smaller had
the unfortunate passengers known how to keep their heads above water
until help arrived. Millions of people are transported yearly by river
craft, and just for lack of knowledge of how to swim a repetition of
the _Slocum_ disaster might occur any summer.

Only about 20 per cent. of the entire population of the United States
know how to swim. A visit to any of the beaches along the Atlantic coast
will convince any one of this fact. There is no excuse for this
ignorance, especially in a city like New York, with miles of water front
and fine beaches at its very door; nor is there excuse in other places
where an ocean, lakes and rivers afford opportunities for swimming.

Swimming is a tonic alike for muscle and brain. The smallest child and
the weakest woman can enjoy it equally with the strongest man. When
slaves of the desk and counting-house are looking forward for an all too
brief vacation and seek the mountains or seashore to store up energy for
another year's work, they should know how to swim. Poor, indeed, is the
region which can not boast of a piece of water in which to take an
invigorating plunge.

The importance of being able to swim was very generally recognized in
ancient times, notably by the Romans. Roman youth, as early as the
Republican era, when trained to bear arms, were made to include in
their exercises bathing and swimming in the Tiber, where competitions
were frequent. Cassius in his youth became renowned as a swimmer.
Shakespeare, in a familiar passage, describes a race between him and
Julius Caesar, Cassius being made the speaker:

"I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me, 'Dar'st thou, Cassius, now,
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow; so, indeed he did.
The torrent roared; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Caesar cried, 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink.'
I, as AEneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar: And this man