NATURE 



445 



THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1920. 



Editorial and Publishing Offices : 



MACMILLAN 6- CO., LTD., 



ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON, W.C.2. 



Advertisements and business letters should be 



addressed to the Publishers. 



Editorial communications to the Editor. 



Telegraphic Address : PHUSIS, LONDON. 

 Telephone Number : GERRARD 8830. 



Naval Education. 



THE discus.sion in the House of Commons on 

 May 17 on the vote for educational services 

 in the Navy Estimates raised several points of 

 interest. We note a general wish to open more 

 widely the door from the lower deck to the com- 

 missioned ranks. At present the most promising 

 of the younger seamen can rise, through the inter- 

 mediate rank of mate, to that of lieutenant at 

 an age which does not shut them out from further 

 promotion. Several members expressed a hope 

 that it might be possible to promote ships' boys 

 to the rank of midshipman. The First Lord is 

 reported in the Times to have replied that the 

 Admiralty "could do no more than place at the 

 disposal of these lads the very excellent educa- 

 tional facilities now open to the lower deck, but 

 would approach the question with a steadfast 

 determination to remove every possible obstacle 

 which appeared likely to prevent these lads attain- 

 ing their object." 



Lieutenants whose training at Dartmouth was 

 curtailed during the war are now sent to Cam- 

 bridge for a supplementary course. The special 

 situation which led to this arrangement will pass 

 away, but it is intended to make the Cambridge 

 course a permanent feature of the education of 

 25 per cent, of the officers, if accommodation at 

 the colleges permits. The young naval officer sees 

 little outside his sea life — a life astonishingly wide 

 in some ways, and equally narrow in others — and 

 intercourse at Cambridge with other young men 

 will broaden his ideas. 



Osborne is to be closed in May, 192 1. Cadets 

 will go straight to Dartmouth at the age of 

 thirteen and a half and stay there until the age 

 of seventeen ; then to sea. The First Lord spoke 

 with regret of the necessity of closing Osborne, 

 which has done good work in education ; but the 1 

 NO. 2641, VOL. 105] 



total number of cadets under training on' shore 

 will be not more than 440, as against iooo before 

 the war, and it would be incompatible with 

 economy to retain a special college for the younger 

 cadets with these reduced numbers. If one of the 

 colleges is to go, clearly it must be Osborne, 

 where the buildings are for the most part tem- 

 porary structures, whereas Dartmouth is a sump- 

 tuous edifice of brick and stone, which will house 

 the whole number. 



In an explanatory memorandum issued with the 

 Estimates it was stated that changes were to be 

 made in the curriculum. These are of some im- 

 portance, and cannot be properly appreciated with- 

 out some knowledge of the history of the matter. 

 Lord Selborne's scheme of training (1903) 

 provided for the common entry of executive and 

 engineer officers ; all were to enter Osborne to- 

 gether, and to receive an identical training 

 between the ages of thirteen and twenty-two. 

 Having reached the rank of lieutenant at twenty- 

 two, they were to select the branch to which they 

 would afterwards devote themselves — gunnery, 

 torpedo, navigation, engineering, or non-special- 

 ist. The most difficult problem was the training 

 of the engineer. Up to twenty-two he would not 

 have a more intensive engineering training than 

 all other officers ; from twenty-two he would devote 

 himself entirely to engineering. Many conse- 

 quences followed this decision ; in particular, it 

 was necessary to assign one-third or one-fourth of 

 the instructional time from thirteen to twenty-two 

 to engineering. The engineer officers (Lieutenants 

 E) trained under these conditions are understood 

 to be doing well, but the time left for general 

 education at the colleges was restricted rather 

 severely, and in the case of the executive officers 

 this restriction seemed to be a mistake. How 

 could this defect be remedied without impairing 

 the technical training of the engineers? It 

 emerges from the Admiralty memorandum that 

 the following solution is to be tried. The engin- 

 eering time at the colleges (thirteen and a half to 

 seventeen) is to be greatly reduced, and the time 

 saved to be spent in enriching the cadets' literary 

 education. At the same time, the age of special- 

 isation for engineers is to be lowered from twenty- 

 two to eighteen. 



It may be surmised that this increased sense of 

 the value of early general education is not un- 

 connected with compari.sons made during the 

 war between the midshipmen from Dartmouth 

 and the "direct entry" midshipmen who entered 

 from the ordinary schools of the country at 



Q 



