Don't throw good money into the waters of swimming pools

There's no need to create uncalled-for swimming pools on all the small offshore islands, because kids there can and do easily go to the seas to learn how to swim. Their opposite numbers on Taiwan proper do so, if they happen to live along the very long coast around the bigger island. As a matter of fact, kids in ubiquitous fishing villages used to carry their mothers'unused small washing boards with which to master the simple art of swimming in their first dips. Few of them would become swimming stars, of course. Racers should be trained in swimming pools by coaches. Wu certainly is not trying to popularize swimming just to create star racers.

But if the purpose is merely to teach all children to be able to swim, the government does not have to open so many swimming pools. To be more exact, none should be built, particularly at a time when Taiwan is facing an increasingly serious financial stringency.

We want to cite an example to show how people can learn to swim without much difficulty. Prewar Japan called itself a country of the seas. As such, the country made it mandatory for all male schoolchildren to acquire the ability to swim. The way their teachers trained them was simplicity itself. Kids were told to jump into the waters. It was literally“sink or swim.”They swam, albeit some of them had to take the jump one or two more times. Many of the children were trained at swimming pools in their urban schools and those in remote mountain villages learned to swim in nearby small lakes, rivulets or water ponds. At any rate, practically all Japanese youngsters were able to swim before and after Pearl Harbor.

One thing the authorities must have forgotten is that the ability to swim, once acquired, lasts a lifetime. There's no need for retraining. We believe they can easily adopt prewar Japan's simple and direct method of training to get all our schoolchildren natant. We doubt they dare, though. Taiwan is a very democratic country, where children are pampered and teachers generally cannot order their students around. But we must remind Mr. Wu that the many swimming pools he wants to build would cause serious water shortage in summer and the money he wants to spend can be used to provide school lunches free for many needy children.

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