The Chairman. The meeting this evening has been called for the adjourned discussion upon the Prize Essay on Naval Education, by Lieut. Commander Brown. It may be well, therefore, to give a brief summary of the points presented by the essay.
The essay begins with the assumption that the education of a naval officer should begin at a school, and not as was formerly the case, on board cruising ships. This theory is now universally applied as far as I know, in the navies of the world. The German and Danish navies are only partial exceptions, in both of which a cadet begins his career by a short practice cruise in a training ship,—a very different matter from performing regular duties, at the outset, in the ships of the fleet.
For the Academy itself an alteration in the method of appointing cadets is proposed, involving a general application of the system of preliminary competition. Lt.-Commander Brown renews the admirable recommendation of Admiral Rodgers, to obviate the difficulties of the Academy consequent upon a large number of deficiencies, that a partial graduation should take place at the end of two years, after which only the best men should be retained for further instruction,—a plan that would secure only the best men for the service.
The subject of naval education is closely connected with that of organization; and accordingly the essay proposes some radical changes in this direction. The essential feature of the proposed plan, the corner-stone upon which the whole scheme is built up, is the absorption of the Engineer, Pay, and Marine Corps in the Line, and the performance of their duties by line officers, specially detailed for the purpose. To give them the needful training one year is to be added to the course at the Naval Academy, and the additional time thus gained is devoted to those studies which are now followed by engineers exclusively. A two years' cruise at sea is followed by a course in Torpedoes and Steam, at Newport, and by a further cruise as watch-officers. On the completion of this cruise, officers are to elect the special duty for which they desire to be detailed. If they make no such election, their career remains the same as that of the present line officers. If they elect pay duties or marine duties, they are assigned accordingly to ships and shore stations. If they elect engineer duties, they return to Annapolis for a two years' course in Steam-Engineering; after which they are ready to be detailed for service in the capacity of engineers. They do not, however, lose their character as line officers, or their place on the list; and they revert to the duties of the line, on their promotion to the higher grades.
Three permanent corps are established, the Engineer, Pay and Marine Corps, with officers of the grades of Lt.-Commander and above; and vacancies in these corps are filled by competitive examination among those line officers who have served two details at sea, in performing the duties of one or another branch of the staff. In the permanent Engineer Corps are also included the Constructors; and officers in the two lower grades of this corps are to be sent to sea.
The changes in organization are to be begun by the cessation of all appointments in the lower grades of the staff corps, and the extinction of the upper grades by the natural process. To hasten the change, however, an option is given to the present Passed Assistant and Assistant Engineers of the relative rank of Lieutenant, Master and Ensign of remaining in their corps, or of being admitted to the line, upon passing the regular line officer's examination for promotion to the grade in question. If, however, they fail in the examination or decline it, their promotion ceases beyond the grade of Passed Assistant Engineer; and if they pass they are placed at the foot of the grade into which they are admitted. It can hardly be denied that such a provision would operate with excessive rigor upon these officers, especially upon those who are now Passed Assistants, with the rank of Lieutenant. They are men of mature age,—some of them upward of 40,—and their prospect of promotion is a vested light, which they have long and justly counted upon. It is proposed either to take away tin's right of promotion or to make it contingent upon passing one of two examinations: the first, a competitive examination for the permanent corps, from which many men will necessarily be excluded; the second, a test examination for the line, in seamanship, gunnery and navigation,—three comprehensive subjects, which are, to a great extent outside of their professional training; and this at a time of life when a knowledge of new subjects is not readily acquired. And if they succeed in passing this difficult test, they are to be placed at the foot of the list of Lieutenants, two hundred and eighty in number, most of whom are ten years their juniors in age, and all of whom are their juniors in rank. Perhaps the simplest method of avoiding this measure would be to allow the Engineer Corps to be extinguished by natural causes, in the way proposed for the pay and marine corps.
With regard to the Education of Men, the essay is confined to a general approval of the apprentice system, to a recommendation that machinists should become Warrant Officers, and to suggestions as to Messes and Cooks, and the duties of marines on shipboard.
Scull are the principal features of the plan proposed in the prize essay, and it is to be hoped that they will receive the fullest and freest discussion.
Lieut.-Comdr. Goodrich. Discussion implies difference of opinion. It will be seen, however, that my own tentative solution of the problem of Naval Education is, in its better features, mainly a modified repetition of most of Lieut. Commander Brown's statements and suggestions, so that I find myself rather lacking in pegs upon which to hang objections.
Nevertheless, there are one or two points upon which, in particular, I can not entirely agree with the essayist.
First, as to the necessity of what he styles the permanent portion of the Pay Corps.
It appears to me that, ultimately, it will be a very simple matter to secure most able administrators of what is now the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, from the Line of the Navy. It has been said that progress is simplification. I see nothing to convince me that, under the now order of things, the Pay Corps as such will not be wholly superfluous.
Secondly, while at one with the essayist as to the desirability of at once beginning the move which will gradually result in the absorption of the Engineer's function by the Line, I confess to entertaining a grave doubt as to the justice to the Midshipman graduate of the Naval Academy of summarily putting a number of men in between him and the higher grades of the service. Did not the condition of affairs, at the time of his entrance into the Navy, involve a tacit agreement that such things as this, at all events, should not be done to lessen the value of the prize held out to him?
Thirdly, I take it for granted that the Commander Engineer is not to go to sea in command. I had hoped that the number of officers of high grade on board one ship would be lessened materially through this essay.
I have been thus frank that I might with more weight add to the essayist's remarks upon the course of Instruction at the Torpedo Station, the further suggestions, that the subject should be included in examinations for promotion and that, in view of the constant changes in this branch of naval warfare, all Lieutenant Commander’s should pursue a course (a second one if necessary) before receiving their Commander’s commissions.
The proposed officering of the Marine Corps and the increase in the number of marines allotted to a vessel must be regarded as a happily contrived scheme for increasing the efficiency of both guard and ship; I say nothing of the material comfort introduced. The change in the status of machinists is merely the recognition that something must be done to attract to and retain in the service, men who are really worth the liberal wages now so often squandered on inefficient and intemperate bunglers.
I am sure that the objections urged in the discussion will as a rule be directed against the details rather than against the plan as a whole. That plan will be felt to embody the wants and aspirations of the service at large and will be welcomed not only for its immediate value as a permanent and important contribution to the literature of our profession. I sincerely hope the time is not far distant when we shall all rejoice in belonging to a homogeneous Navy modeled largely, if not entirely, according to the suggestions of this essay.
Passed Assistant Engineer Robinson. It was with a great deal of pleasure that I listened to the valuable, and interesting paper on Naval Education read by Lieut.-Commander Brown before the Institute, Thursday evening, March 27.
It is a well established fact, by comparing the present with the past, that to increase the education of the naval officer is to increase the efficiency of the navy; and it is equally apparent that any improvement in the education of the naval officer, should not be continued to one class of officers, but should be extended to all, with such modifications as the special nature of their respective duties might demand.
I deem the major part of Mr. Brown's essay as worthy of the greatest consideration, and as being an important step in the right direction, although there are some points on which we must disagree; and as they are mostly concerning that part of the naval organization in which I am professionally interested, I will continue my remarks mostly to them, touching slightly upon matters of general interest, and leaving the representative men of the other branches of the service to take care of their part. I cannot see any just reason, however, why the Surgeons should be an exception to the general scheme of naval education. Why should not the young naval medical student be instructed as well in the service, as out of it? Is it because the senior medical officers of the navy are incapable of teaching them? I think not, and believe that they would receive a better training for that special kind of service in which they are expected to distinguish themselves, than they do at outside institutions; and that the establishment of a naval medical college or department at the naval academy would be of advantage to the service, and require very few more officers to conduct it, than are required to perform the present duty. Four years at such a school, where they would receive the benefit of the experience of naval surgeons, would certainly better qualify them for the service, than two years at any outside college, which I think is ample time to obtain a diploma at the most of them.
England, if I am not misinformed, has a military medical college at “Netley “ on Southampton Water, where the medical officers are instructed for both the army and navy.
Mr. Brown shows how the officers of the navy are divided into line and stall; sets forth in detail who belong to the latter class; then reduces his system down to the education of one class of officers, and these are required to know about everything worth knowing.
From this class are to be detailed officers to perform the duties of Paymaster, Engineer, Constructor, Navigator, &c., as may be required in “a manner to conduce to the harmony of the service, and the good of the country.” As to whether this system would eradicate the implied want of harmony in the service—which we recognize as that existing between line and staff, or not—is an open question.
I believe that it would to a certain extent, but not wholly. It would in this way; the officers, for instance, performing duty in the engineer's department, would be drawn from the same original source as those performing duty on deck; consequently, the latter would have less desire to interfere, and the former would possess greater ability to resent encroachment. And in addition to this, the commanding officer, in deciding points of disagreement that might arise, would not be influenced by the prejudices that now exist; and the representative staff officer would not have to seek justice at the hands of a hostile commanding officer.
Cases of interference would arise then, as they do now, probably not so frequently, and they would be more easily settled on the basis of right and wrong, instead of corps prejudices.
There is a way of producing harmony in the service between line and staff, a very simple one, one that is much desired by staff officers, and one that could be easily brought about, as I shall endeavor to show further on. I believe with Mr. Brown, that the duties now performed by the Paymasters, could very readily be performed by other officers, for instance, the lieutenants, with very little extra training; but whether this would be a wise policy or not, I will leave for wiser heads than mine, or for the guardians of the public funds to determine.
Paymasters, at times, have in their possession large amounts of public money, and as human nature is weak, the Navy Department has found it necessary to place them under heavy bonds. As we have no right to expect a higher standard of honesty among the line officers than among the paymasters, they, too, would have to give bonds when detailed to perform this responsible duty. But the department might experience some difficulty in compelling an officer to give bonds in this case. What if he declines and says, “I will perform the duty but not give bonds” I see no way of compelling him to do so.
Should this scheme be deemed advisable, it would only be necessary to add to the course of study at the Naval Academy, book keeping; this should be of a character to suit naval accounts, and should be taught to: both the cadet engineers, and cadet midshipmen.
The number of officers of the Pay corps is so small, that such a change could be brought about in a few years, without injury to any one, by stopping appointments to that corps at once.
Officers to perform the duties of Marine Officers on board of ships, could very readily be detailed from the line, and they would require very little, if any, special training, as they already perform the same sort of duty. Thus the present method of furnishing vessels with marine officers, could be allowed to die out, but with it the “esprit de corps” of that branch of the service, and much of the military character of a man-of-war.
I do not think that the proposed Jack-of-all-trade system would conduce to the good of the country.
The example of progress in the sciences and mechanical professions shows, distinctly, that the tendency is towards specialties, and to this tendency is due the vast strides in improvement and invention.
No one head is capable of holding all that Mr. Brown has shown to be necessary to the efficient line officer, in addition to what is required by an engineer to keep up to the times in his profession, even without adding to the country's good by original production.
I have found that there is more in my profession than I am able to master, and I believe that the line officer will rind all that he can manage if he follows the program laid out, without attempting to become a competent Engineer. I do not wish to be understood as opposing the system of instructing line officers in steam engineering. I believe the decision to give midshipmen a course on marine engines a wise one. it has been my experience, and I know it has been the experience of many others of the corps, that the commanding or other line officers who possessed a good knowledge of the steam engine, were the easiest to get along with, the least likely to interfere, and are not the ones to give orders to the chief engineer to carry twelve pounds of steam on one boiler and twenty pounds on the other to favor the weaker boiler; nor to scrub his engine room floor plates with sand and canvas. Such an officer would say “I want to do so and so; you know best how to do it, go ahead and do it;” thus trusting to the engineer to manipulate his boilers and engines to the best advantage, and it would be done; for there is no better method of making efficient naval officers, either line or stall”, than to place confidence in them, and hold them responsible for the result; and there is no better way of making timid officers than to show a lack of confidence in them.
To return to the subject of professional qualifications, it seems to me that the naval constructor, who makes himself master of all the methods of designing, laying down and constructing iron and wooden ships, and keeps up with the progress of other countries in this particular, has no time to become proficient in navigation and seamanship; if he has, the time might be well spent in seeking improvement in our present methods of ship building, as there seems to be some room in that direction.
I would therefore reduce the classes of officers to be educated at the Naval Academy to the line and the engineers; possibly the surgeons. From the line would be detailed the officers to command the Marines on board ships, and from the engineers would be selected the constructors, consulting as far as possible the natural inclination of the cadet.
The pay officer for the cruise might be detailed from either the line or the engineers as their qualifications in that particular would be the same.
The present course of instruction at the Naval Academy, though a good one, I believe, with Mr. Brown, could be materially improved. A good practical course on Iron Ship Building should be added to the Department of Steam Engineering, with the means of building a small vessel.
The addition of another year to the course, might be of advantage as the time seems too short to accomplish all that is desired. That some alterations are necessary in the present program of studies, seems to be a fact recognized by many of the instructors.
In all studies not professional the cadet engineers and cadet midshipmen should be as one class, and the cadet engineers should participate in all military drills, except during the last year when they should be excused from all drills, the time being given to shop service.
I see no good reason why the cadet engineers should not participate in the boat drills; if there is any reason why an engineer should not know how to pull or sail a boat, I am ignorant of it. It has been my lot to have to take charge of a boat a great many times during my career of nearly eighteen years in the service, and at first I experienced great inconvenience from the want of knowledge of the subject.
The last two years of the course should be confined as far as possible to professional studies and practical exercises.
The method of appointment, accompanied by a competitive examination is a good one; and the idea of a two years preliminary course prior to the selections for the service is an excellent one, as it would most assuredly obtain for the service the best material to be had.
The proposed plan of absorbing the engineers and constructors by the line, I consider impracticable, unnecessary and undesirable, for reasons already set forth. It would not only fail to conduce to the country's good, but would work a palpable injury to the service from which it would take years to recover. Allowing the average ability in the engineer corps to be near that of the line, what benefit could the country obtain by replacing officers of from fifteen to twenty years practical experience and hard study by others of but a few weeks of elementary instruction. It would largely increase the number of line officers, and with it their prestige and power, and would practically destroy the engineer corps as an organization.
To bring about this state of affairs, Mr. Brown proposes a system of amalgamation. We will examine this method and see what effect it would have upon the present engineer corps.
Mr. Brown says, “as regards the engineer corps we may well take a lesson from the French Service. The engineers should be the Corps d'elite.'' The scientific men of the service should there find their appropriate place. They should be also the constructors, uniting in their corps the offices of designing and construction of vessels, as well as the machinery to propel them.”
This sounds excellent. He then proceeds to establish what he terms the permanent portion of the corps, consisting of one ( 1) Rear Admiral—Engineer in Chief; two (2) Commodores—General Inspectors—for the Bureaus of Engineering and Construction; twelve (12) Captains for Constructors and supervisors of engineering works outside; twelve ( 12) Commanders for Chief Engineers of the Yards, and twenty-five (25) Lieutenant Commanders to be Chief Engineers of first and second rate ships and to assist the Chief Engineers and Constructors at the yards; as there are usually more than twenty-five first and second rate ships in commission it would be difficult to provide for them, and render much assistance to the Chiefs at the Yards, without considering the subject of reliefs. However, he thus provides for fifty-two (52) of the seventy (70) Chief Engineers now in the service, and does not say what is to be done with the rest. These inducements might tingle in the ears of the older chiefs, and secure for the line an able ally to work the destruction of the lower grades, but we will hope for something better.
Leaving eighteen (18) Chief Engineers with the rank of Lieutenant Commander unprovided for, we will proceed to examine the proposed method of disposing of the Passed Assistant Engineers with the rank of Lieutenant of which there are over eighty (80), at present. Over seventy (70) of these are entitled to their promotion to the grade of Lieutenant Commander in their own Corps by the regulation under which they entered, and have been for many years. Nearly one half of them entered the active service in the year 1861 as contemporaries of over thirty (30) of the present commanders of the line, and with them rendered the country good service during the late war, but fell far short of receiving corresponding rewards.
It is proposed to examine these officers with a view of transferring them to the line, a branch entirely different from the one in which they have been trained; and if they fail to pass the examination, promotion ceases, disregarding their qualifications to perform the duties of their own corps, and they are virtually retired, if not actually driven out of the service, at a time in life too far advanced to commence another profession, and entirely unfitted by their naval life to embark in any such adventure.
They would be required to pass the examination now passed by a master—one entirely unprofessional to them, and if they were successful what might they expect? Judging from the example of the volunteer officers who were transferred to the regular line after the war, they might expect to be placed at the foot of the list of over three hundred lieutenants, and junior to hundreds of officers whose whole time of active service is less than that which many of the Passed Assistant Engineers have already been entitled to their promotion to the grade of Lieutenant Commander.
If they fail to pass the examination, promotion ceases by virtue of their failure; if they pass, promotion is placed so far off that not a single one would live to reach it.
Where is the inducement for a man of forty-five, to enter the school of navigation and seamanship for the purpose of competing with the young man fresh from the Naval Academy? I think but few would attempt it.
Having passed the examination successfully, and been accepted as junior lieutenants in the line, they are to be detailed back to perform the very same duties they now perform, and wherein has it conduced to the good of the country? It certainly has not conduced to the good of the officer most interested.
Returning to the subject of restoring harmony in the service, it occurs to me that the first thing necessary is for every officer to render his individual assistance. Let the line cease to term the staff civil adjuncts, non combatants &c , and recognize the inevitable truth that in a military organization all things are military.
Two officers appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, receiving commissions struck from the same block, with the necessary blanks tilled in with their names and respective professions, cannot differ much in their military status.
I fail to see why the officer who gives the order to the man who turns the wheel, to make the ship go starboard or port, is any more military than the officer who gives the orders to the man who turns the wheel to make her go fast or slow, or why the officer who gives the orders to the man who manipulates the machinery to train the gun, is any more military than the officer who gives the orders to the men who manipulate the machinery to turn the turret that contains the gun, or why the man who shovels coal into the furnace during action is less military than the one who shovels powder into the cartridge.
The duties on board ship should be well defined, and no officer should be allowed to encroach upon the legitimate grounds of another. Let the line officers, navigate, sail, and police the ship, the engineer, engineer her, the paymaster perform his duties as commissary and paymaster, and the surgeon exercise his sanitary functions as health officer. Let the commanding officer decide impartially by the law of the land, and hold the head of each department responsible for the efficiency of that department, as he alone is responsible to the Secretary of the Navy for the efficiency of his ship.
As the Bureaus in the Navy Department are to the Secretary of the Navy so should their official representatives on board ship be to the commanding officer.
Due respect should be shown to seniority, whether of line or staff; and the controlling influence should be based upon equal rights, justice and impartiality.
Let this system be adopted and I venture to say that harmony would be restored and contentions between line and staff would cease.
A word more concerning the proposed method of furnishing firemen, and I will close my part of the discussion, which has already assumed dimensions beyond my anticipations. Firing may not belong to that kind of labor called skilled, but there are certainly skilled firemen, although they are scarce in the navy, owing to the system of seamen and ordinary seamen extra, with reduced pay when not actually steaming. After the introduction of this plan, I am confident that seventy-five per cent, of the best firemen in the navy at the time never reenlisted, but sought employment in the merchant service. Some of them have been induced to return during the last two or three years by a partial return to the old system. The difference between good and bad faring has a remarkable effect on the coal pile, a fact familiar to every engineer. Firing is almost a trade, men follow it as a profession, and take pride in their ability to handle a fire to the best advantage. Such men abhor the duties of seamen, as a good seaman does those of firemen.
By the introduction of the plan referred to above, the government saved a few dollars on the firemen's pay but lost many times that amount in the expenditure of coal, due to incompetent firing.
The proposed plan of sending seamen into the fire room to do the firing when required would certainly increase this element of expense, add greatly to the inconvenience and embarrassment of the engineers' department, and add nothing to the welfare of the ship, nor to the service at large, except so far as it contributed to the system of general amalgamation, with a view to having but one class of beings on board of the vessel at sea.
Comdr. Mahan: Before making certain comments and criticisms on the Prize Essay which was read before us a fortnight ago, I wish first to express my own concurrence, in the main, with the general plan laid out in it. I adopt heartily as my own the words which I am about to read from it, and which, less ably expressed but otherwise almost verbatim, occurred in an essay which I had myself the honor to lay before the examiners.
“I assume the broad principle that (with the exception of the Medical officer and the Chaplain) every officer on board ship should be a combatant sea-officer, a graduate of the Naval Academy, an efficient addition to the strength of the ship's company, in lieu of the present plan, by which many persons of the ship's complement are unskilled and untrained in the use of arms.”
And here I may say that I trust, however much at first sight the idea may be distasteful to individuals, that they will endeavor to lay aside prejudice, and to weigh carefully the proposition placed before them, as well as their own arguments against it. As instancing what I deprecate, I may cite words that occur in a letter which I lately received from an officer of sound judgment and much ability: I have not yet” he says “had time carefully to read the essay, but I don't myself believe in the jack-of-all-trades business.”
I believe this particular officer will give consideration, but I fear many will dismiss the subject with some such ad captandum argument; I know of one who did so. But we must beware of taking a proverb as an argument, however valuable as an illustration or a simile.
For let us consider just what we are in the Navy now; of how many trades even now are we jacks. Take the matter of sending men ashore as soldiers, are we masters of that trade strictly? Take the matter of law; of that we must know enough for courts-martial and for certain phases of international and prize law: but are we masters of law? If the fair meaning of the word jack be as I take it, to have a useful but not an exhaustive knowledge of any pursuit or handicraft, then we have now to be jacks in many businesses—e.g.: Astronomy, Naval Construction, Electricity etc. It does not follow that because jacks at many we will be master of none. We must not be satisfied without being master in two things, viz.; the handling of our ships and the using of our guns; there our knowledge must be minute, comprehensive, thorough. But I see no reason that being jacks at all the others, and able to manage a steam engine to boot, need hinder us from being master of the one trade which is peculiarly ours.
In this connection tin; peculiar necessity of our own navy must not be left out of sight. With no coaling stations abroad, we are not yet in sight of the day when we can largely do without canvas. Our ships must for long both steam and sail. The younger officers can therefore be fleeted from the forecastle and quarter deck to the engine room, according to the circumstances, with great advantage; and if the distinction between the engineer and the line corps be done away, pride, instead of distaste as heretofore, will be felt in the management of the engines as wide as of the deck. I myself firmly believe that among the lads now here at the school are to be found a plenty who, with suitable instructions and practice, would within the six years of cadetship became equally valuable, (and by that I don't mean of no use at all), in the engine room and aloft repairing machinery or handling a boat. If this be so, and this is the gist of the whole matter, incalculable in many ways would be the benefit to the service of the change advocated.
As regards the paymaster's duties, the matter to me admits of no argument. The instances that have come to my knowledge convince me that a young line officer can pick up those duties rapidly and do them thoroughly well.
Having thus had the pleasure of stating my agreement with the essayist on the main issue, I proceed to state certain points, of detail yet essential, in which I differ from him.
First: as to competitive examinations for admission to the school.
My distrust of competitive examinations dates back to my early knowledge of our military school. While the methods of that school are antiquated possibly as compared with some of ours, still, while we claim the merits of youth, we must admit that we have not yet had the opportunity of proving the advantages of our training in the brilliant manner which was offered to the elder institution, though the youth of our graduates, I believe, alone prevented their furnishing such a brilliant array of names as was furnished by West Point soldiers, on both sides, in the late war. The West Point system, if antiquated, has had the crown of success; and of that system unless I greatly mistake competitive examinations and a high standard for admission did not form a part. I remember hearing one of the oldest professors there say that on the whole they were better satisfied to have the youths come knowing little, (a low standard in other words); and as he had not to do with the entering classes he probably spoke the views of his colleagues who had. At all events, whatever the theory, for many years the practice was such.
And after all what does a competitive examination for admission prove? Nothing; except that a boy when you begin his naval training knows so much. It does not prove brains, nor energy, nor perseverance, nor pluck. It only shows who has had the most schooling, or perhaps the most recent judicious and thorough cramming. We all see that clearly enough here at the final examination of graduates; what is that but a competitive examination? And don't we all cry out about that counting too much in comparison with the four years course at the school? Rightly we so do, I think; and yet that at least comes at the end of their naval training to establish rank, while the competitive examination at the beginning really establishes nothing beyond how much a boy has had shoved into his head.
We have, however, here at the school some data for comparing the two systems, although, from the few years that competitive examinations have obtained, the results are not exhaustive of the matter. The cadet midshipmen are appointed without competition, and have a low standard for admission and are younger. The cadet engineers are appointed by competitive examinations, the best twenty-live among all comers; the standards much higher, and they are older.
To institute a comparison I have taken those studies which being pursued in common are also considered to be the most difficult. In these I take the percentage, out of those who pass at all, that obtain a mark of 3; which by the marking of the Academy indicates ''good.” I do not take the percentage of those who enter, but of those who pass; because the many who fail and fall by the way do not affect the service of the Government; except by the money they cost. Under a strict rule, this is comparatively little, as they generally drop out in the first few months. The first classes between which the comparison can be made are those which graduated after a four years' course in June, 1878.
The average age on admission of cadet midshipmen was 16.5 years; the average age of cadet engineers of the same class, 18.5.
The very great fall in the percentage of cadet mids attaining the standard adopted by me for comparison, between the fourth and third class year in this class, led me to seek a probable cause. I found then that there appeared on the class list thirteen names which did not appear in the list of those who passed the year before. These names represent cadets who had been found deficient or dismissed, or turned back: names which in every case, without a single exception, swelled the total of the class without once adding a unit to the number who had gotten a 3 in Mathematics. One alone of the thirteen attained a 3 in Chemistry. If we allow for these additions to the class the percentage in Mathematics rises to 51, in Chemistry to 44. The same class of engineer cadets suffered the addition of only one incompetent to their number.
Considering that the cadet engineers are from eighteen months to two years older class for class, than the cadet midshipmen, a very undoubted advantage, the run of the percentages may be fairly claimed to show, as far as they go. that no reliance can be placed upon competitive examination to indicate mental capacity, or future attainments.
This may however be even more satisfactorily shown by comparing the standings; of cadet engineers, as assigned on admission with that maintained through the course. For this purpose I take the first five of successive classes, as established by the competitive examination for admission, and follow them through the course.
In this last class admitted by competitive examination among 69, there is no star number; among the cadet midshipmen of the same class there are three stars, although the disparity of years is greater than usual; engineers 19.0, midshipmen 16.8. It is true the class of the latter is much larger, numbering on admission 120; but it is to be remembered that the class of engineers represent, if the competitive examination is good for any thing, which I doubt, the best 25 in 69.
Finally, time permitted me to make only one more comparison, with reference only to this last class of cadet engineers. I give below the standing
on admission of those who stood first five after a year of Academical
training.
Class of 1881.
Standing at the end of 1st year. Passed on admission.
1878. 1877.
1 8
2 13
3 19
4 a turn back from previous year.
5 22
It seems likely that some of the best men of the 69 were actually rejected by the competitive examination.
I do not, however, argue that a competitive examination is a worse system than mere favor, for admission to a naval career. I contend merely that it is no better, and I think the above figures, though limited in extent from the nature of the case, go strongly to support the a priori probability that competitive examination for admission to a course of naval training will not get better men than chance does.
But if so why not acquiesce in the examination, the more so because, as the essayist says, the chance of obtaining an appointment is thereby extended largely and embraces many who would have no claim on political favor? If I have no answer to this I must lose my case, but I think I have a good one. Although examination determines nothing of value, not even brain capacity, yet there are qualities, recognizable in boyhood, from which one can safely infer success as a naval officer. Courage, enterprise, leadership among comrades, perseverance, staying power, such moral qualities joined with bodily vigor, give the assured promise of the good officer. Such a standard I would hold up, as far as possible, before those in whose hands the appointments lie, hoping that in time a sound public opinion would be formed. Meanwhile I would not tie the hands of any, who should wish to exercise their power judiciously, by forcing them to adopt a system which will give no better results than simple favor.
After all, there is about competitive examination, as about many other good things, a great deal of cant. To choose a grown man to be ready instanter for some special work a competitive examination is probably very well; but it does not follow that it is equally, or at all, useful in selecting lads to begin their education for the sea.
I must touch hastily and slightly upon the other points in which I differ from the essayist.
A course of five years appears to me too long. The only circumstances under which it could recommend itself to my judgment would be when accompanied by a reduction of the maximum age for admission from eighteen to sixteen years, or even to fifteen. A yet better provision perhaps would be that none should graduate over twenty one. Under the proposed plan some midshipmen would leave the Academy for a steerage at twenty-three and would only be eligible for the lowest commission at twenty-five.
Many of the studies proposed, however suitable for a corps d'elite, are unduly difficult and will be practically useless to the ordinary sea officer.
Notwithstanding the high authorities quoted I do not fully agree with the plan of detailing line officers in turn for staff duties. It may be well for the army, I don't think well of it for the Navy. I should rather advocate fitting every officer fin-deck and engine room work; to this let individuals add, and stick to, some one specialty; one a paymaster, another a marine officer, &c., until they reach the position of executive officer and captain.
The proposition of the essayist for dealing with the present grade of Passed Assistant Engineers appears to me wholly impracticable and unjust. Granting that these gentlemen could pass a satisfactory examination of the kind suggested, it is not fair to ask it of them, still less to require them, it the age they have now attained, to enter upon wholly novel duties, I have already stated emphatically my accord with the essayist’s general plan; modified in detail I should like to see it go into instant operation. But its fruits are for that future in which our contemporaries will he on the retired list. The present organization must go on until the gradual passing away of its members. one by one, shall leave the ground clear for the new; as the first set of teeth make way for the second.
My last objection is to a suggestion which I regret that the essayist should have introduced as it is not germane to the matter in hand. I do not think it conducive to discipline that the commanding officer should mess with the others. During a pretty long experience as first lieutenant, I have always found the hardest duty to be done was by messmates. A commanding officer, too, has at times to act in a judicial capacity for which lie is not likely to be made more lit, by being brought into close original contact with the matters in dispute. I am sorry, as I said, that the essayist should have introduced the suggestion; for in stating my objection I have been obliged to touch, however remotely, our line and staff trouble, any allusion to which, beyond a hope that the plan of the essayist may remedy it, is wholly out of place in the meetings of this Institute.
Passed Asst. Eng. Manning. I would like to ask Mr. Brown if it would not be a more logical method of combining the corps to examine the Lieutenants for Passed Asst. Engineers, as it certainly is not contemplated to detail any of the present Engineers for duties now performed by the Lieutenants, but to detail Lieutenants to do the duties of Engineers.
Lieut.-Comdr. Brown. I did not propose that lieutenants should be eligible to compete for promotion to the higher grades of the Engineer corps until they had qualified, for I say in the essay that all the courses mentioned should be thrown open to line officers, and that “the detailed portion of the corps should be line officers who had specially qualified.” While on this point I would refer to what has been said as to the stoppage of promotion of Passed Assistant Engineers. I think my idea has been mistaken, for all of them would have a chance to compete for a vacancy in the next grade so that the best men among them would be promoted, without regard to seniority; and some of them do not stand any very great chance of promotion now owing to their age, so that to a certain extent the prospects of the best men would be improved. As we are on the question of the engineer corps now, I would like to say that I do not think the essay implies that there shall be a shifting from deck to fire room of the firemen as was stated a few moments ago; but that the firemen shall be seamen first, graduates of the apprentice ships. With regard to the matter of the pay of these men, they receive when on board sea-going vessels the pay of their grade whether steaming or not. They have been considered as occupying the position of petty officers on board ship; and as the other petty officers receive only seaman's pay when on board the receiving ships, I think it no more than fair that the firemen, who are doing none of the duty of their rates, should receive the same amount.
Passed Assistant Engineer Manning. I would like to ask Commander Mahan if the relative percentage of graduates under the two systems sustains his position?
Commander Mahan. There are not enough statistics to determine that question: I have taken as a standard 3, which means “good” not considering anything below that as indicating more than that tolerable degree of proficiency which permits a man to pass. I think that a complimentary 2.5 is not seldom given, as there is certainly no desire to bilge anybody if it can be avoided.
Commander Greene. It must be remembered that of the classes spoken of but one has graduated, so that no fair comparison can yet be made with regard to the percentage of graduations to entries.
Passed Asst. Eng. Manning. As to the circumstances under which a “2.5” is given, they are as likely to occur with those who have entered under the standard examination as under the competitive, and if
Commander Mahan will examine the records; I think he will find that of those who enter by the standard only about thirty-three per cent graduate and of those who enter by the competitive system about ninety per cent, graduate, and that with a much more difficult course during the last year. I do not believe we always get the best twenty-five of those who compete, but that we come nearer to it than by any other method.
As to Mr. Brown's project of recruiting the Line, Pay, Marine and Engineer Corps from one common source, no one would object; and I, for one, think it an excellent plan; but they must be separated much earlier into their respective corps than Mr. Brown proposes; either at the end of the two years preparatory course or at latest on their promotion to the grade of Ensign.
From those who choose Engineering should be selected the best for Constructors and designing Engineers but not till they had made at least one three years' cruise at sea as watch engineers, for no man is fit to design a vessel or her machinery till he has been to sea long enough to know what is needed; for we have all had too much experience with vessels designed by men who have never been to sea.
Mr. Brown, a few minutes since intimated that his plan improved the prospects of the Passed Assistant Engineers for promotion and that as it is now, many of them reach sixty-two years of age before there is a vacancy for them as Chief Engineers This is rather a dark view of the prospects, but it must be admitted they are not particularly bright, as for instance there will be by the regular order of things, a vacancy for me as a Chief Engineer in twenty years lacking a few months; but dark as is the prospect, most of us older men would prefer taking our chances where we are than to join another corps at the foot of a list part of whom we have assisted to educate at the Academy.
And how would the country benefit by this mixture of shot and peas, and then sorting out the peas again? Certainly you cannot make shot of peas or peas of shot by any such method; the best that might be expected from any such mixing and sorting is that a few of the most incompetent Engineers might be replaced by some of the best Lieutenants of the line who are of more value to the country and the service where they are.
I would instead make the education of line officers in practical engineering much more thorough than it is, as any one who is to command a steam ship should know all about her. The junior line officers at sea should stand engine and fire room watches, not as has been the custom in the service merely as lookers on, but with responsible duties.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Goodrich both recommend giving Machinists warrants, which I think would be a grave mistake. Increase their comforts as much as possible, give them quarters such as now occupied by the forward officers (who with the exception of Boatswain could well be dispensed with on our Third & Fourth Rates) but do not make officers of them, for then you destroy their usefulness as skilled mechanics and defeat the very object for which they were created. Make their appointments continuous by giving them a share of shore duty at Navy Yards, caring for and repairing vessels in ordinary. Giving them warrants would be but commencing the Engineer corps over again; for in the first Naval steamers the Assistant Engineers were what Machinists would be if warranted and with this recommencement of the Engineer Corps would begin again all their discontent; for we have been told that the Engineer Corps is eminently a discontented one, and I acknowledge that it has always been so; and this very discontent, with the help of rigid examinations, has been its salvation. It has never folded its hands with the comfortable assurance that it knew all worth knowing, but has ever striven for professional advancement. Why repeat this evolution when the corps can be better recruited in other ways?
I remember soon after entering the service, hearing an old Commodore say, that “if you compared the average Naval Academy graduate with a newly appointed 3d Assistant Engineer the Midshipman would know the more of the two, but two years later this would be reversed, in a large majority of cases.”
This has been remedied of late years by the adoption of examinations for promotion in the line and I think Mr. Brown should add to his scheme of education, as an important item, rigid examinations in all corps, at least to the grade of Commander.
As to Mr. Brown's project for firemen he must remember that the handling of fire tools is but a part of their duties, that it is when fires are hauled that some of the most important duties of the firemen commence. If such of the Apprentices as evince mechanical tastes could spend two or three years as laborers in the Navy Yard Machine shops they would then make excellent recruits for the fire room.
Master Clason. I should like to say a few words in reference to the assimilation of those Naval Constructors now in the service, and the education of those who are to replace them, as proposed by Lieut. Comdr. Brown.
In reference to those officers now in the service, it is proposed that, 1st. “No more appointments to the grade of Assistant Naval Constructor should be made, and no promotion to the grade of Naval Constructor.” That no more appointments should be made to Assistant Naval Constructor is, I think, a step in the right direction: to stop the promotion of those occupying that position (5 only) seems unnecessary and unfair. 2ndly. “Competent Chief Engineers should be allowed to enter upon the duties of Constructors, and inducements offered to the present Constructors to retire.”
The question naturally arises; can any Chief Engineer, or any one, not especially trained for the purpose, be competent to take the place of a Constructor, or can he easily acquire the necessary knowledge and skill?—I think not!
At the Naval Academy we teach the Cadet Midshipmen to handle the marlinspike, the oar and the sail; the Cadet Engineer to handle the hammer, the lathe and the engine; but where is the Naval Constructor taught to handle the saw, the adze, the auger? And yet such teaching he must have. Where are our Chief Engineers to get it; and are there sufficient inducements offered them to acquire such knowledge? The Naval Constructor must, in the words of Boyd, learn “by practice; he needs certain qualities of head, eye, character and constitution not easily nor quickly acquired but, therefore proportionately valuable.”
I think it better, therefore, not to interfere with the Naval Constructors now on the list, but to stop all further appointments and immediately prepare new material to fill any and all vacancies.
As to how this new material 'might be prepared, I am not competent to give more than a rough sketch, but I propose;
1st. An Academic Course, either as it is, or as proposed by Lieut. Commander Brown. A two years cruise, after graduation, as proposed by the same gentleman.
2ndly. Take, then, such as desire to pursue this course, either from the service at large, or from the newly commissioned Ensigns, and let them be taught at a Navy Yard, where Construction is actually going on and where there are more opportunities for observation than at Annapolis or Newport, and where the expense of establishing such a school would also be less. The courses to be three, or more, years as might be necessary to gain a complete practical and theoretical knowledge of the subject, to be followed by a searching examination, those failing to be returned to the service, where their knowledge would always be of some use, those passing successfully, to take one cruise; then to be detailed to the various yards, as needed; while serving on such detail to have an increase of 10 per cent added to their pay; on a vacancy occurring in the higher grades, the position to be filled by seniority, or by competitive examination, as might be judged best for the interests of the service.
Master Staunton. I rise with considerable hesitation and diffidence to give my views on this essay especially as they involve an unfavorable criticism of some parts of it, and as the weight of expressed opinion here this evening has been against the opinions that I am about to advance. But no topic of greater importance can come before the Institute for discussion than the topic of this essay: and if the voice of the Institute is to have any weight in the future decision of this question, the discussion should be free and ample, and any opinion, however diffidently expressed, may be placed upon record and judged by its merits.
Lt.-Commander Brown has taken for his motto “who does not progress, goes backward,” but it seems to me that in his plan of naval education and reorganization, he has denied the accepted application of his own motto in all other learned and scientific professions. Instead of limiting individual application, he extends it. Instead of directing individual effort to advancement in specialties, he spreads it over a still wider field. In other professions it is thought that progress lies in a different direction. Lawyers devote themselves, some to real estate practice, others to the practice of commercial law, still others to different branches of jurisprudence; and they attain celebrity in their special departments at the expense of their knowledge of others. The best medical men are specialists. A country physician may set a broken leg or doctor a diseased eye; but if the fracture is a bad one, or loss of sight be threatened, we apply to the city expert.
It may be said, and I confess the accuracy of the statement, that the Naval profession differs from those civil professions to which I have referred. It does differ in a marked degree; but not to the extent of denying the application of this general principle. A man can certainly learn both ordnance and mechanical engineering; but he is not as likely to become an expert in either as if he applied himself exclusively to one. It is not the question of time so much as that of diverted attention and interest. Success demands concentration.
The profession of the line officer as it stands to-day is so comprehensive that the most ambitious and best minds of the service devote themselves to special branches of it. Should its sphere be enlarged this tendency will be increased.
Should an attempt be made to check this tendency by an arbitrary detail for duty with no regard for individual tastes or individual preparation in special branches, the result would be discontent and hopeless mediocrity, or worse than mediocrity. If the contrary system should be pursued, and men who have qualified themselves in special branches be selected for duty in those branches, the tendency is marked and encouraged, and thus we drift back into corps in effect if not in name.
I understand that Lt. Comdr. Brown desires to encourage this attention to specialties: and he proposes to supply the vacancies in the “permanent” part of the staff corps by appointment, subject to competitive examination, from those who have served two details at sea on that special service. This offers to my mind a serious objection. These ''permanent” positions will be desirable and much sought after; the greater part of those who apply must fail of their object, no matter what their merit, and then they are relegated back to their executive duties after having devoted six, eight, or ten years to special study, which in the ordinary line of their duties is of small advantage to them, and may be regarded almost as so much time wasted.
That these views make the organization of the service more complex I freely admit; but I hold that increased complexity is a necessary accompaniment of progressive naval and military organization; either increased complexity or its opposite, diminished efficiency. Nor need this greater complexity diminish in any sense the value of a service. Every officer trained to certain duties, and fulfilling perfectly the object of his training, is a most valuable part of the whole. Of course greater ability is demanded of the general or admiral who controls such an army or navy. I have no doubt that the successful commander-in-chief of to-day is a man of greater genius than he who was successful in the time of Alexander— or even in the time of Napoleon.
The line officer of our navy has now his executive duties to look after, besides keeping himself ready for service as a navigator, surveyor, and ordnance officer. It is quite as much as he can do well. And it must be considered in this connection, that if our Navy is to endure, ordnance will mean something more in the future than it has in the past. The esprit de corps of the service will demand more external support than has been given it of late years. The personnel has done what it could; but we don't take the pride in our flag that we should feel if it floated over ships and guns that compared better with those of other naval powers. With improved ships and ordnance will come incentive for study of those matters, and greater demand for it.
I fail to see the force of the arguments adduced by the essayist from other services. The English are abolishing their navigation officers as a separate corps, it is true, but their ordnance officers are still part (in the grade of lieutenant), and if there has ever been any proposition to incorporate executive officers and engineers, I have never heard of it.
The staff of an army includes much more, if I have a correct idea of army organization, than the staff corps of a navy; and staff duties include many that our line officers now do. All duties of organization, many details of procuring and transporting stores, everything relating to ordnance and equipment, surveys, and the making of charts and plans of operations, are in the hands of the line; and whether as army staff, or as naval line duties, they are necessary items in the experience of every officer who is to command.
I can well understand the value which military men place upon this varied experience, and therefore their recommendation that line officers be detailed for a term of staff service, at the expiration of which they shall return to their regiments; but an infantry or cavalry lieutenant detailed to serve as an ordnance officer or quartermaster does duty not far different from that to which naval line officers are constantly liable. Here I would like to ask Lt. Comdr. Brown if in any military service, the engineers are detailed from the line.
Lt. Comdr. Brown. In India, according to Upton, many of the public works are in charge of officers who are detailed from the artillery, and from what is known as the staff corps, (to which all of the European officers of the Indian army will ultimately belong and to enter which all officers above the grade of sub-lieutenant are eligible).
Master Staunton. I did not know that there was any exception to the rule.
As to the appointment of paymasters and marine officers, I think with Lt.-Comdr. Brown that they should be selected from graduates of the naval academy; but I would like to see their appointments permanent from their entrance into the corps for reasons already given.
I shall conclude my remarks with a reference to the “ideal naval officer” whose acquirements are enumerated in the pages of the essay.
Many lines are filled with the mere list of these accomplishments, some of which might be in themselves separate professions. It would be very fine if this ideal could be realized in one individual, but I do not think it possible. Probably it may be deemed better to attempt less and to do that less more thoroughly; for it is to be remembered that a struggle for an impossible ideal may result in the worst failure.
Lieut. Soley. It seems to me that the plan of amalgamation proposed would be unjust to the officers who would be most affected by it and to those who are coming up to take their places. Such a plan could only be put in operation in the future. Those who are now in the service have readied their positions under a certain understanding with the government, so to speak, and if it wore advisable, which I doubt, it would certainly be unfair. I think that the essayist proposes to devote too much time to preliminary teaching at the Naval Academy; the result would be that we should really have to teach more than is now done and would require a much larger corps of instructors and a larger establishment. I think that the desired end may be better attained by raising the standard of admission, first giving warning to the schools throughout the country. The different parts of the country are sufficiently on a par in respect to education and there would be no unfairness in so doing. We could then give in four years the instruction which we now seek to give in three and with it more thorough practical instruction. The essayist says that it is not midshipman alone that we wish to train but the commanders of the navy of the future. If that is the case we must devote much time to theoretical instruction compared with the practical, for it would be ruinous to depend upon practice without a scientific basis of knowledge. But it should not be the commanders of the future whom we seek to train at the naval school. In all other brandies of study the University course is preliminary and never final. At its close the student goes to the law school, scientific school, &c. to complete his education. If we could say that it is the midshipman alone or rather the junior officer whom we seek to train at the naval school we should make a stride in advance—for we would then only attempt to lay the groundwork for a scientific education and could prepare him thoroughly to perform the duties of a subordinate officer. I endorse heartily the proposition for an officer's course, and I hold that when a naval college for officers is established we shall have found the place to educate the commanders of the future. I agree with the remarks of Comdr. Mahan that all officers cannot be expected to go in for special studies and that it is rot necessary, but I think that the four cardinal points of an officer's education, gunnery, seamanship, navigation and steam should there be taught so that every officer should possess a thorough general knowledge of those subjects. I must disagree with a point advanced by the essayist that every officer should go through a course in Torpedoes, “but that the course in ordnance should be optional. I think a thorough course in ordnance should be obligatory and considers it far more important than that in torpedoes. The navy is of little use if it cannot light: guns are given us to fight with, ships to carry the guns, machinery to work the guns. The proper use of every weapon which he may have to fight with is of the first importance to a fighting man and next comes a knowledge of the powers of the weapons of his enemy.
With regard to the naval constructors I think the plan proposed is a rather violent one. Up to 1850 our naval constructors were ahead of the whole world and it is hardly their fault that they are so much behindhand now. In the first place they never go to sea at all and I do not see how they can understand all the needs of a ship unless they have been to sea at some time of their lives. Again they have few opportunities for seeing what modern men-of-war are, for foreign squadrons rarely visit our own coasts and the naval constructors never go abroad. It is for these reasons that the models and internal arrangements of our men-of-war remain as they were many years ago. A great many plans have been suggested for raising the standard of professional attainments in that corps but I do not think they are necessary. The present law provides for the education as naval constructors of such cadet midshipmen or engineers as may be recommended by the Academic Board at the Naval Academy, and I venture to say that no one would be recommended by them who was not thoroughly capable.
In the essay very little is said about the education of the men, and in the discussion we have drifted still more. Important as is the question of an officer’s education, the bone and sinew of the service must not be neglected. Some thing has been said about our training ships. Undoubtedly they are doing a good work but if we depend entirely upon them to supply the wants of the service we may suddenly realize that our navy is manned by boys. But the boys are now the smallest part of the enlisted men. The seven thousand men who are now in the service form the strong part of the crews and it is for their education that I speak; no one will say that they do not need any teaching— on the contrary I am certain that they need a great deal. This is not the time to suggest a scheme for their teaching, but no other service neglects it. In the English navy the men are trained to be gunners and thoroughly trained. In the French service the system of education for the men of the fleet is as thorough as every thing else in that service. The boys are taken at an early age, and carried through every stage. Not only that. On board of every cruiser the men are taught and the system is so thorough that the same books of study even are used throughout the navy. In the Italian service the conscripts are taken on board of the gunnery ship where they find one gun of every class used in the service with its carriage, projectiles, etc.; after three or four months of constant drill they are sent to the cruising ships and at the expiration of a cruise the best men are picked out and returned to the gunnery ship for a more extended course of training. I have cited these cases to show how important the subject is considered in other services, and in the earnest hope that more will be done in our own.
Rear Admiral John Rodgers, (The President.) I think it a duty, but by no means a pleasant one, to say that having read the Prize Essay of the Institute, I dissent from many of the views there set forth. Few men excel in more than one profession: jacks-of-all-trades are proverbially supreme at none, and each branch of the Navy is too wide in its scope for the same man to be excellent in each.
Lieut. Collins In the essay a radical reorganization of the navy is proposed by its writer, who expresses his belief that it will “bring harmony to the service and add more to its efficiency than any other system that could be pursued.”
After giving these important subjects such consideration as has been possible in the very short time allowed since the receipt of the Essay, I am of the opinion that some of the changes proposed will militate seriously against the efficiency of the service. As for harmony, that is greatly to be desired; but too much should not be sacrificed in an attempt to secure it, for, it should be remembered that a harmonious organization is not of necessity an efficient one.
In any scheme for naval education the aim should be to produce the most efficient officers for the various duties to be performed. The officers provided, the organization of the service should be such as best to direct their efforts to the production of an efficient whole.
Harmony will come to the service only with the creation of such an esprit de corps as will make every member feel that the good of the whole is the one object for which he should strive.
The essayist proposes that, with the exception of the surgeon, all officers of the navy shall be of one corps; serving in rotation as line officers, engineers, paymasters, and marine officers. The result of this will be, in my opinion, to make our officers “Jacks of all trades and good at none.”
There is a limit to the versatility of the average mind. We have already united in the line officer the seaman, the navigator, the ordnance officer, the marine artillerist and the soldier. To prepare himself to make even a respectable figure in these several specialties is a task quite equal to the abilities of the ordinary man.
As regards marine officers and paymasters, I see no objection to the plan proposed. The duties of the former would require no additional knowledge on the part of the line officer, and those; of the latter would be readily learned and (if proper means were taken to provide efficient clerks) would not be so engrossing as to prevent the officers detailed to perform them from standing his watch also, as would the one detailed to command the marines.
These changes are practicable and would result m good. But with the engineers the case is different. Engineering is a profession by itself. An officer could not be expected to stand a watch and perform the duties of an engineer at the same time. Hence if the system were inaugurated it would result either that we should have specialists in engineering who would do no other duty, or, if rotation were insisted upon, we should spoil the line officer only to make an indifferent engineer.
In any projected consolidation, therefore, the engineers must be counted out quite as much as the surgeons.
The engineer corps should be kept distinct, but it should be very much reduced in numbers (of course without injustice to any one now in it) and placed on an entirely different footing from that which it now occupies. It should be consolidated with the constructors, and its number should be sufficient to provide the necessary constructors and supervising engineers and a chief engineer for each vessel in commission, with a relief.
For the practical manipulation of the engines a corps of machinists with the rank of Warrant officers, as suggested in the essay, should be formed.
The plan proposed, for absorbing the engineers now in the service, into the Line, even if it were desirable, appears to me to be utterly impracticable. It is out of the question for the Assistant and Passed Assistant Engineers now in the service to qualify themselves for the duties of Lieutenants in two years; and to compel them to spend that time in cramming book seamanship, navigation, and gunnery in order to pass a line officer's examination or be denied promotion as engineers could, it appears to me, result only in their being less efficient in that own specialty without gaining any really useful, practical knowledge of any other.
Aside from details, however, the general scope of the scheme proposed in the essay is one to which I cannot assent. Beginning with the Naval Cadet in the proposed course and following him through, at what do we arrive? At a competent commander, either of a single ship or of a fleet? No. But at a scientific designer of hulls and engines. Every thing in the scheme tends towards the production of a class skilled to contrive the vessel in which to tight, while the man who is to fight her is almost ignored.
Will it be wise to instill into the mind of the future Naval Cadet the idea that such is to be the great end and aim of naval training? I think not.
Without in any way underrating the value and importance of such a scientific corps as is proposed, I am constrained to think that the end and aim of naval education should be to produce efficient, skillful, daring commanders, for without them the finest productions of human skill in construction will avail us nothing.
Lieut. Comdr. Brown. I think that both Lieut. Collins and our honored President for whose opinions I have the highest regard) have misapprehended the idea which it was my intention to convey: and it is quite likely that I have failed to be sufficiently perspicuous. I did not intend to propose that officers should serve “in rotation as line officers, engineers, paymasters and marine officers,” nor that a watch officer should alternate from deck to engine room (although the regulations of the navy provide for such a tiling even now): this would indeed make a man “every tiling by turns and nothing long.” and would be most fairly open to the “jack-of-all-trades” criticism to which Comdr. Mahan has already replied, in better words than I can find. Let me quote from the essay itself: “We should have the young officer fairly prepared for his future duties after a course of preliminary training lasting seven years: lie would have a thoroughly good foundation upon which to build any specialty to which his natural disposition inclined him: and while he would not lose his identity with the Line he could avail himself if the opportunity offered to apply himself to further improvement in any direction he saw fit.” Again: “The detailed portion (of the Engineer Corps) should be line officers who had specially qualified for it in the postgraduate courses mentioned hereafter.” I meant in these sentences to convey the idea that a man who was inclined toward Engineering should take that as his specialty (just as officers now take up Ordnance or Hydrography as specialties) and be given opportunities not now afforded, for a thorough education in its higher brandies: and from these officers would be chosen the permanent Engineers, “uniting in their corps the offices of designing and construction of vessels as well as of the machinery to propel them,” as is stated in the essay, and with which opinion Lieut. Collins expresses his agreement, though he does not propose any plan for obtaining these men in place of the one offered by me.
It does not seem to me that in “the requirements of the ideal naval officer” I have lost sight of the purpose of making a “competent commander.” I think that I have eliminated in those requirements all things looking to the designer of the fighting machine as being the man to command her when constructed. We must have scientific designers, and I think that a sea experience is necessary for such. In the scheme I have outlined for the education of officers, it seems to me that I have provided not only for the production of such men, but that quite scope enough is left, just as is now the case (only with a better foundation,) for the Line officer pure and simple to devote himself to as near an approach to the ideal requirements as is possible in any individual case.
If, Mr. Chairman, there is no one else who desires to make any remarks, I would request that you give to us your ideas upon the subject brought forward.
The Chairman. While I think that the main features of the plan presented in the essay might be carried out with great advantage to the service, I may be permitted to occupy your attention for a short time with one point that seems to me to call for revision. This is the proposed method of supplying the vacancies in the three permanent staff corps, and especially that of the Engineers, composed of officers above the grade of Lieutenant. These are to be filled by competitive examination from among those Line officers who have elected the special duty of Engineer, Pay, or Marine officers, and who have served two details at sea. It seems to me that such a scheme would be impracticable, or, at least, attended with great difficulties in practice. The essential difficulty lies in the irregularity with which vacancies would occur, the absence of any provision for classifying the competitors, and the uncertainty of the times of examination, of the number and gradation of the possible candidates, and of disturbing influences resulting from the requirements of the service, for example, a vacancy occurs; twenty candidates appear to compete for it, and the competitor who passes at the head of the list is promoted. A month later, a new vacancy occurs, and another examination is hell; are the nineteen competitors who failed before, to be called on to pass at the new examination? If so, the officers who have passed two details at sea would spend the rest of their service in examinations, until promotion in the Line excluded them from further competition. The necessities of the service, however would prevent many of them from competing the second time, by removing them to distant points, afloat or ashore. In fact, these contingencies of the service would make it problematical who, among those eligible, could attend any given examination, or even how many competitors there would be. Even supposing that those unsuccessful at the first examination were allowed to stand upon their record at that time, in competing for a new vacancy, in the meantime new candidates would have come toward who would have to be examined, and the results of the second examination would be compared with those of the first, an obviously unfair method of competition. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way in which any limits could be fixed, as to time, or number of candidates. The competition is open to a body of men, ever varying in number and composition, and so detailed for duty in the service as to make it a matter of chance who could, and who could not, come forward, at any given time. There plight be one candidate, or there might be thirty. Such a scheme must inevitably have some elements of unfairness as well as confusion.
Another and more vital objection to the proposed organization, relates especially to the Permanent Engineer Corps. This corps is, in the words of the Essay, “to be the corps d’elite. The scientific men of the service should there find their appropriate place. They should he, also, the Constructors, uniting in their corps the offices of designing and construction of vessels as well as the machinery to propel them.” Now, I agree with the writer that this is a most important corps to have in the Navy; but are the means provided by the essay calculated to bring about the end? Have the officers who are to form this corps d’elite any opportunities for qualifying themselves beyond their fellows? They are selected, it is true, by competition; but their education is precisely similar to that of all other officers detailed as Engineers. It consists of five years .at the Academy before graduation, and two years of a post-graduate course, after service at sea, with perhaps a shorter course in steam at Newport.
The profession of a designer and constructor of ships and engines, is a special, absorbing, and extensive one—or perhaps it might more properly be said to include two professions,—and it requires a special, absorbing, and extensive education, quite distinct from that required to make a good Engineer in the ships of the fleet. The general education, therefore, proposed in the plan, is either far in advance of the requirements of Engineer officers in general, or it falls short of what is necessary to make an accomplished constructor.
Again, it is extremely desirable, if the Navy is to get the full benefit of the services of its Constructors, that they should enter upon their profession early in life. The proposed plan makes this impossible, by requiring, as a condition, a service of two details at sea, presumably of three years each; which would make eight years, including the intermediate shore service. Supposing that the officer enters the Academy at sixteen, the average age of admission, he graduates at twenty-one. He then has two years of sea-service as a Midshipman, a year more or less at the torpedo school, two years as a watch officer, and two years in the post-graduate course in steam. This, combined with his subsequent service in the engineer detail, would make fifteen years of service after graduation; so that under the most favorable circumstances, he could not enter into the competition for the permanent corps, before the age of thirty-six; and in many cases he would be several years older. The elite corps of Constructors would thus be composed of men selected at the age of about forty, whose education had been in no way different from that of the Engineer- Line-officers in the service, and who could not know until after the competitive examination, that the remainder of their life was to be devoted to this special profession; while the government would lose their services as professional Constructors during the most efficient years of their life.
There is a third point to which I should like to call attention, the duties assigned the members of this Permanent Engineer or Construction corps. I see with some surprise that they are to be sent to sea as Fleet Engineers, in the lowest grade, for three years, at least, I suppose,—and also to make a three years' cruise in the next higher grade. I should like to ask Lieutenant-Commander Brown why it is proposed that these officers, whose duties are to be those of designing, construction, and the supervision of repairs, shall go to sea for six years.
Lt.-Comdr. Brown. That they may by familiarity with the working of a ship and her engine at sea be the better prepared for their duty as Constructors. In this opinion I think I am supported by the majority of the service.
The Chairman. But how much sea service is necessary to give them this familiarity?
Lt.-Comdr. Brown. I should not like to set any limit to it; their service should be such as to keep them familiar with the sea-going qualities of their constructions.
The Chairman. I quite agree with Lieut.-Commander Brown that they should have some experience in a sea-going man-of-war; but with all deference to the opinion of professional men, who are far better qualified to judge than I am, I submit that there is some limit to the amount of sea service necessary for this end. The officers in question have already had four years afloat as Midshipmen and watch officers, and two details, or six years, as Engineer officers; making ten years of sea-service, besides practice cruises, before they compete for the permanent corps. After the competition, they are to spend six years more afloat. If this is the case, where can they study their profession? They certainly cannot do so at sea.
Lt.-Comdr. Brown. I must say that I cannot agree with the opinion expressed. I think that a great deal of studying may be done at sea.
The Chairman. I had always supposed that the conditions of life afloat were unfavorable for study, whether at sea or in port; particularly for close special study by an officer performing his regular part in the routine of ship duties. No doubt much general reading may be done at sea, and much general information gained; but this is not the kind of study that is needed. It will not take the place of thorough technical training under competent instructors. And if this is true of the period before the profession is actually taken up, it applies much more strongly to the later period.
As to the benefit that is derived from sending Constructors to sea, I confess that my opinions are of no value in the matter: but I should think that ten years passed afloat would be enough to give the necessary familiarity with the working and behavior of ships at sea, and that any further time that could be spared from actual duties would be better spent in repair shops. If I am not mistaken, the French Constructors, or Engineers, as they are called, only go to sea for six months in the squadron of evolutions. The English constructors are not naval officers at all, but civil officers; and though there is a provision in their regulations that they may be sent to sea for a year after their course of instruction is finished, it is rarely or never carried out.
I think that a simple remedy for the difficulties I have endeavored to point out in the plan, might be found in a slight modification of certain details. It is proposed in the essay that all officers who elect the Engineer detail should pursue a course of two years in steam and naval architecture at the Naval Academy, after their term of service a£ watch officers. I should think that one year in this course would be enough to make competent Engineer officers; for it must be remembered, that this is in addition to the five years course at the Academy, whose graduates are to have the same standard of proficiency that Cadet-Engineers now attain. At the end of this year of post-graduate instruction, the officers will pass out in the Engineer detail, and perform the duties of Engineer officers in the fleet. Let the best man in each year, however,—or the two best, or three best men, as the service may require,—be reserved for a further course as students of Naval Architecture and Engine construction. If it is desirable to have specialists in each branch, let the officer who passes at the head of the list, in each year, elect which of the two branches he will follow; and let number two take the other. Their advanced course of two years should include the highest mathematics and applied mechanics, and work in the physical and chemical laboratories, in addition to the fullest possible course in the strictly professional subjects. The summers should be spent at the Navy Yards, or anywhere where they can best get practical instruction; and even then they would get far too little. At the end of the three years of post-graduate instruction, let them be promoted at once into the permanent corps of Constructors or Constructing Engineers, where their duties should be those of Constructors, Designing Engineers, and Draughtsmen, at the Department and at the Yards; but not for any service afloat; for they would already have had four years at sea. It seems to me that such a plan would present many advantages. The Constructors would take up their profession at the age of twenty-eight instead of at forty. They would have received, at least, a high theoretical education for their profession, and some means might be devised for supplying their practical wants. They would be selected by competition as truly as under the other plan, but it would be a competition with well defined limits and conditions. From the mode of selection, they would be eminently worthy of admission to the corps d'elite of the Navy; and they would get a tangible and prompt reward in the promotion that followed their efforts.
A system in many respects similar is now pursued with the best results, in the English service, though, of course, there is no amalgamation of the Staff Corps with the Line. Constructors and Designing Engineers are selected respectively from two classes of students, shipwright apprentices, and Engineer Students; and from the latter are recruited also all the Engineer officers. Both classes of students are originally selected by open competition, and both begin their training in the dockyards, receiving practical instruction in the shops, and a good course in mathematics at the dockyard schools. At the end of live years, three of the shipwright apprentices are selected by competitive examination, to be educated for Naval Architects. The successful competitors are sent to Greenwich, where they pass through a three years' course of the highest character; and at its close they receive immediate employment as Constructors or Draughtsmen, at the Admiralty or in the Dockyards. The Engineer Students, alter six years in the yards, are all sent to Greenwich for a single year, at the end of which, two of them are selected by competitive examination, to be educated for Designing and Constructing Engineers. The rest pass into the Engineer corps of the Navy, and are sent immediately to sea as Assistant Engineers. The additional course for the successful competitors is two years, and at its close they enter upon duties similar to those of the construction students, but in their own special field. In all courses not strictly professional, the students of naval architecture and marine engineering are united, the number of students being always five in each of the last two years: but in the studies directly pertaining to their profession, they receive separate instruction. Their instructors are officials, attached to the construction department of the Admiralty, and are men of the highest professional attainments; the problems given them in ship and engine design are questions of the day, upon which the Constructors of the Navy are at work at the moment; and the work that they perform as students not only contains much that they will actually use in their future career, but often gives valuable suggestions to their instructors.
Such a plan as this, which must certainly give competent Constructors, provided always that the needful workshop experience is given them, seems to be susceptible of application either to the Navy as it exists, or to such a reorganized Navy as that which the essay proposes.
Lieut.-Comdr. Brown. I will endeavor to reply as concisely as I can to some of the points raised by the gentlemen who have preceded me, for I can not hope to reply fully or satisfactorily, to the objections which have been so ably urged against some of the details of the essay; I am glad to observe that, as a rule, those who have spoken are in favor of the principles which I have advanced: as to details we cannot expect unanimity of opinion.
With regard to the Pay Corps it does not seem to me to be a matter of great difficulty to carry out the ideas I have advanced. I neglected to state in the essay that the article quoted from the “Army and Navy Gazette” was written by a Paymaster. In further support of my position, I quote as follows from the same paper of the date of March 1, 1879; this letter is also written by a member of the Pay corps.
“I am quite of the opinion of one of your correspondents that paymasters, as a special class, should be abolished and combatant officers employed instead. Sub-lieutenants and lieutenants should be invited to qualify for paymaster's duties; a school of instruction could be established, and after a course, say of six months, the officers under instruction should be examined: if found fit, they would become eligible for appointment as sub-lieutenants or lieutenants, for paymaster's duties. It should be distinctly laid down that the fact of officers being qualified for paymasters' duties should not interfere with their prospects of promotion, and the same officer should never be employed successively for two commissions as lieutenant for paymaster's duties except at his own request, and even then, before being so employed, he should be obliged to go through a short course of gunnery. By the above means the Navy would have trained others doing paymasters' duties who would be able, should occasion require, to take military command.
A very large number of the paymasters, assistant paymasters, &c., at present on the list, would to my own knowledge, be very pleased to quit the service if they were permitted to do so and a liberal retirement scheme issued. Of the remainder, those under thirty that desired it should be allowed to qualify in seamanship, gunnery and navigation, and transferred to the lieutenant's list, and those that do not wish so to pass should be still employed as paymasters till the class died out. Such is a rough draft of my scheme. It is, in my humble opinion, the only way there is of taking a step in the direction, and one that is so much now needed, viz.: to provide combatant for non-combatant officers.”
In an editorial article in the same paper, I find it stated that “the amalgamation of the paymaster's branch with the executive has often been advocated in these columns.” I would like here to call attention to the fact that by executive in this connection is meant the branch known to us as the line: I do this because I have heard it stated that my idea was to place upon the shoulders of the executive officer in our service the additional duties of paymaster; nothing was certainly farther from my intention. I deem it a matter of importance and directly in the line of his duty, that a commanding officer should understand the subject of the accounts of his ship's company; and the time spent by the lieutenant detailed for this duty would be preparing him in this regard directly for the command which he hopes to have in the future: certainly as much as his serving a term as an instructor at the Naval Academy, in (let us say) the department of English studies or modern languages. Besides, I do not intend that he shall make two successive cruises as paymaster.
For several years it has been the habit of the Paymaster General in his annual report to recommend that appointments to the Fay corps should be from the graduates of the Naval Academy; and it is, after all, it seems to me, merely a question of methods. My object is to enhance the fighting power of the personnel of a vessel. In my own knowledge there is an instance of at least one commanding officer's performing the duties of paymaster of his vessel (in the coast survey) for over three years, to the satisfaction of the Treasury and Navy Departments. Our Light House Inspectors are charged with the disbursement of tolerably large sums of money and have always, so far as I know, given entire satisfaction. And I am informed by reliable authority that the Secretary of the Treasury has recommended that still more money be placed under their control, in order that they may pay the light keepers, in addition to the other payments with which they are at present charged. The Engineer Corps of the Army also disburse large sums of money, and have given entire satisfaction so far as I know. None of those officers to whom I have alluded as disbursing the public money are obliged to give bonds. [Indeed, if I am correctly informed, the giving of bonds by the pay corps of the English navy has been dispensed with.] In view of all these facts there would seem to be no valid reason why the same class of men who handle money in the service of the Light House Board, should not do the same on board of vessels of war.
So far as regards the entire duty of the pay corps being done by the line, I am inclined to think that the scheme which I have presented is preferable, for the reason that it is better to have permanent officers to till the positions to which it was my intention they should be assigned: namely, those of purchasing and disbursing officers, inspectors of provisions and clothing, and paymasters at Navy Yards, Naval Academy and Naval Asylum. All ship duty (including receiving ship and storekeeper duty) could readily be performed by detailed lieutenants; and if it ever became necessary to have additional officers for temporary pay duty on shore they could easily be supplied from the lieutenant's list.
As I have stated in the essay. I have not attempted to elaborate any scheme for the post-graduate course to be pursued by the officers who select the engineering branch. As to the objection that in order to be a successful engineer or a successful anything a man must be a specialist, I reply that practically in the navy we do not find such men; that is, men who devote their entire time to one particular branch of their profession. That the education which is now received at the Naval Academy is deemed sufficient to qualify the present Engineer Corps for the performance of their duties, is I think sufficiently shown by the graduated cadet engineers. I have never heard that these young gentlemen are not competent to perform their duties, and the fact that a number of them (who passed through only a two years' course) have been promoted to assistant engineers within less than four years from their entry at Annapolis, would seem to bear me out in this assertion. As by my plan all the midshipmen would have the same education as that given cadet engineers now, I think that the result would be that we should have a comparatively large number of officers who could be detailed for engineer's duty on board ship, while the permanent engineer corps would be recruited from men who had passed high in the courses in Naval Architecture etc., and who would, with the best men of the present corps, be practically the only ones who could compete for these permanent places. The competitive examination for a commission would of course result in but one man's obtaining the prize; should another vacancy render a second competition necessary, those men who had formerly appeared could either appear again or could stand upon the record made by them at their first examination. This is practically done in the examination of Assistant Surgeons and Engineers whose relative positions are not assigned until all the date have been examined, and these examinations often extend over many months. It does not seem to me that the time devoted by a Line officer to Engineering will be any less hindrance to his efficiency, than a similar amount of time devoted to Ordnance.
If I understand the idea advanced by the Chairman (and I am very sure that all will admit that the peculiar advantages which he has enjoyed for a study of the subject of the essay entitle his opinion to very great weight), the Engineer corps for duty as such at sea would be practically abolished, and its duties relegated to detailed officers of the line; while the duties of designing and construction would be performed by the permanent men, who no longer went to sea; this would of course necessitate a lessening of the number proposed for the corps. While I think that the scheme which I originally outlined gives a sufficient scope to the Engineer officer (as it does to the Ordnance officer) yet I am on the whole inclined to think that the ideas of the Chairman are better than those advanced by me: and I am quite willing to accept them in lieu of the plan stated in the essay, chiefly for the reason that it would settle the final destination of an officer more quickly than under my plan, which must be acknowledged to be a very important point; besides, there would really be still more of a selection for the permanent men than by my own scheme. (This earlier separation has also been spoken of by Mr. Manning.) I still think, however, and I believe that the majority of the officers in the service will agree with me, that these men ought to go to sea, let us say as fleet engineers, while in the grade of lieutenant commander; for I cannot but attach much importance to sea experience (and that of a recent character) as being of great service to them in their duties on shore.
With regard to the method which I proposed for the amalgamation of the junior branches of the Engineer corps with the line, I offered it with a great deal of hesitation, and merely as being some solution of the question, feeling tolerably sure that it would be likely to meet the fate (which it has met) of not being agreeable to any of the parties concerned. It will be seen that my belief was not ill founded, for I have been liberally thwacked on both shoulders; so, perhaps, it would be well for me to let the matter pass with the statement that it was my object to merely indicate a way in which the proposed change in the state of the corps might be brought about at a comparatively early day, and thus the homogeneousness of the service hastened. No doubt other and better schemes might be devised if it were thought desirable to make the attempt.
My desire was to make the engineer corps, what it is not now, the corps of the Navy; and I am perfectly willing to submit to the judgment of the Engineers themselves whether it can ever be such under the present system, whereby we are graduating some twenty or more young men each year, the great majority of whom do not (as a rule) care particularly for their profession, and whose standard (as has been shown pretty conclusively by figures, not however intended to serve this purpose) is but little, if any, higher than that of the cadet midshipmen. We cannot have a body of more than two hundred and seventy (nearly one fifth of the entire service) as a highly scientific corps: to be such it must be small in numbers and not large.
So far as regards a change in the present system being desirable. I would quote the following from the report of the late Superintendent of the Naval Academy, the same report alluded to in the essay. It is my carefully considered belief, that any lad of even less than average ability, can complete successfully the course of studies here, if he will study faithfully and diligently. Those of more brilliant capacity, can attain the same result, with a very moderate amount of study. To take honors at the school, requires both capacity and hard work.
It is sometimes claimed that the course here is too severe, and I venture to give it as my opinion that such is not the case, and I think that if the demands of the course were largely decreased, we should have no more graduates. As the demand decreased, the efforts of the student would diminish; for it is now not the love of learning, but the fear of failure, which prompts the majority to exertion; and with the larger number the effort is to do as little instead of as much as possible.”
In pursuit of the same line of thought, an officer remarked to me the other day that “there must be something wrong in a system in which education was so little attractive for its own sake that most people rejoiced featly when they graduated from the Naval Academy.” Following this up have conversed with some of the cadets of the first class, and I find that the general feeling in the school at present seems to be, that the tenure of office being secure so long as the minimum mark of 2.5 is reached, there is no special incentive to study and that the very great majority of each class are quite satisfied to graduate, without any special regard to their standing. There are always a few men at the top of each class who struggle among themselves for class numbers, but beyond these emulation does not (as a rule) extend. As to the existence of a general apathy among the cadets, I am quite sure that every instructor here will agree with me; but I believe that under the plan I have sketched there would be but little of this; during the first two years each youngster would be struggling for a place among the fortunate ones who were to become Midshipmen: and habits of study thus formed would be carried by the successful ones into the higher classes, and the general results being far better than those under the system at present pursued, there would be, as I have stated, an opportunity to pursue higher courses than those now required, and thus the general standard of the school elevated.
I cannot think that a plan similar to that pursued in the Army, with regard to the corps to which the graduates are assigned immediately after receiving their diplomas, would produce as good results as that which I have presented (especially as modified according to the scheme of the Chairman) and the current of opinion in the Army itself seems to be quite in favor of details from the line and therefore adverse to this present system: I think moreover, that it would not tend to the point which is so desirable, unity, and with it increased efficiency.
With regard to competitive examinations, while I to some extent agree with what has been said, yet it must be remembered that a good many of the cadet midshipmen obtained their appointments through competition, as it is quite a common thing for a Member of Congress to offer the appointment in his gift in this way. If the plan which I have submitted should ever be followed it would give to a Member one appointment during each of his terms of office, and would thus open three chances for an honorable career to all the boys in his district, where now but one is offered, and that not always, as, in probably the majority of cases, the appointee is selected by the Member.
As to the matter of a second course at the torpedo school I am quite at one with the gentleman who has proposed it; I think it would be a very desirable thing.
So far as raising the standard of admission is concerned, I think that a glance at the examples of ill preparation given in a work entitled “History of the Naval Academy,” written by the Chairman, would show that the schools of the country could not well respond to any demand for increased advancement in study preparatory to entrance to the School.
With regard to the matter of educating specialists among the men, it is my idea that a sufficient number for the necessary supply of seaman gunners can be retained and educated as such on board the apprentice ships: and if it should be desired to instruct them further in details of magazine work it could readily be done. I have known of an instance where the gunner's gang of a vessel overhauled and prepared in the magazine and shell house, the entire supply of ammunition, work which is ordinarily performed (I believe) by skilled civilian workmen. With regard to the education of the men in the Italian service, I would call to mind a remark quoted by Captain Luce in a paper read before the Institute in 1874, wherein he states in substance, that the commanding officer of an Italian vessel said that “his men were not top men;” now I do not think that we have yet got to the place where we can afford to dispense with top men; we want them.
As to the matter of a compulsory post-graduate course in ordnance, I differ from Lt. Soley: it does not seem to me to be necessary, unless an officer is going to make that a special object of study. I am not well acquainted with the course in Gunnery at the Naval Academy, but I should suppose that it would be difficult to keep the text book up to the latest date. I believe, however, that a good foundation is laid, and that if the Bureau of Ordnance would send its circulars to all officers, it would tend to keep them sufficiently up in that branch, for the ordinary duties of their profession. I think a voluntary course, as provided for in the essay, is quite enough.
There is one criticism which I have heard made upon the essay to which (though it has not been made to night) I deem it proper to allude; and that is that there is too much reorganization about it. I believe that a mere cursory glance at the subject will lead to that opinion; but I also believe that a more mature consideration of the matter will lead to the removal of that opinion, and that it will be seen that the question of education necessarily and perforce involves the other. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that such is the case, but in writing the essay I was forced rather unwillingly into that belief. Accordingly I endeavored to present a scheme for reorganization as nearly entire as possible; which involved the subject of the numbers of the permanent officers in the different corps ; and these numbers were given with a view not only to showing in what way I considered that the duties should be divided, but also to pointing out the character of the positions which a line officer might expect to attain, if he should leave the line, for some other corps.
I have never had the assurance to imagine that the schemes which I have outlined are the best that can be desired. I am sure that there are many more officers than those who have spoken tonight who could bring forward ideas more matured and more susceptible of practical application, if they would but do so. If, however, the efforts which I have made in this direction have succeeded in bringing out the opinions of others, and if in any slight degree the ultimate efficiency of the Navy of which we are all proud to be members is promoted, I shall feel that the object of my labors has been fully attained.