to form part of every boy's education!' It is an art
that is easily acquired; it is healthy and pleasurable as an exercise,
being highly favourable to muscular development, agility of motion, and
symmetry of form; and it is of inconceivable benefit as the means of
preserving or saving life in seasons of peril, when death would
otherwise prove inevitable. Mr. Ellerthorpe early became an accomplished
swimmer; he often fell overboard, and but for his skill in the art under
consideration he would have been drowned. He also enjoyed the happiness
of having saved upwards of forty persons, who, but for his efforts must,
to all human appearance, have perished.

To a maratime nation like ours, with a rugged and dangerous coast-line
of two thousand miles, indented by harbours, few and far from each
other, and with a sea-faring population of half a million, it seems as
necessary that the rising generation should learn to swim as that they
should be taught the most common exercises of youth. And yet 'this
natatory art' is but little cultivated amongst us. On the Continent, and
among foreigners generally, swimming is practised and encouraged far
more than it is in England. In the Normal Swimming school of Denmark,
some thirty years ago, there were educated 105 masters destined to teach
the art throughout the kingdom. In France, Vienna, Copenhagen,
Stockholm, Berne, Amsterdam, &c., similar means were adopted, and very
few persons in those countries are entirely destitute of a knowledge of
the art. But so generally is this department of juvenile training
neglected by us as a people, that _only one in every ten who gain their
livelihood on the water_ are able to swim.

[Sidenote: HULL SWIMMING CLUB.]

Mr. Ellerthorpe, in a characteristic letter, says: 'I think no
schoolmaster should regard the education of his scholars complete unless
he has taught them to swim. That art is of service when everything else
is useless. I once heard of a professor who was being ferried across a
river by a boatman, who was no scholar. So the professor said, "Can you
write, my man?" "No, Sir," said the boatman. "Then you have lost one
third of your life," said the professor. "Can you read?" again asked he
of the boatman. "No," replied the latter, "I can't read." "Then you have
lost the half of your life," said the professor. Now came the boatman's
turn. "Can you swim?" said the boatman to the professor. "No," was his
reply. "Then," said the boatman, "you h