Supplement to LAND &> WATER 
September 12, 1918 
Pelmanism 
By Admiral Lord Beresford, G.C.B., G.C.V.O. 
At the invitation of the Directors I have investigated the 
Pelman System. I judge it from the experience gained 
during the fifty years I was associated with the training of 
officers, men, and boys in the Royal Navy. The old sailing 
Navy provided the finest possible mental and physical 
training. It taught initiative, presence of mind, accurate 
observation, habitual defiance of danger, ready resource, and 
an extraordinary' hardihood. At sea a man holds his life 
on the condition that he possesses these qualities. Frequent 
emergencies are part of the ordinary routine, and the penalty 
of failing to meet them is inevitable. There is no arguing 
with a gale of wind. 
Things happen oftener at sea than on land. There are 
moments when they happen so suddenly that there is no time 
to give an order, and a man must act instantly on his own 
initiative, and act rightly, or it will be too late. It was for 
this reason that the old sail drill and seamanship training 
were extremely rigorous. Neither the modern seaman nor 
the landsman owns any conception of the severity of sail 
drill in a fleet, in which each ship strove to outdo the other, 
and in which many a man lost his life by falling from aloft. 
The emulation inspired by the competition of ship with ship 
in the Fleet made a powerful motive for exertion and smart- 
ness. There was not then, and is not now, anything com- 
parable with it on land. Wlien the Navy changed from 
sail to steam it became necessary to devise other methods 
to train the seaman to smartness, agility, and re- 
source. . . . 
Broadly speaking, the character and the abilities of the 
competent seaman enable him, should he leave the sea and 
enter a shore occupation, to learn it readily and to achieve 
success in a new career. Compared with the conditions which 
he has been accustomed to face and the difficulties he 
habitually solves at sea, the seaman finds life ashore a much 
easier business. Now if we reverse the case and send a 
landsman to sea, at first he would be helpless. . 
The object of the Pelman System is to enable the individual 
to bring all his powers into harmonious action. It would be 
true to say that to enable the student rightly to use his 
native abilities is the 6bject of all education. The education 
of the sea, which is the system I know best, certainly fulfils 
that purpose. Now a great part of the education of a boy 
consists in learning how to use his powers, but without 
knowing what he is doing. He is set to learn lessons and 
perform tasks day after day, the use of which he often fails 
to perceive. He does not understand, and he is not told, 
that the work he i^ made to do teaches him how to use his 
intellect. He thinks that education consists in acquiring 
information, in which very often he takes no interest what- 
ever. Nevertheless, if he does the work required of him he 
learns to use his powers unconsciously. 
The Pelman System teaches the man and the woman both 
how to use their undeveloped faculties, consciously ; and 
how, consciously, to make the best use of the ability and 
the knowledge they already possess. 
Now in almost every person, in addition to imperfectly 
developed faculties, there exists a reserve of latent power 
; and ability, of which the individual himself is usually uncon- 
scious. It exists not only in those who have never received 
an adequate education, but in persons of high education and 
of considerable achievement. In the course of ordinary life 
it is often observable that a sudden emergency will call forth 
an abihty to meet it. During the present war, for instance, 
there have been innumerable examples of men who have 
done what they never dreamed of doing, and who have 
achieved what they would have thought impossible. Neces- 
sity, danger, and circimistance have forced them to draw 
upon their reserve powers. 
The Pelman System teaches how consciously to develop - 
and employ reserve powers. It teaches, first of all, that 
their existence is a fact ; then how to call upon them and 
then how to make their use habitual. Again, it is a part 
of the very remarkable ingenuity of the system that it applies 
to the uneducated and the educated alike. The man of slow 
intellect will, naturally, find the course more difficult than 
the man who owns a high degree of mental capacity ; but 
both will use the same methods. The requisite differentia- 
tion is made in the help given by means of the work-papers 
by the staff of the Pelman Institute. The answers to the 
questions set in the work-papers enable the members of the 
staff to give the student the particular advice he needs. The 
work-papers are examination papers, the answers to whose 
questions reveal to what purpose the student has read the 
books of the course ; but they are more. To answer the 
questions it is necessary that the student should use not 
merely his memory, but his reason ; and, therefore, his 
answers indicate the degree of his mental ability. Hence it 
is that a student may fail to answer a single question correctly, 
yet he may be receiving as much benefit from the exercise as 
a student who correctly answers all the questions. 
The Pelman System does not, except incidentally, impart 
information. It teaches the student how to gain the informa- 
tion he needs in the quickest way. And this practical ability 
is not acquired by learning a trick, but by consciously 
observing and following the natural laws which regulate the 
mind. The information in question may be practical or 
theoretical ; it may consist in technical practice, or in the 
results of observation, or in the knowledge to be gained from 
books ; the method of acquiring it is the same. 
And the Pelman System also teaches the student how to 
retain his knowledge. It teaches him how to remember. \ There 
are, of course, certain peculiar defects of memory which no 
system can cure. Nor can the Pelman System restore the 
failing memory of old age, though in many cases the course 
will improve it. But, apart from these exceptions, the 
system produces an extraordinary improvement in the power 
of memory. What is called a bad memory is usually due 
rather to mental indolence than to mental defect. The 
Pelman System shows the student how to overcome that 
indolence, and also teaches various methods, based upon the 
natural laws of association, each of which is devised to apply 
to a particular kind of knowledge ; as, for instance, signalling, 
the parts of a ship, identification of a ship's company, histori- 
cal events and their dates, and a scries of miscellaneous items. 
In middle life, when the energy of youth is waning, when 
the illusions of youth are dissolving, and when the hopes of 
youth are fading, a man tends to relax, both physically and 
mentally. His choice is determined, and the incentive of 
ambition has wasted away. Because he no longer makes the 
effort required to keep him in condition his muscles become 
soft, his chest narrows, his shoulders stoop, his latitude 
increases out of all proportion to his longitude. At the 
same time, his mental processes become stereotyped ; he 
becomes insusceptible to new ideas ; and he begins to lose 
initiative. It is for this reason that I have always advocated 
the making of admirals at a much younger age than the 
age at which captains are promoted under the present 
system. 
Now, as a course of physical training and continued physical 
exercise will restore the middle-aged to bodily efficiency 
and enable them to retain vigour and agility to extreme 
old age, so a course of mental training and continued mental 
exercise will restore the middle-aged to mental enterprise, 
perception, and initiative, enabling them to make fiill use of 
that experience which is their recompense for the loss of their 
youth. The Pelman System provides the course of mental 
training and teaches the method of continued exercises 
required. 
The test of the value of the Pelman System, like the test^ 
of the value of any other system, is the result. What is the 
testimony of the students who have taken the Course ? 
I have read many letters written by students when they 
have completed their course. These epistles are signed by 
men in every profession and trade, and in every rank of 
them. The Services contribute liters from admirals down 
ranks and ratings to ordinary seamen and stokers, and from 
generals to privates, and it is remarkable that almost without 
exception these documents affirm the benefit received by 
the \yriters from the Pelman Course of study. 
Many of the letters received by the Pelman Institute from 
the lower deck and from the ranks during the Course begin 
with an apology for delay in' sending . their work-papers. 
The seaman explains that just as he was sitting down in his 
mess to the work- his ship was ordered to sail, and he has 
since had no time to spare by day or by night. The soldier 
says that just as he was lying down in his dug-out and engaging 
in Pelmanism by the light of a solitary candle the Boche 
attacked, and after it was all over the soldier could not find 
his papers. But they stick to the Course in spite of all. 
The Pelman Institute, as I understand the matter, does not 
profess to work miracles. What it does profess to accomplish 
is to enable a man to make the best use of the abilities he 
already, consciously or unconsciously, possesses. The first 
condition of success is willingness to learn. The student 
