cos tunes. The shriek, the upfiung hands, the frantically tossing head, do not wait on costume nor occasion
 Wherever there is water there is a risk of drowning, and the trained young man or woman should be ready to meet the emergency. Not to say. 'I hope that drowning wo- man will wait until I can find my bathing suit" or, Please wait until I've taken off these things but to plunge into the water on the instant, dressed as he or she happens to be.
 There is false idea about the peril that turks in skirts for a swim mer The trained swimmer can get along in them about as rapidly as without them. There is not a per ceptible difference in percentage of speed or endurance between the swimmer in or out of skirts. But there should be practice in these garments so that there will be no fear and no delay becaus If them.
 I insist that my pupils lake these tests before I report favorably on their expertness in swimming. The pupils are asked to come to the tank in such attire as they might wear during Spring or Summer vacation. They may be in the same clothes they would wear if making tour of the Broadway shops, for in such costume they might walk beside lake or on a river bank or by the beach of a seashore resort. Or they may wear the middy blouse and linen skirt, or the flannel suit in which they would row in canoe or take spin in motor launch.
 These are the chief perils of a Summer vacation, the canoe and the motor launch The canoe is a very insecure boat. It is long and narrow and usually has a round bottom. It tips easily. Lively young persons, moving about in one are more than likely to make some incautious movement that will upset it. The students of Barnard College, Teach ers' College, the Horace Mann School and of Columbia University are prepared for such emergency. A life saving corps of three thousand go out of these schools next June. They are minute men and women, equal to any vacation emergency
 They are minute men and women of the waves, because they have no fear of plunging into the water m whatever they may be wearing. IT there is time to fling of coat and hat, very we'll. They will be by so much less impeded. But they have learned that they need not stop for that.
 The young women of the Teachers College know that when they spring into the water they will lose their hats unless the hats happen to be pinned on, but that doesn't distress them. Generally after the tests the tank is dotted with floating hats. The violent exercisesS losses them of. We practice at saving" a drowning" person. Either or one of the students impersonates the drowning person. weigh 183 pounds, but little girl of eight, weighing 65 pounds, a pupil in the Horace Mann School, "saved'' me the other day and did it expertly, by towing me to the edge of the tank by my hair.
 A squad of students form in line beside the tank at one of these schools, and instruct them briefly. "Get rid of your shoes, if you have time" l say. Shoes weigh more than any other article of clothing. khe shoes may be loosened by delft ontying of the strings, and then kicked of in the water, or they may