N a safe and secluded cove, Carl Adler some-
times gave lessons in a branch of education
not common in all schools: I mean swim-
ming. He was both a bold and expert
swimmer, and under his directions every
one of his young pupils learned this healthful
and necessary exercise. He used to tell them of the
daring adventures of his countrymen on the Rhine.
He gave them, in English, Schiller’s celebrated story
of the Diver and the Golden Cup. He informed them
that the Romans, in order to describe a person of ex-
treme ignorance, said that he could neither read nor
swim. He read to them what Horace says about
swimming over the Tiber. He helped them to repeat
Dr. Franklin’s experiment about floating and the kite.
He showed them, on the map, the strait of Hellespont,
and related in part the tale of Hero and Leander, adding
Lord Byron’s great feat at the same spot, as a comment.
He read to them, out of missionary books, an account