IT occurred to me one hot spring day that the
children—the four- to five-year-olds at the nursery school—
would enjoy cooling off in our family back-yard pool. They
certainly did, and because many of them were receptive to
instruction, and there was no pool available to them (they
were too young for Red Cross lessons at the high school), and
because I had watched my own children in their swimming
lessons, I was inspired to teach very small children swimming.
Many of the techniques used in the book to help children
overcome their reluctance about, or fear of, the water are
equally effective in teaching small children of a nursery
school. The songs and games are the same songs and games
the children enjoyed at school; the experience with swings
and balancing boards, tricycles and sand piles, develops
knowledge and confidence—both physical and psychological
—in some of the same ways that swimming does.
From the very first, I was encouraged by the advice and the
very practical help I received from Frank Blair. Certain basic
principles and the plan for putting these principles into prac-
tice were developed by Frank after a wide and diversified
experience as a competitive swimmer and as a teacher of
swimming. He was a certified aquatic director for both the
YMCA and the Red Cross in San Francisco for a number of
years; he left this work to start his own swimming school.
What he impressed upon me is the importance of a step-by-
step method of learning about the water, and the exercise of
the utmost patience in executing this method. As I proceeded,
right up through the preparation of this manuscript, his ideas
and help continued to be invaluable.