Why Does a Human Being Have to Learn to Swim?
It is strange, isn’t it, that almost every animal, excepting man and possibly the monkey, knows how to swim naturally; others such as birds, horses, dogs, cows, elephants, can swim as soon as they can move about alone.
The trouble with man in this connection is that his natural motion is climbing. He has been a climber ever since he was developed from the monkey, and when you throw him into the water before he has learned to swim, he naturally starts to climb and as a climbing motion won’t do, for swimming, the man will drown.
This climbing motion is as much of an instinct in man and monkeys as the instinct in dogs which causes him to turn round once or twice before he lies down just as his forefathers used to do ages ago when, as wild dogs, they first had to trample the grass before they could lie down comfortably.