INTRODUCTION.
In an article entitled, "The Manning of our Navy and Mercantile Marine," which appeared in the UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1874, an attempt was made to show the advantages of industrial training in general, and its application to the naval service in particular. This was followed by the article "Naval Training," NAVAL INSTITUTE, March 1, 1890, on the same general lines. In the meantime the Navy Department had issued General Order of April 8, 1875, under the operation of which the late training system was evolved.
The training service culminated in the training squadron of 1883. Notwithstanding the years of labor devoted to bringing it up to a high point of efficiency, that service has now "melted into thin air . . . . and . . . . left not a rack behind." After a lapse of thirty-five years the attention of the naval profession is once more invited to the great importance of industrial training and its close application to all branches of the enlisted personnel of the navy: to the artificer of the engineer's department, as well as to the man on deck.
Familiar as this subject is to the profession at large, attention may be called to two points. In those naval powers where the law of conscription is enforced, as in Germany, France and other countries, the navy is enabled at all times to secure its quota of seamen from the merchant service and from the deep-sea fisheries. The United States has no such law—no such nurseries of seamen. Secondly, countries having a large mercantile marine would find, in time of war, their naval reserves in that service. There has never been a time in English naval history when the merchant service of that country has failed to supply ships and men for the national defence. The United States has no mercantile marine. Hence it is the plainest of plain propositions that the navy of the United States must produce its own seamen, in order that every ship may carry a certain percentage of that class, say 25 per cent of its complement, exclusive of the engineer's force.
To the unthinking the very name "seaman" is inseparably associated with the seaman of 1812, and carronades and long 18's. The seaman of 1812, be it understood, besides being an able seaman who could "hand, reef and steer," was also an expert marine artillerist? The naval successes won in those days were largely due to his good gunnery, his straight shooting. Time has wrought great changes in the gun, but not in the gunner. Science and art have combined to bring naval ordnance and gunnery up to the highest state of efficiency; but, strange to say, the production of the gunner, or gun-pointer as he is called, has been left to chance. The admirable target practice of the present day is readily conceded. But the up-to-date marine artillerist should be, as of old, something more than an expert at his gun; he must be, now, as then, a seaman also; but a seaman who has advanced with all the rest of the world in education and training. Military training has become an indispensable part of his make-up and a course in mechanics is necessary to the understanding of the mechanism of his gun and its appliances, whether it he a rapid-firer or a 14-inch gun. A course of instruction covering these and cognate subjects requires time. It should be progressive, and must be thorough at each successive step. To attain this great end the course must begin in early youth and the term of enlistment must be materially extended, as we shall endeavor to show.
The report of the chief of the Bureau of Navigation of November 1, 1908, invites some reflections on our method of manning the navy. Under the head of desertion, for example, it is stated, page 30, that the number of deserters for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, was 5036; the enlisted strength allowed (though not quite full) up to May 13, 1908, being 38,500 (page 24). The report goes on to say: "A certain proportion of desertions may always be expected . . . . this proportion may be reduced in two ways: first, by making the service more attractive" (which has already been done to a very liberal extent); "and, secondly, by increasing the penalties for desertion." It may be observed in passing that punishment, even to the extent of hanging and shooting, cannot be depended upon as a deterrent from crime. There is a third method of reducing the proportion of desertions, more efficacious than the increasing of penalties. This latter method will be fully explained as we proceed. Suffice to say here that it is the method of naturalizing youths to ship life during their formative period; teaching them, from the start, that the ship is to be their home.
Again, referring to the same report, it is stated that the number of men serving under their first enlistment is 29,734; second enlistment, 5862; third enlistment, 1642, etc.
Taken together, the number of desertions and the comparatively few enlisted men who remain in the service, the exhibit is proof that our method of manning the navy is susceptible of improvement. What is the method?
For our present purpose we may divide the personnel of the navy into three principal classes: the commissioned officers, the warranted officers and the enlisted force. The commissioned officer follows a profession; the enlisted man follows a trade to qualify for the naval profession, young gentlemen already well grounded in English studies attend a technical college known as the Naval Academy. Here, in addition to a military training, they pass through an academic course which, for thoroughness and extent, compares favorably with that of our oldest universities. The course lasts four years. On graduating the young officer enters the profession of his choice for life. With the enlisted force the conditions are totally different. Of this force we are to consider, for the present, the seaman class only. Youths and young men between the ages of 17 and 25 years are enlisted for four years. If under 18 years the recruit must sign an agreement to serve until 21 years of age. As the former training service has been discontinued, we have in its stead fine recruiting stations where recruits are kept four months, when they are drafted to seagoing ships.
The recruit, while at the recruiting station, is rated as an apprentice- seaman. When transferred to the general service he loses his identity as such. He then mingles with the ship's company, and is left very much to his own devices to get along as well as he can. No one need be told how very little can be accomplished in the way of instruction of any kind in four months. This is particularly true when the recruit is suddenly introduced into a life and surroundings totally different from anything he had ever experienced, or even dreamed of, and radically different from the environment of the ship which is soon to be his home.
In barracks, or in camp, the recruit (formerly known as a landsman) is well cared for, as he should be. He is well paid and comfortably housed, well fed, well clothed and gets enough exercise in the way of drills to keep him in good health. The quarters are ample, affording plenty of elbow room and abundance of light; the discipline is mild: recreation is well provided for. It has been shown, however, that barracks, with all the advantages claimed for them, can be improved upon. The camp, according to one writer, has superior advantages. An officer closely identified with the training of landsmen and who has given much intelligent consideration to the subject strongly advocates putting the men in tents. "Statistics," he writes, "show that there has been little or no sickness since the apprentice-seamen have been quartered under canvas; whereas in barracks there were always the usual diseases, incident to the living together of a great number of men." "To my mind," he adds, "the camp is ideal for the training station located in a temperate climate." The writer fails to explain how far camp life prepares landsmen for ship life—the great desideratum.
Says the Massachusetts Industrial Commission: "The efficiency of an industrial school depends on its leading motive. Each trade school should have a distinct industrial idea." How far this sound principle is carried out in the barracks, or the camp life, for prospective seamen, we leave others to judge. The writer goes on to say: "Considering the battleship to be the proper training ship, the hearty co-operation of the fleet with the training service should find good results." (Method employed at Training Stations, page 151.) As there does not appear to be any such "cooperation" on the part of the fleet, the whole theory of our present system is based on a fallacy.
As the number of commissioned officers available for service at the so-called training stations is very limited, the drilling and instructing of the recruits must necessarily devolve upon warranted officers and petty officers. This duty is well performed, according to the light of the instructors. In one of our several attempts to establish a normal school for petty officers it was found that many seamen petty officers knew absolutely nothing of knotting and splicing, the a b c of a seaman's trade.
However that may be, it is a subject of general remark how very much is accomplished in this direction—the setting-up drills, the school of the soldier, etc.—in the short time allowed, often less than four months. The question now to be considered is how far this four months' course of instruction in barracks or in tents, thorough as it undoubtedly is, prepares a landsman or youth for his trade—that of seaman—and for his career--a life on board a ship of war. The answer is that there is little pretense to fit him for the trade of seaman and that the life in barracks, or in a camp, actually unfits him for ship life.
If it be contended that the navy has no further use for seamen, then the term apprentice-seaman is a misnomer and misleading and should be dropped; and if it should be claimed that when the pressure for recruits is relieved more time may be given to barracks or camp life, the answer is that the longer the recruits are kept in barracks, or in a camp, the more do they become unfitted for life on board ship. In short, to put the recruits in barracks, or in tents, is to begin their career by a false step and one which cannot easily be retrieved.
Put the seamen, those who have become habituated to ship life, in barracks, by all means. Substitute barracks for the old Guard", (the name applied by sailors to the receiving ship): but for the young recruit there is but one first step, and that is, from his home to the deck of a man-of-war fitted up as a school ship.
THE APPRENTICE-SEAMAN.
From all that can be learned the three or four months spent in camp, or in barracks, has done little to prepare the apprentice seaman for duty on board ship. The few advantages claimed for shore training are greatly overbalanced by the many and very serious disadvantages. First, and before all, is the fact that it disqualifies the recruit for life, on board ship. The net results prove this by the number of desertions and the comparatively few re-enlistments.
A system of naval, training that does not recognize the prime necessity of reconciling the recruit to ship life from the very beginning, fails in its most essential requisite. Whatever advantages may be claimed for a given system, if it does not naturalize the recruit to the ship it does not fulfill the very objects and aims of naval training. For it is by means of making the young seaman regard the ship as his natural home that the great majority of the enlisted force may be retained in the service, and thus save that force from being depleted by desertions and failures to re-enlist. To accomplish this end the recruit must be taken while young and put at once on board ship. This is axiomatic. It cannot be gainsaid.
How Not To Do It.—Youths and young men are enlisted in the navy presumably to learn a trade—that of up-to-date seamen— bearing in mind now the seaman class only. Their introduction into the service is not on board ship where that trade can best be learned, but in barracks or tents where the quarters are roomy and well ventilated and well lighted. Here every comfort is provided for, as already stated. The drills, mostly in the manual of arms, the school of the soldier and the school of the battalion, are far from fatiguing, but there are few signs of ;the seaman's trade. There is no time for it. Field sports are encouraged, and the evening hours are rendered pleasant in various ways. Suddenly they are drafted to a vessel of war. Here the recruit finds himself in an entirely new world and one for which he is totally un prepared. To him it is a world of unutterable confusion, where everything is new and strange. He finds it difficult to adjust himself to such unlooked for conditions. It is long before he gets into correspondence with his environment and most recruits of mature age, fixed habits and social affiliations never can adjust themselves to ship life; hence desertions and failures to re-enlist. The restraints, the confinement, the discipline and the undeviating routine are found to be too irksome to be borne by one past the formative age. Twenty or twenty-one years of perfect freedom on shore—freedom from restraints of any kind, a stranger to methodical habits and without a trade—all these conditions have rendered the average young man unsuited to become a member of a ship's company with any prospect of future usefulness. The Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, in his report already quoted, observes that "a certain proportion of desertions may always be expected, due to the discomforts and deprivations incident to a sea going life, the virtual severance of all family ties, and the drifting habit peculiar to the young and ambitious, who form so large a proportion of our enlisted force." That is quite true. The remedy is to catch them while young and inure them to ship life from the first.
What Class of Landsmen Are We Enlisting?—This question introduces another and a very important phase of the subject. The American system of public schools has long been our boast. Fourth-of-July orators never tire of telling us how highly educated we all are, and how every American boy may be President of the United States. For some time past it has been dawning on the public mind that this is a delusion; that much of our boasted education is misdirected education, and that a great deal of such misdirected education is positively harmful in itself and prejudicial to the public good. "Thousands are starving in all the professions," observes one writer, "who should be on farms like their ancestors; the failures have muscles for mechanical work; but not brains for intellectual labors." Many a first-class mechanic has been spoiled to make a very poor and perfectly useless college or high school graduate. The criminal classes are largely recruited from these unfortunates whose education has been misdirected.
Mr. Paul H. Hanus, chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial Education, in an address January 9, 1908, says: "The statute under which the Commission on Industrial Education has been carrying on its work commits the State of Massachusetts to a distinct policy in industrial education; namely, that such education shall be given in schools supported by public funds, but independent of the existing public schools. The importance of this policy deserves emphasis. It is nothing more nor less than the establishment of a new kind of public education on a foundation as secure as that of the existing public schools, but with a different leading motive. It means the establishment of schools for vocational training as such, as distinct from the existing public schools, the purpose of which is general education. The dominant motive of the schools to be established under the Commission on Industrial Education is, therefore, preparation for a vocation, while the dominant motive of the existing public schools is general culture. It is important to bear this distinction in mind, inasmuch as the leading motive of a school is the most important factor in) determining its efficiency. On it will depend the scope and nature of the work done in the school, the qualifications of the teaching force, and the character of the results which the school achieves." This is particularly applicable to our so-called naval training service.
"To prevent misunderstanding, it should be pointed out that, although the emphasis in this discussion is on vocational education, such emphasis neither ignores nor in any sense disparages the value of general education. In this country all education, if well done, is valuable. We have profited much by the system of education hitherto developed, and we shall continue to profit by it. Nevertheless, this education is inadequate." That fact: "inadequate education," is what the people of this country are waking up to, and one which the navy must wake up to.
"One of the most important principles on which our democratic institutions are based is, equal opportunities for all through education and through equal rights before the law. In this country every youth should have the opportunity to make the most of himself, and to lift himself to any social level to which he may aspire, and to which his character, capacity and industry may enable him to attain. Yet the school system which has been devised to guarantee this right now fails to reach the great majority of our population after they reach the age of 14 years." Let those interested in the training of our seamen branch and engine-room artificers branch make a note of this.
"The question which we have to answer is: What becomes of this great majority who leave school at an early age? The investigations of the Commission on Industrial and Technical Education showed that there is in Massachusetts alone probably not less than 25,000 of these young people; that these young people are engaged in various kinds of juvenile occupations, in which they have no opportunity to apply what they have learned. Accordingly, they forget most of what they have learned in school, and by the time they are young men on the threshold of citizenship, they are sometimes actually more ignorant than they were when they left school. The situation, however, is even worse. Not only has their educational development been arrested, but the unfortunate education of shifting experience and environment has failed to develop in most of them the characteristics of substantial manhood." This is the class that enlist into the navy, and by some occult process become "the finest seamen in the world."
"Again these young people have an earning capacity but little above that which they had when they left school. They have not learned what it is to become adapted to a given employment; or to make progress in efficiency in a given kind of work. In other words, they find themselves without a career at an age when the answer to the question What shall I do?' should have been settled, and when their usefulness in their several careers should begin to open to them the promise of increasing earnings." As the question "What shall I do?" has not been answered by many, they enter the navy as a forlorn hope, a hope seldom realized.
"It is clear, therefore, from what has just been said, that our provision for public education fails to reach the great majority of our population during the critical period of youth. During these important years, when the boy rapidly becomes a man, when the influences to which he is subject are likely to be permanent, during those years the beneficent influence of the education he has received is too often, under present conditions, likely to be dissipated, and to be replaced by the untoward educational influences of shifting environment.
"And this is because there is no school that appeals to a large proportion of our pupils and parents; no school that, by its very nature, suggests the possibility of a career in some skilled pursuit. He therefore naturally takes advantage of the first opportunity to work for wages that presents itself to him, and that opportunity usually leaves him stranded at the age of eighteen or nineteen among the hosts of the unskilled."
It is at this age, and under these conditions, that the "stranded" young man readily responds to the appeal of the naval recruiting officer. Here at last is the answer to his question: "What shall I do?" Here is a chance to learn a trade, and at the same time to have an opportunity of seeing the world. He gladly enlists only to find in many cases that he is not suited to the confinement and the restraints of ship life. This explanation does not cover all cases surely, but certainly a great many. And it traces one of the causes of desertion home to its source. Desertions and failures to re-enlist are the logical results of our present method of manning the navy.
The report of the Commission goes on to say: "Boys from fourteen to sixteen must turn their attention to the juvenile occupations in which the prospect of an upward career is impossible. By the time they are eighteen or nineteen years of age many of them are lost to the skilled occupations altogether." Let naval educators take note of this.
To sum up: "1. Our present provision for public education is inadequate. Its dominant aim is general culture; but it makes no provision for training for specific usefulness in some skilled vocation for those who must leave school when fourteen or fifteen years old, and who, therefore, must face at an early age the momentous question, 'What shall I do to insure early self-support and progressive well-being as I grow older?'
"2. The progressive development of all high-grade industries requires skilled workmen, possessing industrial intelligence; that is, comprehensive insight into, and intelligent interest in, their several trades (including that of seamen), as well as skill." This applies equally to ship's artificers of the engineer's department.
"3. The present conditions of production are unfavorable to the training of such workmen, or naval apprentices, in the shop or on board a battleship, and sometimes render such training impossible.
"4. All industries, whatever their grade, demand more men than are now obtainable who are capable of acting as foremen, superintendents, managers, petty officers or machinists—men possessing the comprehensive insight, interest and skill necessary for the organization and direction of a department, a shop or his station on board ship, either on deck or in the engine room."
"5. Such men, whether workers, foremen, superintendents, petty officers, gun-pointers or artificers, are now usually developed by chance; and they are then self-made men, possessing the merit, but also the conspicuous shortcomings due to their lack of early training. Does the gun-pointer, 'by chance,' fulfill modern conditions?
"6. Meanwhile, boys and young men are not only not directed toward the trades in our existing schools, but are often actually directed away from them by the bookish education of those schools and their purely academic traditions. Manual training, be it understood, is not industrial training, and should not be confused with it. Manual training is, if well done, a general acquaintance with constructive and productive activities. It may make a pupil generally handy and hence may serve as preparation for industrial training. But it goes no farther. Industrial training, on the other hand, means vocational training, training in trades (and for the navy). It aims to develop industrial intelligence and skill in particular vocations. It does not properly begin until the pupil is at least fourteen years old. It does not make a journeyman, a seaman or a machinist, but it gives each worker at a skilled vocation a training that enables him to earn a living wage at eighteen or nineteen, and that gives promise of increasing efficiency (as a seaman or machinist) as time goes on.
"7. Boys are not wanted in the industries until they are sixteen years of age. The result is an army of youths from fourteen to sixteen years of age, most of whom are either at work in various kinds of juvenile occupation in which they learn no trade, are subject to little, if any, beneficial general education, and often to much harmful education from evil associations." It is this class, from fourteen to sixteen, who should be put on board training ships.
"8. These years and subsequent years are, however, valuable for industrial education. But there has been no agency (not even in the navy now) whereby this education is provided, save to a very limited extent.
"9. Hence the need of industrial schools to meet a new educational need which has evolved with the evolution of our industries (and naval expansion)." Such schools should receive pupils fourteen or fifteen years of age who declare their intention (to enter the navy in order) to learn a trade (the trade of seaman or machinist). "Such schools should be independent schools, because their leading motive is vocational training and not general culture, and the efficiency of a school depends on its leading motive.
"10. Such schools should offer a course of training covering four years of instruction on shore," and from one to two years on board training ships.
"Trade instruction should be given in schools devoted to particular trades. Each school should have a distinct and unmistakable character as the exponent of a distinct industrial idea," whether on shore or in the navy.
What was true in Massachusetts was found to be true in other States of the Union, as well as in Europe, and is equally true in the United States Navy, viz: that industrial training has become a necessity.
Said Mr. Edwin G. Cooley, formerly superintendent of the Chicago public schools: "It has come to pass that we are educating about two million boys for the Presidency, and about thirty million for nothing, because our schools are cramming things into their heads which will be of no use to them when they begin work in the factory or on the farm." And Mr. Lorenzo D. Harvey, president of the National Education Association, in his annual address, July 6, stated that: "Within recent years there has sprung up a widespread demand for industrial education. It comes from all parts of the United States and from all classes of people—the manufacturer, the professional man, the man engaged in commercial enterprises, the farmer, the educator. Industrial education has probably a different meaning for each of these types of individuals, and yet all agree upon one thing, and that is that it is something not found in any adequate form in our present educational system.
"To the farmer industrial education means education that will fit the boy to become a more effective farmer and that will present inducements to him to remain upon the farm; to the manufacturer it means training that will give him skilled workmen and more efficient foremen and superintendents." To this let it be added that to the navy it means that it will fit boys to make a higher type of man-of-war's man, better all-around gun-pointers, superior turret captains, more competent artificers of all kinds, and, eventually, more thoroughly trained petty officers, more highly educated warrant officers. Furthermore it means that it will hold out such inducements that our young seamen and artificers will find it to their best interests to remain in the service as "continuous service men."
How To Do It.—The age of enlistment in the navy is from seventeen to twenty-five years. The plea is here made for the conservation of a vast amount of valuable raw material now going to waste, viz: the hundreds of bright boys from fourteen to seventeen years now in the streets, or on farms, who would gladly enlist were they permitted by our regulations to do so. The manning of the navy, wholly and entirely, from these boys is out of the question. But as there are so many trades represented on board ship, the proposition is simply to add to the number the trade of an up-to-date seaman. And as there are, in every ship's company, a proportion (say 25 per cent) of the seaman class, or deck hands, who are not specialists, or whose duties do not gall for any great amount of previous training, the proposition is to convert that class of negative characters into a highly trained class of specialists as seamen, up-to-date seamen, who will become in reality, as well as in name, "seamen-gunners." We will guarantee that boys who shall have been two years under proper naval training will furnish as large a proportion of good gun-pointers as the same number of boys who are now passing those two years on farms or on the streets of a city. And what is true of the seamen branch is equally true of the engine-room artificers branch. The industrial school system applies to each equally.
The training of boys for the naval service, as established by the order of the Navy Department of April 8, 1875, although a marked success during its prime, has been abolished. The breaking up and total abandonment of what was commonly called the "training system," which was essentially the industrial method, was due to several contributory causes, the principal ones being the war with Spain, the sudden and great expansion of the navy and the consequent demand for more men to man our ships. The naval apprentice of the average age of sixteen years was too immature to be sent to a battleship. His place was taken by the landsman of twenty or twenty-one years of age, caught up from all parts of the country. The exigencies of the service, it was argued, did not admit of waiting for the apprentice boy to mature.
The pressure for men being now somewhat relaxed, it is a good time to consider how far the navy should revive the training system of 1875 and avail itself of the method of industrial training which has awakened so much active interest throughout this country, and long been known and practiced in Europe. Reduced to its simplest terms the question is: Which is the more desirable man on board ship—the one who has been two years on a farm or the one who has been two years under naval training?—the one who, from fifteen to seventeen years of age, is vainly seeking for a vocation on shore; or the one who, from fifteen to seventeen years, has found his vocation on board ship and has become inured to it? There can be but one answer and that is in favor of industrial education.
The next question is: Which of the two seamen-apprentices gives most promise of usefulness on board ship—the one who has spent four months in barracks or under a tent, or the one who has spent the same time on board a school ship, such, let us say, as a vessel of the Indiana class? There is nothing taught in barracks, or in a camp, that cannot be taught just as well, or even better, on board a school ship, with the additional advantage that every day spent on board ship tends to reconcile the recruit to his novel surroundings afloat. The intermediate step of the barracks, or camp, cannot be otherwise than a positive detriment. Every day spent there tends to unfit the recruit for ship life, and thus defeat one of the principal ends in view.
In the industrial system of education the boy of fifteen or sixteen is put in the shop and taught to handle the tools he is to use in his trade. Applying that rule to the naval apprentice he should be put at once on board ship, his shop, and taught to handle the tools he is to use in his trade; marlinspike seamanship, the compass, the lead, the wheel, small arms, the secondary battery, signalling, electricity and the rest of it, just as it is done on board ship--not by the installation as found on shore. One of the most important features of the training of naval recruits is the inculcation of habits of personal cleanliness—easy enough at fourteen, difficult at twenty-one. Daily ablutions, frequent bathing, the washing and mending of one's own clothes, the frequent inspection, by divisional officers, of the clothes-bags and bedding of the recruits, the mess formations and messing arrangements generally—all this should follow the practice of seamen on board ship, not as done by soldiers on shore. Taken early, life on board ship, "that little warlike world within," with all its privations, soon becomes to him a second nature.
It has been stated that the recruiting stations have supplied more than 80 per cent of all the coal passers required for the fleet. It is submitted that the training of that class of enlisted men could be accomplished far better on board a school ship. The same may be predicated of commissary stewards, cooks arid bakers. It is essential to their usefulness, and to their retention in the service, that they should be taught the method of their calling as it is practised on board ship and not as it is done on shore. There cannot be two intelligent opinions on this point. Common sense should teach us that. Moreover, the setting-up drills, the school of the soldier, and the rest of it, all very essential in their several ways, could be carried on just as well on board ship, up to a certain point, when landing parties, for the "school of the company" target practice and the enforced use of boats would be in order.
Of two ships of the same class, such as the Indiana, which one is likely to produce the better results—the one moored in the stream or the one tied up to a wharf? There is but one answer—the one moored in the stream. Why? Everyone who has had experience on board a ship at a navy yard knows the demoralizing influence of too close contact with the shore.' The standard argument in favor of the pernicious practice of tying a school ship up to a wharf is the facility, it affords for landing the apprentice boys for infantry drill, as if that were the sole object and end of all naval training. The fact that under such conditions the boats become of little use the great part of the year is overlooked. Landing in boats with arms and accoutrements for infantry drill and target firing is one of the most important parts of the exercises. The ship in stream, moreover, gives a certain sense of isolation which is increased by the knowledge that the boat, or swimming, is the only means of getting on shore. This early habituation to ship life during the formative period of youth is one of the most important factors in naval training. This fact cannot be repeated too often nor too earnestly. Moreover, it is one that has been completely ignored.
Again: Of two ships assigned to the training service which one promises the better results—the stationary school ship moored in the stream for the reception and breaking in of boy recruits, or the sailing snip that cruises in foreign waters with a crew made up mostly of apprentice boys? On the completion of the "breaking in" process the sailing ship undoubtedly, for it is clear that a boy who has been, from sixteen to seventeen years of age, at sea in a sailing ship, is far more desirable on board a battleship than a boy who, from sixteen to seventeen years, has been on a farm or roaming about the streets of a city, hoping for something to turn up. Other things being equal, he is far more likely to become a good gun-pointer.
It may be mentioned in this connection that the White Star Line has put in commission the full-rigged clipper ship Mersey, of 1829 tons (about the size of the Cumberland), for the special purpose of training the cadets who are, in time, to command the company's great ocean liners. That company knows what it is about! The great merit of the sailing ship is that it is the best school for young officers as well as young seamen.
Granting all that can be claimed for barracks and for the camp in the way of preparing landsmen for the vocation of seamen, it cannot be denied that the method fails, in certain essentials. It does not develop what is called character. One of the results of any system deserving the name of training is to impart an increase of steadiness of nerve. With this comes endurance under conditions the most trying and, in the presence of imminent danger, a coolness and self-possession impossible with the untrained man. No surprise, however sudden, can catch the trained man off his guard. In battle or in time of disaster at sea, men of such a type would prove invaluable. That special training can be accomplished by the sailing ship better than by any other means. Those who regard the handling of spars and sails of a sailing ship, in all weather at sea, as merely gymnastic exercises such as furnished by Indian clubs, dumb-bells and the like, can have given little or no attention to the subject. Exercising in the best equipped gymnasium is spiritless and ennuyant. It develops the muscles, but has no effect upon the brain. It lacks the element of danger. The sailing ship does far, very far, more. Constantly confronting dangers in their work aloft develops qualities which go to the formation of character in the youthful sailor, such as no other form of exercise can. It not only develops the muscular system, but it stimulates the mental and moral faculties as well. To inculcate habits of discipline, which compels self-control; to enforce prompt obedience; to encourage endurance under circumstances the most trying; and to develop a cool contempt of danger in any form, are among the ends sought in naval training. The sailing ship and the school of the topman go far towards securing those ends. Shall we forever discard that invaluable part of the naval training of boys in favor of the farm, or the streets of the city? Bear in mind that we are now dealing with the subject of boys under seventeen years of age who are now excluded from our training ships.' Men so trained from their youth up are less likely to desert and far more likely to re-enlist.
To the objection that we cannot wait for apprentice boys of fifteen or sixteen to mature, the answer is: Don't!—don't wait for the boys on board the training ships to mature. Keep right on enlisting landsmen, as at present, and fill up the complements of ships with raw recruits. They have amply proved their worth as many officers have testified. Then in a very few years the trained seaman-apprentice of nineteen or twenty years of age will be coming along and taking his place in the general service, and seagoing officers will be glad to have him, just as seagoing officers were glad to have naval apprentices when the training service was in its prime. Desertions will then decrease, the number of continuous-service men will increase and we will soon have a new school of petty officers.
What is proposed is simply a return to the training system established by the Navy Department in 1875, which was the industrial system. It was based on sound principles, as has been amply demonstrated. It was eminently successful. Let it be resumed. It would give far greater promise than the present crude method of supplying the navy with gun-pointers, turret captains, seamen and seamen petty officers generally. To deny this is to deny the advantages of all education, either industrial or general.
This plea for the training of the seamen branch of the navy is urged in favor of the engine-room artificers branch as well.
The most perplexing phase of the subject of "continuous-service men" remains to be considered. It is the question of pay. A young man of average ability may, during a four years' enlistment, pick up a fairly good knowledge of some one of the many trades practised on board a vessel of war. When paid off with an honorable discharge at the end of his enlistment, he will find no difficulty in obtaining employment on shore at a much higher wage than he can earn in the navy. The "big" discharge, as it is called, will always ensure to its possessor employment in civil life. Then why stay in the navy? The answer is, or should be: "Because I have been brought up to ship life from early boyhood, and would feel out of place elsewhere; while in the navy I have always something to look forward to in the way of advancement and finally a pension."
The following extract from a letter of an "ex-man-of-war's man," which appeared recently (August, 1909) in the New York Times, indicates that the navy is educating young men for civil pursuits. It is an answer to a published complaint that the "fleet means $200,000,000 stolen from wage-earners."
"That the fleet means $200,000,000 stolen from wage-earners will not appeal to the average intelligence. The price of the ships came from the property owners of the country, at the lowest tax rate in the civilized world. It was paid in order that there should be funds to enable the government to adequately protect its citizens. As for 15,000 young men, 'turned from productive industry'—well, the navy requires electricians, telegraphers, carpenters, plumbers, machinists, engineers, coppersmiths',-boilermakers, clerks, fifty-nine trades in all, and it educates boys to fulfill these duties! I know whereof I speak. I learned my trade in the navy, was honorably discharged two years ago, having saved $800 in my four years, and I am now on a salary of $3200 per annum. The navy taught me all I know of 'productive industry.' Without complaints like this one of Mr. Mendes, many young men now drifting along tradeless would do as I have done, and after a four years' education enter business life ashore, fit, sound in mind and body, and with a love for the flag which is beyond the comprehension of the 'free-born Americans' who object to anything military."
The theory that young men, educated by the navy for civil life, will, in time, form a great naval reserve that would flock to the colors at the first tap of the drum, is an idle dream. The government trains young men for the navy of to-day, not for the navy of the dim, uncertain future.
The following article on "The Army and the Navy as Industrial Schools" is taken from one of our leading periodicals:
"That military discipline is an excellent preparation for work in factories, is asserted by a writer in The Iron Age (New York, July 29, 1909). In his opinion the enforced military service of the continental nations of Europe is of use to them in this regard, and he suggests that our own navy may perform the same function for us. He writes: 'An American who has spent considerable time in German shops comments upon the excellent discipline which prevails everywhere as the direct result of the military or naval service which all Germans are compelled to perform. The years of absolute obedience to superior officers have a lasting influence upon a large majority of men, as shown by them in the industrial works where they are employed in after life. Quick compliance with orders need not mean servility. It is the same obedience which the men from whom workmen take orders extend to their own superiors. It does not of necessity curtail suggestions, because the trend of discipline is of a different sort. We have heard American employers say that they like to get young men who have been trained in the navy under conditions as they have existed in recent years, because they have been well grounded in their work, are resourceful and above the average in their ability and willingness to make suggestions, and at the same time obey quickly, without sullenness and seldom with resentment.'
"The American Navy seems to be an industrial school worth taking into consideration. The industries of the country need well-trained men. Schools are being established in many centers. in order that the supply may be increased. The suggestion of the benefit of modern naval training is a good one. The war-ship of to-day is not unlike a great industrial plant. The immense complexity of machinery which performs the various functions of the vessel, combined with the equipment which looks after maintenance and repairs, affords the opportunity for a practical training which should be of great value to a young man after his term of enlistment has ended, especially if he follows the trade in which he specialized. Moreover, the fact that he has lived under strict discipline is a consideration not to be lightly discredited."
This is all very true. The navy seems to be regarded as a great training school for supplying the industries of the country with skilled labor. The forcible presentation of this truth by the press shows that the navy—to use a colloquialism—is up against a pretty stiff proposition, viz: how to secure to itself a permanent body of trained seamen—a body of seamen who will realize that they belong to an integral part of the national defenses. It is but natural that everyone, enlisted man and commissioned officer alike, should seek, from his own point of view, to better his condition. It is the point of view, then, that is to be established. If the enlisted man sees that his interests and inclinations are all with the naval service, he will remain in the navy; otherwise he will not.
To establish the seaman's point of view, there are two steps necessary—first (to repeat it once more), to enlist boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years (with the consent of their parents or guardians), and put them at once on board ship under training, mostly at sea, for a year or eighteen months at the very least; secondly, to enlist boys between fourteen and seventeen years of age to serve ten years from the age of eighteen.
Congress has been very liberal in providing for the advancement of enlisted men so that the boy who has anything in him, is sure to get along. Entered at the average age of fifteen years and a half and allowing one year and a half for the training service, he will have reached the age of seventeen years, the age now allowed for admission. After four years in the general service he will have become of age, and capable of forming a correct estimate of his own limitations. Here we have, on the one hand, a young man of twenty-one, who has had five and a half years experience on board a man-of-war during the formative period of his life; on the other the young man of twenty-one who has passed those years on shore; the one having all his affiliations in the service, the other having all his affiliations out of the service; the one habituated to the restraints and restrictions of ship life, the other an entire stranger to them; the one a real man-of-war seaman, the other a landsman. From the naval standpoint can there possibly be a choice between the two? The young seaman who entered at fifteen years and a half, having become of age, will have, under the proposed plan, yet seven years to serve. But being a young man of average ability he will have been advanced according to his proficiency and good conduct. He cannot but feel now that he belongs to the navy, and that his interests are bound up and identified with that service. He easily passes from the ranks of the "common sailor" to that of petty officer, with the chances of further advancement. It lies with him now to secure the next step—that is, to become a warranted officer, when he ceases to be an enlisted man.
Nor is this all. He may yet obtain a commission, honorable retirement and a pension. If, on the other hand, he finds on reaching the age of twenty-one that he has mistaken his vocation, he has it in his power to purchase his discharge from the service. All things considered, it is a fair equivalent, in return for all the advantages offered by the government, to require a lad to serve for ten years from the age of eighteen. That boy should consider himself fortunate indeed who can gain such a position; and his parents should rejoice in the fact that an honorable vocation is secured to him for life.