Dear Mr. Mudd,

Is it true that Prince­ton has a manda­tory swim test for fresh­men? Fur­ther­more, was this test insti­tuted after the drown­ing death of an alum­nus, whose par­ents gave the uni­ver­sity a pool on the con­di­tion that all stu­dents were trained to swim to pre­vent such a tragedy from ever occur­ring again?

New Stu­dents Card for William Humphreys ‘1928

His­tor­i­cal Sub­ject File, Box 122, Folder 7

Prince­ton did indeed have a swim test, but this test was not insti­tuted because of the death of an alum­nus. It is, how­ever, easy to see why this story would develop and cre­ate a last­ing legend.

Princeton’s swim test was insti­tuted in 1911 by Dr. Joseph Ray­croft, the newly hired chair­man of the Depart­ment of Hygiene and Phys­i­cal Cul­ture. This first test required the fresh­men of the Class of 1915 to demon­strate “a mas­tery of the breast and back strokes, together with the abil­ity to swim two hun­dred and twenty yards and to make at least a fair dive” This test was mod­i­fied over the years, and by the time it was removed in 1990, a stu­dent only had to demon­strate that he could last 10 min­utes in the water – a require­ment most stu­dents met by floating.

Dr. Joseph Raycroft

His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion: Fac­ulty Series

The ini­tial test seems to have been intended to make Prince­ton stu­dents more phys­i­cally fit, as well as to boast about Princeton’s rigor com­pared to other schools with swim tests. Ray­croft noted “the rule was made in the first place because swim­ming is good exer­cise and is, in itself, an art that is use­ful to pos­sess.” Swim team coach Frank Sul­li­van added:

“…every man in Prince­ton, with but few excep­tions, is able to swim before he grad­u­ates, thus mak­ing a record the like of which no other uni­ver­sity, col­lege, ath­letic club, or prepara­tory school is able to boast. Other col­leges have so-called tests, but they are more or less far­ci­cal. Pennsylvania’s test is only thirty three yards and Columbia’s twenty five. The Uni­ver­si­ties of Chicago, Wis­con­sin, and Illi­nois, all have tests, but they are of the same cal­iber.”

That’s not to say safety was not a con­cern. Ray­croft and Sul­li­van strongly pro­moted mem­ber­ship in Princeton’s “Life-Saving Club,” which they founded in 1914. Ray­croft boasted that this club had stan­dards bet­ter than any other life-saving orga­ni­za­tion world­wide, “not even except­ing the Royal Life Sav­ing Soci­ety of Lon­don, which is sup­posed to be the club par excel­lence.” Ray­croft also thought that the teach­ing of swim­ming in aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions was an inevitabil­ity, com­par­ing Princeton’s instruc­tion to ini­tia­tives in Ger­many, Eng­land, and Aus­tralia.

The swim test was scrapped along with another of Raycroft’s cre­ations, the phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion require­ment, after a June 1990 fac­ulty meet­ing. At the time, Dean of Stu­dents Eugene Lowe ’71 noted that he could not find evi­dence of Prince­ton ever with­hold­ing grad­u­a­tion from stu­dents who did not pass the swim test. Eric Stein, an asso­ciate direc­tor of Ath­let­ics, called the require­ment both unen­force­able and anachro­nis­tic, espe­cially since “so many stu­dents [were] involved in fit­ness activ­i­ties already.”

As for the leg­end that the test arose from the death of a wealthy alum­nus, that story pos­si­bly arose from the tragic fate of Fred­er­ick Brokaw ‘1892. Brokaw, the var­sity base­ball catcher, drowned on June 24, 1891 in Elberon, New Jer­sey while try­ing to save the drown­ing Annie Doyle. Fol­low­ing his death, Brokaw’s father Isaac donated $42,000 for the con­struc­tion of ath­letic facil­i­ties which would include a gym, base­ball and foot­ball fields, and a nata­to­rium, even­tu­ally called Brokaw Tank.

Brokaw Memo­r­ial: Tank Room by A.W. Jamieson

His­tor­i­cal Pho­to­graph Col­lec­tion: Grounds and Build­ings Series

The swim test, how­ever, did not arise until more than a decade after the pool was com­pleted, ren­der­ing the rumor dubi­ous at best. Fur­ther doubt is cast because this leg­end exists at sev­eral other col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties that have or had swim tests.

–John DeLooper

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