NATURE 



473 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1882 



NAVAL EDUCATION 



FROM the papers and discussions which have recently 

 appeared in the Journal of the United Service In- 

 stitution (Nos. cvi.,cxv., 1880, 1882), it would appear that a 

 large number of our naval officers are becoming sensible 

 of the many defects of the system under which their 

 younger brethren are at present entered and educated. 

 In all professions it is so much the custom of the seniors 

 of high rank to hold by the existing state of things, that 

 the protest now made is the more marked, coming, as it 

 does, not from one officer, or from a clique, but from 

 officers of all ages, ranks, and branches, who look on the 

 subject from different points of view, and correct their 

 judgment by different forms of experience. The fact 

 seems to be that, whereas the naval officer of former days 

 was not called on to be anything but a seaman, though it 

 was no doubt better if he was also a gunner — which was 

 but seldom — at present he ought to be not only a seaman 

 and a gunner, but half-a-dozen other things as well — a 

 navigator, an engineer, a mechanic, an electrician, some- 

 thing of a soldier, something of a naval architect, skilled 

 in signals and in tactics, and not ignorant of international 

 law. There are, of course, but few who can excel in all 

 these branches of knowledge ; but every naval officer is 

 expected to know something of all, and before getting his 

 commission he has to show, in examination, that he does 

 know something of all, even though that something may 

 occasionally be very little : he is then permitted to choose 

 one or two subjects of which he may make a specialty : 

 he may devote himself to navigation, to gunnery, or to the 

 management of torpedoes ; and on showing that he pos- 

 sesses special qualifications, he receives special appoint- 

 ments and a higher rate of pay. But whether his tastes 

 and abilities lead him to qualify in these special subjects 

 or not, he is supposed to have a certain respectable know- 

 ledge of all ; and, as keeping up the traditions of the ser- 

 vice, he is required, before everything, to be a first-rate 

 seaman. The most important question then is, Does the 

 present system of training young officers ensure their be- 

 coming first-rate seamen ? The answer of almost every 

 speaker at the United Service Institution is in the nega- 

 tive. Capt. Brine, to whom the Institution has this year 

 awarded its gold medal, says, "A midshipman serving in 

 an ironclad has but few opportunities of learning the 

 work of a sailor ; it cannot be said that the years thus 

 passed are essentially valuable as regards seamanlike 

 training." Capt. Grenfell says, " We are all familiar with 

 Falconer's admirable picture of the almost child handling 

 a ship — ' And well the docile crew that skilful urchin 

 guides.' It would be useless to look for the same thing 

 now. Our urchins, we must confess, are not " skilful." 

 Capt. Cleveland says, " On board an ironclad, youngsters 

 have very little opportunity of learning more than just the 

 routine work, which they may learn from a book ; " and 

 Lord Dalhousie thinks " the ordinary life of a midship- 

 man in a sea-going ship to be so ill-organised as to be 

 little better than very laborious waste of time, so far as 

 his own professional training and education are con- 

 cerned." Many others might be quoted to the same 

 Vol. xxvi. — No. 672 



effect, for the agreement is almost perfect ; but these are 

 sufficient. It may be assumed as admitted that a little 

 boy sent on board an ironclad to learn seamanship, does 

 not learn it, and has no opportunity of learning it, whe- 

 ther seamanship is understood in the old sense of handling 

 a ship under sail, or in the modern sense of handling her 

 under steam, and still less if in the strictly logical sense 

 of " manoeuvring ships under all circumstances of wind 

 and weather." What our large ironclads have masts and 

 yards for — except to foul and choke the screw in time of 

 battle — is a thing often wondered over. Many have none, 

 and even those that have them do not trust to them in 

 performing the simplest nautical evolution. Clearly then 

 a young gentleman on board such a ship does not learn 

 the sailoring of the old school. How he can be supposed 

 to learn the management of the ship under steam does 

 not appear. Capt. Cleveland — who, as having lately com- 

 manded an ironclad, speaks with a special authority — 

 says, "No captain would ever trust an ironclad to a young 

 gentleman to work, as the captains of old did their 

 frigates ; " and evidently the mere being on board whilst 

 somebody else is working the ship can teach him very 

 little. His principal duties are, in fact, said to be seeing 

 the ashes emptied overboard, the decks swept, and the 

 brass rails polished ; niceties which he might learn equally 

 well on shore from his mother's housemaid, or by making 

 an occasional round in the dust cart. Mr. Laughton, one 

 of the Instructors at Greenwich, goes so far a; to doubt 

 w-hether this method of training young officers was ever 

 quite satisfactory. " No doubt," he says, " in former 

 days the still existing system of sending little boys on 

 board ships on active service to learn seamanship by 

 doing what they were bid and keeping their eyes open, 

 answered pretty well. I do not think it did very well. 

 Of course we turned out a large number of first-rate sea- 

 men, but it was out of an enormous number of entries. 

 No account can now be taken of the failures ; but of those 

 who through ignorance, drink, and immorality went 

 wholly to the dogs, the number was extremely large, and 

 of those who did not thus utterly break down, there were 

 a very great many who dragged on in the service as igno- 

 rant of seamanship as of everything else that was repu- 

 table." Even now the same evils are at work, though in 

 a less degree ; and in a former paper on a kindred sub- 

 ject, Mr. Laughton showed that "more than half the 

 entries into the service disappear within twelve years," 

 whether from " death, ill-health, family affairs, dislike, 

 incapacity, or bad conduct." 



Now it has long been maintained that the early lessons 

 in seamanship, in the management of the ship and the men, 

 were a sufficient and imperative reason for dragging little 

 children off to sea. But since it appears proved by the 

 concurrent testimony of many Admirals, Captains, and 

 Commanders now serving, that our children so sent to 

 sea do not learn seamanship, and that our young officers 

 are thus, as a rule, curiously ignorant of real seamanship 

 when they go up for their examination, this alleged suffi- 

 cient reason falls to the ground ; and many other reasons, 

 which do not fall to the ground, prove that the system is 

 a bad one. Let it be borne in mind what this system is. 

 Little boys between the ages of 12 and 13^ years are 

 selected by limited competition in an examination which 

 Admiral Boys — himself for some time the Superintendent 



