The subject of training personnel for the Merchant Marine is a controversial one. There are several good methods of making officers and men to supply this service and all have faults and difficulties but not too great to be overcome. Merchant marine officers usually have varied ideas as to training of youths for a career at sea. Their own apprenticeship is often considered the best whether it has been in sail, a state school ship, or “through the hawse pipe.” Each of these has its good points—also features which are detrimental to future sea service.
Let us discuss training in sail, the most controversial part of sea training. It is the opinion of this writer that such training is not essential to the production of good officers or seamen. Idealistic arguments on the value of such experience have been grossly exaggerated. Most of those upholding such a method have been through that mill and appear slightly biased. Others have heard so much about the old days of sail that they have become the same way. But actually, outside of gaining a greater respect for the elements by living a little closer to them, what is gained? Certainly no knowledge that can be used in a modem merchant ship. It may appeal to the vanity of some to be able to tell their grandchildren of “the good old days of sail when men were, etc.” You usually hear those things on your first watch and no doubt you will on your last! Telling about it seems to be the only redeeming feature of time spent in sail—it gives one something to impress the younger generation and little else.
The state school ships even are not unanimous in their own ideas of training. Some are sail and some are converted merchant ships. The courses of study vary. The equipment for study is not standard. The standard of officers turned out is not the same. Two graduates of the same school ship are not equally good as officers. Graduates who stood high in their respective classes have not always been as successful in active service as some who were not rated so highly by the instructors. There is material for study when proposed courses are mentioned. Perhaps the lower standing graduate of the sailing type school ship would have been “four striper” on the steamer or vice versa. Naturally we cannot expect to psychoanalyze each prospective cadet in order to place him on the proper ship. However, might not an admixture of the methods used on the different school ships be the best course to produce the best officers?
It must be said for school ships that there is discipline, strict discipline. The prospective graduate is forced to study by application of various penalties for failing to do so. These penalties are quite effective. None of the other methods to date has had any of these ideal characteristics. The object of the school ship is forever in the minds of cadets and instructors alike, to turn out the best officer considering the man and material at hand.
The training by the “hawse pipe” method, starting as ordinary seamen or wiper, makes for a practical future officer but not one endowed with a deep insight or knowledge of his profession. Many excellent officers, however, have come up through the ranks of the lower element. Usually such officers do not have the “officer spirit” nor a desire to maintain discipline as it should be. It is thought that in some cases just the opposite occurs with some school ship graduates. They have been taught to be officers first and seamen later—if at all. Through lack of contact with the men they have failed to grasp the ability to maintain respect of the crew. They do not “speak the same language.” In the case of the officer rising from the ranks, he may be too familiar with the crew.
There have been no means of training unlicensed personnel since the passing away of the so-called “Hooligan Navy” after the war. This personnel has been recruited from boys who wanted to see the world, from ex-navy men, and from questionable sources. Young men, usually those who “knew someone,” were shipped for a few trips. As everyone knows, some took vacations this way. It must be said, however, that of late some have obtained licenses and have officers’ berths in the merchant service. Many graduates of school ships or deserving men from the deck or engine departments were made “cadets.” Their treatment in this grade varied according to the ideas of training of the officer under whose jurisdiction the cadet was placed. Many times he was simply a lower paid hand. When one did not want to turn out a seaman for a watch-below job, “let the cadet do it.” His training, if any, was seldom such as to make an officer. He was often left to his own devices to gain that object.
If we take the advantages of each of these methods in use today we should be able to produce practical and efficient officers for our Merchant Marine.
It is thought that a training station turning out hundreds of seamen a year would tend to increase seriously the ranks of the unemployed. The market for seamen is glutted now. Suppose that instead of training more young men for replacements on merchant ships we take the men we already have. Pick out young Americans, whether able seamen, water tenders, whatever their present duties or abilities, and give them some advanced training. Bad characters, men with inferior education or not physically fit, could be refused this chance to advance their occupational knowledge. It would not be practical to flood an already flooded labor market. Serious objection from the unions could be readily and reasonably expected.
Take a few young men to sea as “deck boys”—not as a vacation. If they are suitable let them take advantage of the above course of further training—if they still wish to go to sea. Why waste money on many who would take advantage of a training school and perhaps not want the sea as a career afterwards? There is considerable difference between school and the work you are studying for.
The system of cadets and cadet officers proposed by the Maritime Commission has several good features, but information so far given out has not been sufficient to cover several details which are most important. Graduates of school ships and young men with licenses are to be shipped as cadet officers for a year of training on vessels on actual operations. It should be considered that these men already have their licenses, and that if a berth should come up they would be eligible for it although their year is not over. It should be definitely understood on board the ships involved whose duty it is to be tutor if that is expected. In most cases this duty would not be ill-received by active merchant marine officers, but it has been said nevertheless that by teaching and helping more men to get licenses we are flooding our own job market. All officers will not be eager to help these young men. Human nature as it is, this must be expected.
The proposed cadet (not “cadet officer”) system should be available only to recommended deck boys who have taken the course of training open to all seamen. To take young men as cadets and give them quarters and treatment as junior officers on their first trip to sea is not the proper way to make either seamen or officers. That is a vacation and in most cases that is just what it will lead to. The unions will complain if they do any seaman’s work, so what else is there to do on a ship? They have had no sea experience and to take a country boy aboard, treat him as a junior officer, and teach him every rudiment of practical seamanship is a large order for the ship’s officers to fill in their watch below. Previous sea service must be a requisite for a cadet’s as well as a cadet officer’s berth.
If there exists a true desire to get good personnel for the Merchant Marine, deck boys will not be tourists. If they are, that is as far as they go. They do not take up anyone’s time which could more profitably be spent on someone else. The system of training as outlined here is based on shipping young men as deck boys for future officers, deck and engine departments. The success of this plan depends solely on getting the proper kind of deck boy who will serve several years as a seaman, take the government course, and then become a cadet. From cadet he becomes an officer. Those taking vacations will have long since fallen by the wayside. Those who come through will be both officers and seamen with a thorough knowledge of their profession from keel to truck.
To get young men to follow this course to a license, the rights and duties of cadets must be defined or the young man is liable to find that he is no better off as cadet than he was as ordinary seaman or wiper. He should not be given too many privileges but enough so that both he and the rest of the crew realize there is a difference. He should not be promoted to cadet on the same vessel on which he was a seaman or deck boy unless a considerable period of time has elapsed. This is necessary to make a definite break from his “fo’c’sle days.”
It is thought that the few deck boys taken each year will not adversely affect the labor mart and yet supply adequate replacements for the future. They must not be carried in lieu of other personnel and such is the statement as already made by the Maritime Commission.
On the Maritime Commission proposal the age limit for cadets is 18 to 23. Under the “deck boy system” as stated in this article young men of 17 should be eligible. After that age certain psychological occurrences take place which often cause young men not to want to go to sea. They should be accepted at the younger age, if physically fit. Color blindness should be carefully looked for before training him, and not discovered after, as has occurred.
To satisfy the die-hards, a month’s cruise on a sailing ship could be made. It would do no harm at any rate. It is the opinion of this writer that a modern Coast Guard cutter would prove to be the best training ship for young men with the proposed previous experience for cadet, for the unlicensed personnel who take the pertinent advanced course, or for the beginner.
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