Ensign T. C. Hart, U. S. Navy.—Having read in the Naval Institute publications Captain Chadwick's letter on training recruits for the seaman branch and the subsequent discussion thereon, I have received the impression that many of the officers who believe in and so strongly advocate the sail-and-spar training system have misunderstood the motives and arguments of the officers who have spoken against it. In fact, very few officers have written against it, but a great many have in the course of the days work very emphatically spoken their minds. It is natural that, in many such oral discussions on the subject, a spirit of criticism not only of existing methods, but even of existing authority has sometimes been manifest—it is natural because they are Americans; it is also natural that those senior officers who now constitute that authority, and whose past efforts and systems have raised our navy to the high plane it to-day occupies, should hear of such discussions .with impatience, and hold some resentment against those who at times use intemperate language in them. By personal inquiry, I have found that a large number of the officers who have had recent experience in the training service, and of others who have given thought to the subject and whose view of the field has not all been from a cadet practice-ship, have about the same ideas on the subject. If they would write their views, they would be expressing them in colder blood, and would not be intemperate in language; and, in my opinion, the desired effect would sooner be obtained—for the present system of training is bound to be changed some day, and the effort should be made to hasten the event. It must, however, be borne in mind that the present system is actually in existence, is in working condition and is turning out recruits and that a healthy conservatism must be overcome by logical arguments; in other words the burden of proof rests with the advocates of a new system. And when they have proved that the present system is not the best practical one, they must have a new system, well outlined and defined, ready to propose in substitution, and the arguments prepared to prove that its substitution will afford advantages great enough to make it worth the trouble.
Considering the knowledge of work with sails and spars gained on our sailing training-ships, it seems to be the prevalent opinion throughout the service that a competent man in any station, no matter what specialized ability that station calls for, is the better for being a good square yard seaman, able to do the most difficult work aloft, provided he acquires that ability without loss of deftness in his specialty. That such is the case is in fact a most general principle, for any added accomplishment improves a man; a stenographer is a more valuable man for being something of a doctor. I do not intend such an extreme case as a parallel; for there is no doubt, that any man who earns his living at sea is, no matter what his specialty may be, greatly improved by a course in sail and spar training, if in taking it he loses nothing in his specialty, which would not likely be the case. The question is whether or not it is worth the sacrifice we must make to it. A marine or a machinist so trained would be a better man for it, particularly in those emergencies at sea for which we must take some risks, in the impossibility of guarding against them all; but no one would believe it advisable to so train such men; their added efficiency would not be worth while. Since a battleship sailor should be something of a machinist and marine, the above comparison is not extravagant. Among his duties on a modern ship the nearest approach to seamanship, in the old meaning, is the work a seaman does in handling coaling and cargo whips, mooring and towing lines, etc.; to this of course must be added sail-making and "marlinspike" work, and the all-important work in small boats, which certainly can be learned outside a deep-sea sailing ship. This small part of a good man’s ability is the result of all the useful information that is culled out of the mass of seamanship that we try to impart in a six months' cruise; in which we aim to make all other instruction a secondary matter. And most of that seamanship education is soon forgotten simply because it is not useful; the part that is useful is a small part of what a good modern ship seaman must know. However, be it admitted that a square-yard seaman, the genuine article which it takes years to produce, is for some reason a handy valuable man on a modern ship, and let us consider the efficacy of the present training system in developing and forming character, which, it is claimed, gives it its principal value.
The best idea of what the old seamanship does in forming a man may be gained by considering, as an example, the case of a seaman brought up in a merchant sailing ship, for there we will not have to hunt for that part of the man's character through the polish produced by the self-respect which is the natural consequence of military discipline, better associations, care of the body, etc.; and will see sail and spar formed character laid bare. A merchant sailing ship man on board a modern man-of-war is usually handy for sail-making and marlinspike work, because there are few of them on board and there is enough of that work to keep them busy. They can do it well—they do it in the ox-like way a Russian serf works—but they can't handle a winch, work about a gun or shoot as well as many green landsmen; with an apprentice's shore training the landsman wouldn't bungle half as many things on board ship and would be of much more use with a landing party. A merchant seaman is so hard to teach anything new, that were it not that they come in handy for such work as sail-making, they would not be of much value to a modern ship, and it is common knowledge that, when left to their own resources on shore, they are most helpless fellows; their characters do not appear well then. But that sort of a man can furl a topgallant-sail alone in a strong breeze and should, if such work is good for it, thereby develop more initiative and independence of thought than do our recruits, for several of them would be sent aloft to do the same work and would do it under the minute direction of two or three petty officers and at least one commissioned officer, who would forestall the slightest mistake. I have sometimes wondered if a layman, who could see a small sail handled under those time-honored conditions and then be taken to a dynamo-room where a third-class petty officer, with no one watching him, was in the act of cutting in a fresh dynamo, an operation in which a slight mistake might play havoc, might not think it strange that a navy, which insists on such a state of affairs, so well sustains its reputation for being up to date. Many of our recruits see that side of the matter, decide that they haven’t much use for sails and wonder why they are thus kept wasting their time; such ideas are not good for morale and discipline.
A sailor’s work aloft is undoubtedly often dangerous, and, like anything else that brings a man into danger and makes his safety depend on his own exertions, nerve and foresight, helps to make a real man of him. But there are other ways of doing it than having him cruise on a sailing ship for several months. A small boat may be sailed in weather that will make safety of life and limb as doubtful as is thought necessary. Probably they would not be sent out in bad weather, but our cruising training-ships also "play safe"; they avoid bad weather when possible, and when any work aloft has to be done under conditions that will make it more than usually hazardous, the recruits are not often sent above the rail. Work with sails certainly develops the body and our apprentices grow wonderfully on a cruise; any boys of their age grow, and ordinary gymnastics will more systematically develop the muscles. It is well known that infantry drill is an excellent way of first subjecting men to discipline, much attention is paid to it at our training stations, where fixed rules and routine are followed, all parts of the daily routine being carried out in a strict soldierly way. The recruit so trained is sent to a small training-ship, where stress of weather, the numerous unforeseen things that are always happening to such a ship, shifting from sea to port routine and vice versa, make fixed routine and rules entirely impossible. All the new mode of life, the strange surroundings, the mass of seamanship that we teach him with so much haste and energy, and the continually changing rules and routine fairly bewilder him; he finds that the strict military drill and discipline he has learned cannot be properly carried out; his sail drills, in which he does not see much use, are made prominent and often go with too much of the old helter-skelter, get-there way for him to follow them; in consequence he often becomes discouraged, grows lax in discipline, and comes to regard his six months' cruise as something to be gone through with as easily as possible when, unless he deserts, he will begin to learn some useful things. To my mind there is one thing particularly harmful to morale and discipline, that closely clings to our old sailing ships, for which the old days of liberty once in three months causing a general orgy, many resulting court-martial cases and always a bad disruption of ship organization for at least a fortnight, are responsible. The same surroundings that accompanied and perhaps helped produce those conditions still exist on what old ships we have left, but such a catastrophe rarely happens where good conduct men know they will be given frequent liberty as is done in barracks and on our modern ships. Our recruits make a voyage of several weeks on a sailing ship, where they are safely removed from all vice and then enter a strange port, where everything, including ways of amusement, is different from what they know, and where vice is plentiful and exceedingly easy to get at; it is human nature that a man is under such conditions inclined to all kinds of intemperance, and many young fellows who would have been better behaved otherwise, thus get started on the road to drunkenness. Depriving a man of his usual everyday comforts on a training-ship's voyage may act somewhat as does depriving a soldier of beer at the canteen. Besides that feature, the very traditions that cling to those old ships, including visions of tar-stained men who use a language of nautical expressions, habitually take their lives in their hands at sea and always of necessity get howling drunk ashore, have their effect. Apprentices think that such conduct is a necessary qualification for becoming "sea-going," and a seaman who can be trusted ashore when in reach of rum becomes incompatible with their ideals. Considering the above, in my estimation, the instruction gained on our cruising training-ships, including instruction in useful things which is given sparingly, is really of more value to the navy than any improvement in character that results; and after all we are working for the navy and not to reform refractory boys or to take idle ones out to see the world until they become tired of it and leave. Attempting to do our share of broadening the minds of our countrymen by taking some of them abroad while young should be as remote from our aims as should be making preparations for taking in such sailing prizes as we might capture in war time.
The recruits we wish to get for our service are native born and are of about the same class as the men who enter the army. Few Americans in the face of these prosperous times and consequent good opportunities in private life enter either service with the intention of remaining in it more than one enlistment. Many do reenlist of course; they are either of the kind having a peculiar temperament well suited for the service who reenlist time and again, and, though few in number, are of immense value to the service, or of the other more numerous sort who realize that they can make an easy living by staying in, and are not very energetic. It is safe to say that the majority intends to go through one enlistment for the novelty of it and the benefit and local renown that results from military drill and discipline, seeing the world, etc., and then to stay out. We are working for the good of the navy, and it should be our aim to get as much useful service out of recruits as is consistent with sufficient preliminary training, keeping in view the necessity of making their period of service sufficiently attractive to induce numerous reenlistments: be it said, however, that making it attractive cannot be done by merely paying them well; it is necessary to use consideration in other matters which is not inconsistent with giving them plenty of hard work. If we wish to get as good recruits as the other services obtain, we must appear to offer as many advantages as they do. A condition to be accepted is that our term of enlistment is short, compared with that of the British Navy, that we have no conscription (it's easier to be an officer in a conscription service), and that we cannot tell how long we will be able to keep men in; for that reason it may not be profitable to spend as much time in preliminary training as do other navies, even if our recruits are considered so dense as to need it.
The building and maintenance of a navy is largely a matter of dollars and cents, and we must get as much out of the money that is allotted us as possible—we are not likely to get too large a sum. We have at present in the cruising training service twelve ships of various types, not counting others now projected, manned by 116 line officers, and, allowing a scant complement of 125 old service men to each ship, 1500 men. In addition to their work in training, they do a small amount of service as transports, and of necessity are at times utilized for ordinary duty in protecting United States, interests, showing the flag, etc. Such similar service as they do is not of great value, but suppose it as great as would be the value of the services of one-fourth those crews if they were released from training. That would leave enough officers and trained men to man several ships at a time when we are greatly in need of a larger personnel. The cost of maintaining that cruising training fleet, and of building and fitting up the new ones now proposed, will be a large item in our future yearly expenditures. Will we be getting our money's worth? Will we ever in the long run get as much for our money as possible?
Our training-ships are now places where a great amount of hard, dingdong work is conscientiously performed with the greatest thoroughness possible under the disadvantages inherent in a small crowded ship; any system, however poor, will give fair results when it is carried out with such spirit. Is the energy that carries that work through in the face of those disadvantages well expended? Not losing sight of the fact that any training system would also cost men and money, I think that an efficient one could be devised which would give good results and release enough of the personnel now occupied in training to properly stop some of those gaps for which we now have to temporize with makeshifts. In a navy where we do all other things in the most direct way, we go a long, expensive way about to train men for duty on modern ships, particularly if the training is done on a sailing ship. Conditions in our navy are of necessity different from any other, and there are more difficulties to surmount in manning it. Considering the good mental calibre of our recruits, the necessity of getting much useful service out of them in their short enlistments, and of inducing reenlistments and a good supply of high-class recruits by having an attractive service, sail and spar training is less suitable for our navy than for any other. The cruises of our training-ships to European ports, in spite of the value claimed for them in the way of attracting recruits, are in themselves damaging; we don’t wish to coerce men to enlist—if they enter the service with their eyes open, in the desire to see that part of the world, they will probably leave when the cruise is ended. They never see as much as they expect and are disappointed; much more real training could be done in our own waters.
The navy has at present shore stations for training apprentices at Newport and at San Francisco, and the station at Port Royal has recently been utilized as a landsman training station. The climatic conditions at two of those stations might be better, but they afford enough facilities for the course of training I advocate; which is merely the present course at Newport broadened and extended. The question is somewhat complicated by the two classes of recruits we now take, apprentices and landsmen. The apprentices should not be sent to a cruising ship until they are not only mentally capable but are well enough developed in body to be useful. The landsmen are more mature, are large enough for the work at any time and a course of fixed length could be laid out for them, whereas we would have to wait for the apprentices to grow up, which would make the length of the course indeterminate. If only one age-limit be used it will simplify the matter. The recruits for a class should arrive at the station in a body, and in time to take up the course at the date fixed for beginning work. The length of the course will depend on the thoroughness of preliminary training thought necessary. I think six months will be enough and still leave time for the transfers and preparations for receiving the next class.
All the members of a class, who from day to day prove their fitness, should be put through the course in a body and should complete it at the same time. In laying out the course, the climatic conditions at the different stations must be taken into account, and the work so laid out that the weather is not likely to interfere. It would also be well if the different stations finished their courses at different times of the year to provide for a smoother flow in the supply of trained men. The course should afford first of all plenty of infantry and field artillery drill; not only because it is essential in first producing strict discipline, but because it will be the best opportunity for teaching the recruits a very necessary part of their profession. The object should not be merely to teach them how to appear well on parade, but the drill should go as far as to include scouting, making camp and the whole line of work done on a campaign. An important part of a sailor's work is likely to be done with a ship’s landing party, and our men are not habitually up to the work; I know of few men who would be at all reliable as scouts. A representative ship's battalion would be a dismal failure if called upon to make a simple frontal attack on any position; since few of the men would be able to estimate their ranges and have never done that kind of shooting, they wouldn't make many hits and would not take advantage of cover as every man must now do for himself, it being no longer possible for officers to pace up and down behind the line and tell their men just what to do. Ability to thus take care of himself on shore calls for a good amount of personal initiative and independence of thought in a sailor, and some of those qualities should soak in while he is under such training on shore. That part of the training will do much of what is claimed for seamanship in the way of development and the ability acquired by it will satisfy a want sorely felt on our ships that have to land men. Another most prominent part I would assign to work in boats. After the recruits can pull well and can handle themselves in a boat, teach them to handle boat sails and then give them charge of the boat in turn; if bringing them close to danger is worth the risk of sending them out in bad weather, it will prove such a former of character as the same time spent in carefully watched work with ship's sails can never be. Minute instruction in care of the person and of the clothing, gymnastics, thorough grounding in target practice, and drill with single sticks, pistols and such kindred drills still thought of value on cruising ships would complete a good shore training. However, our present cruising training-ships would be available as station ships and they could be utilized for great gun drill, sub-calibre practice under way, etc., to any extent desired. Recruits put through such a course with thoroughness should have an excellent start in their education. If, however, square-yard seamanship will not be dethroned, much of it could be learned on the station ships; if work underway be insisted upon, in spite of the expense in men and money and uncertain results, I propose that cruises as short as possible be made; that the ships with all their accounts be permanently attached to their respective stations and do their cruising in the vicinity; for example, the Newport ships would cruise in and about the Sound in summer.
We are at the present reviving the system of commissioning new ships for a three years, cruise, with the intention of keeping the officers and men who commission them on them for that time; such a ship will be given some time to get shaken down in before she is called upon for service. Suppose her allotment of officers, petty officers and long-service men only are at first put on board and are given an opportunity to learn their ship and each other; and then enough of our shore-trained recruits to fill her complement be sent aboard. Endless drills peculiar to her type would at first be in order for all hands, and if the organization and plan of the work to be done is in the first place prepared, the drills will not be difficult to learn. In ordinary routine work the recruits would have plenty of experienced men to follow and, being adaptable Americans, would soon do well. A great deal of routine instruction in their particular duties on the ship will be required, but, if the newly commissioned ship could thus be given a small amount of time in which to find herself, she would give excellent service for the majority of three years and could easily digest such recruits as would be needed from time to time to make up the inevitable waste. She would day by day be becoming more efficient with a crew brought up in part by her own officers, who would know that its quality largely depended on their own exertions and interest in their men. I once heard some officers of one of our newly commissioned battleships say that they had green men and were glad of it because they could mould them to suit themselves if they had a little time to do it in. This in fact would in part be a reversion to the old days in which each ship trained her own crew, and when the navy made such a glorious record. Perhaps, owing to the lack of the "sea-habit," the ship on first going to sea would have much seasickness and would be exceedingly inefficient until it was over; the same state of affairs exists to as great a degree on our training ships, but nothing ever permanently goes wrong in consequence.
So extended a system of shore training would require more officers and men at the stations than are allowed at present, but by discontinuing the cruising training service—by far the most expensive link in the chain—many times the additional number required on shore would be released for it and other duty. If the necessary number of officers and competent men be sent to those stations we shall find sufficient character in the recruits they produce—as a matter of fact we can find young men who already have it if we only recruit in the right districts— and at the same time those recruits will receive direct instruction in what they will have to know.
We have lately arrived at training firemen in a modern cruising ship; it is not at all an extension of the old system, for they are being instructed in exactly what they will do throughout their naval careers. Another side of the question of training is the proper method of and the attention that should be paid to training petty officers. They are not, as a class, very satisfactory now, and great effort must be made to produce and maintain an efficient corps of them, for they would be the real backbone of the service, and with them we will not do so badly even if great numbers of Americans do not show a desire to remain with us as seamen, or below, for many enlistments.
To sum up the facts partially set forth in the above: An old-fashioned square-yard man-of-war's man is a handy man on any ship for various reasons; such a man cannot be made in six months; considering the point of view of our present class of recruits, sail and spar training is not theoretically the best system; even if it can be shown to be best in theory, it is no longer practicable; our term of enlistment being necessarily short, the apprentice system does not efficiently man our ships and by it we do not get the best value for our time and money; naval recruits for the seaman branch should be of more mature age on first enlistment; it will be best to discontinue cruising training-ships and do all training at shore stations and in regular service; if cruising training-ships be not abolished, the next best thing will be to attach them to the several stations and have them cruise as near as practicable to their respective bases.
The writer has had an experience of over three years in the training service, which has for the most part been pleasant duty; his excuse for writing is his belief that many officers have these ideas and that it would be good for the service if they would express them; most of the active workers at present vote the other ticket.
"Modern Naval Training."
Lieutenant Dudley W. Knox, U. S. Navy.—The problem of properly training recruits, so vital in its importance to a navy, has been publicly discussed of late years both at home and abroad. The recent agitation of the question in England led to no end of controversy both in their navy and out of it; and a short time ago when discussion was invited by our own Navy Department, widely varying views were found to exist among officers of the highest professional standing.
There are two schools advocated which may be termed the "old" and the "new," differing essentially in the type of ship in which the recruit is first sent to sea for training. The former maintain that the sailing ship is a means to character formation and the development of certain qualities, viz.: adaptability, courage, resourcefulness, handiness, activity and strength—which are essential to the finished man-of-war's man; and that these qualities cannot be developed to a satisfactory degree on the steamer alone. Complaint is heard from the "new" school that valuable time is lost on the intricacies of a sailing ship which might be better employed in learning those of a modern man-of-war; that the sailing ship develops clumsiness of a kind fatal in handling the delicate auxiliaries and appliances on a modern ship; and that the qualities of military bearing, precision and "exact discipline," as well as mechanical ability and dexterity, are given a serious setback. In a word that the sailing ship does not start the training in the direction followed by the later education of the recruit; thereby not merely ill-fitting him, but actually giving him a decided setback in his preparation to meet the demands of the present and future in the service.
There are strong points to both of these arguments. The qualities desired by both sides are of the greatest importance. The weak point of each school consists in its failure to develop satisfactorily the qualities deemed of highest value by the other.
Could we but evolve a training system by which all the qualities considered by both of such great importance would be developed to a high degree, the service would be greatly benefited.
The widely read and much-discussed letter of Captain F. E. Chadwick, U. S. Navy, published in the Naval Institute Proceedings at the request of the Chief of Bureau of Navigation, is most convincing in its argument, if its statement be true that the sailing ship is a far better school for acquirement and development of the qualities he mentions, than any other in the world. But is it not possible to develop those same qualities in equal degree, in another school which advocates "tools" more in keeping with modern service afloat? One in which those valuable qualities advocated by the "new" school can also be developed.
If such a school can be evolved, then the older school must in reason give way to the new.
Let us consider the qualities mentioned by Captain Chadwick: courage, resourcefulness, activity and strength.
The two last, namely activity and strength, can be developed without difficulty to an entirely satisfactory degree by more modern means than the sailing ship. The barrack system, now fairly established in our service, permits ample opportunity for development of these two qualities before the recruit is sent to sea. Here he may be given all sorts of gymnastics ashore, together with plenty of infantry drill and exercise in boats under oars. The value of gymnastics has never been really understood in the navy. We can learn much from the army on this subject. An investigation of the attention devoted to them at West Point, and the methods employed at that place for physical development, would prove highly interesting and instructive to most naval officers. During his first year every cadet is carefully watched and trained by a professional trainer, who devotes more time to the timid weakling than to his more active mates; thus producing a most satisfactory standard. The result at the end of a year is truly remarkable. Athletics were in high favor also at all army posts before the Spanish-American War, and looked upon as an essential part of the training of a soldier, and the results justified the means, for no better army ever existed in point of strength, activity and endurance than our regulars at that time. We have the same opportunities with our own recruits in barracks; and after they are sent to sea, the usual routine of drills and exercises is pregnant with possibilities of physical development which can produce a man physically equal to the product of the sailing ship.
Courage can be highly developed only by familiarity with danger. I question whether this element enters more into the life on board a sail training-ship, whose itinerary is selected with a view to meeting with the best of weather, than it would into the life on a steamer where the crew was given constant exercise in all possible weather, with boats under sail, landing through a surf, and lowering and hooking on boats at sea. Target practice with great guns is also something of a courage tonic. While the actual danger is small, one is apt to imagine more— particularly a recruit—and this exercise is far more fruitful of permanently valuable results to a man-of-war’s man than sail drill. Let the training-ships during a passage at sea give plenty of this practice, and they will not only stimulate the courage of the recruit, but will also lay the foundation for good marksmen.
No one can gainsay the fact that service in a sailing ship develops resourcefulness to a high degree; possibly to a higher degree than can be gotten by any other means, but we have not yet given our other means at hand a fair trial. Boat sailing is an excellent school for this as well as for courage and for constant readiness for emergency. Where have we a more resourceful and courageous set of men in the country than the boatmen and fishermen of our coasts? Transporting and carrying out anchors, handling heavy weights of all kinds, countermining, clearing foul anchors, infantry operations on varied ground, and a multitude of other exercises, furnish a field for the development of this quality. None of them taken alone can compare with the sailing ship in developing resourcefulness, yet when constant drill is given in all of them, we can certainly hope to get as good results as we can get from the sailing ship, limited as we now are to the time that can be spared to it, and handicapped by the growing lack of interest of both men and officers. One point that must not be overlooked is the fact that the type of resourcefulness acquired on a sailing ship differs very materially indeed from that necessary in a dynamo-room or turret, and it is only through experience in these places that one can acquire the kind of resource required there. The driver of a marine engine has as great a demand made upon his resourcefulness as the captain of a top aloft. For the development of this quality, then, we could logically decide that service in the engine-room should replace service with masts and sails.
We can therefore conclude that it is possible to evolve a system of training which is equal to the sailing ship for character formation and development, employing only modern drills in its application. Many, no doubt, are slow to become convinced of this. Possibly the conclusion is not true when the sailing ship is used to its very best advantage, like we propose to use our modern methods; but it must be remembered that interest in the old ships is fast dying out. The recruits themselves feel that it is but a waste of time in their education, and are eager to get on board modern ships. Zeal, enthusiasm, and even interest, are lacking, and without these we cannot hope to accomplish much. The younger officers in the service can never become nearly so proficient in working ship as their elders are, and therefore they can never take the same interest in that branch of the profession. We youngsters must endeavor to attain the highest possible efficiency in a number of other difficult and intricate branches far more essential to the officer of to-day, and to do this something must be neglected. For the good of the service let it be that which is already out of date.
It may be possible to keep a smart sailing ship squadron in commission for ten, twenty, or thirty years—after that where are the commanding officers coming from? The sailing ship is doomed, and the sooner we drop it and begin in earnest the development, for training, of an efficient substitute, so much sooner will we profit by the step.