Harper's Round Table, August 18, 1896

by Various

FIG. 8.—SWIMMING ON THE BACK.

The stroke which should perhaps first be learned after one has mastered the art of floating is that which enables one to swim on the back. The fastest and easiest way of swimming on the back is called the double over-arm, and the method is well illustrated in Fig. 8. In order to practise this the swimmer must, of course, first come to the floating position, and then he should bring his feet together and keep them moving up and down, so as to hold them near the surface of the water. The movement of the arms is a sort of windmill motion, and as they pass through the water the palms and forearms propel the body onward. This is an easy stroke to learn when one knows how to float.

These are perhaps the most important points about swimming that can be given in so brief a paper. It will take the beginner some time to master these, and after he has learned them and has become familiar with the water, he should practise diving. At an early date this Department will be devoted, in text and illustration, to the interesting subject of diving.

The Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, M.P., made a speech on the subject of athletics recently when he delivered prizes to the boys of the King's School at Warwick, England, and the London Sporting Life quotes a few of his remarks, which, I believe, are just as true concerning American sport as they are of English sport, and must consequently be of interest to our American school-boys. Mr. Lyttelton said that nobody could accuse him of saying anything against athletic games, for he is a great lover of sports; but he added that he feared there was a tendency to overdo matters, and to allow athletics to occupy a more important place in the world than they should—to make a business of them, in fact, instead of keeping them as a recreation which should make us more fitted to do our work in this world.

The speech created a good deal of comment among sportsmen abroad; and Sporting Life, a week later, devoted considerable space to editorial remarks on what Mr. Lyttelton had said. I quote a few sentences: "Few will deny the 'growing professional spirit in most of our games' decried by that famous sportsman [Mr. Lyttelton], or venture to contradict his statement that the majority of them are being reduced to a mere matter of £ s. d. by exponents galore nowadays.... But above and beyond this lamentable endeavor to reduce all things to pounds, shillings, and pence there is an excess of enthusiasm in sport equally to be decried by all.... The fact is that many devotees of sport make far too much of it by having allowed themselves to be taught that ordinary success in any branch thereof is not worth having. They do so in the spirit of the old saying that whatever you do you should do well, which, like many other old sayings, is very untrue, and very dangerous in its lack of truth. And nowhere is this more untrue than in reference to our amusements."

The editorial then goes on to give some examples, saying that to play billiards, for instance, is the amusement of a gentleman, but to play billiards pre-eminently well is hardly that. The writer argues that a man who makes it his life's work to become a successful billiard-player can hardly, in the mean time, have continued to be a gentleman in the best use of the word. As another example, the writer states that chess is perhaps, of all recreations, the one most adapted to intellectual persons, but to be pre-eminent at chess, he argues, is generally to be that and nothing else.

There is a good deal of truth in this, and it may well be said that the athletes who go in purely for record-breaking, even if they stick strictly to the amateur spirit so far as the letter of the law is concerned, devote themselves so fully to their endeavors that they have little time to cultivate the gentler arts and amenities of social life. They consort so constantly with trainers and rubbers and professional sports that they grow more or less to be like these; they talk like them, they act like them, and they begin to shun more elegant society; and while still remaining amateurs, they are unquestionably amateurs of a lower social caste. This degradation is due solely to their own conduct. There is a wide difference between a healthy and keen indulgence in sport and a passion for breaking records, putting aside any mention of the money-making feature of the question.

It would seem that Mr. Lyttelton is not the only man in England whose attention has been called to this weakness among their amateurs; for the Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., who was present at Stamford Bridge on the occasion of the athletic meeting of the Association of Conservative Clubs, made remarks in a similar vein when he distributed the prizes to the winners. He said that there were critics of athletics who watched the rapid growth of interest in sport with something like suspicion, not to say dislike. He asserted, however, that he did not share their views, for he had always held that the healthy interest in athletic sports was one of the most distinguishing and characteristic marks of our age, and he considered it an admirable sign of the times. Nevertheless he warned the young men who were listening to him to beware of the danger of carrying their sports too far, and he said that that point was reached when training or indulgence in sports ceased to be a pastime and became an occupation. There is fruit for considerable thought in the remarks of these two prominent English gentlemen.

The Interscholastic Tennis Tournament at Newport has been postponed until August 19, and will therefore not be treated in this Department until the issue of August 25.