MOTTO" However small thy world may be,

Do thou but lead it right;

Thy work for good let all men see,

Although that work be slight.”

-[From Schiller as translated by Major E. Gunter, S. E. D., from the Militär Wochenblatt.]

SUBJECT: "NAVAL APPRENTICES, INDUCEMENTS, ENLISTING, AND TRAINING. THE SEAMAN BRANCH OF THE NAVY."

By ENSIGN RYLAND D. TISDALE, U. S. Navy.

INTRODUCTORY.

During the last few years, several valuable essays have been written by our naval officers on the subjects of "Naval Training," "Naval Training and Discipline," "Enlistment and Training of Seamen," "The Training Service," etc., and the discussions thereon have been quite full and varied. It, however, appears that the subject of this article has been left pretty much where it stood. The main points of these essays seem to be whether our cruisers shall have full sail power, whether the

marines should remain on board ship, remarks on the types of ships built, or stating officers' and seamen's grievances. There are a great many good points in each one of these essays, as well as the discussions, but no very great attention is paid to the apprentice in particular.

It is the opinion of the writer, and, I believe, that of many officers, especially those who have recently served on training ships, that the present system of dealing with apprentices, and their disposal after leaving training ships, should be greatly modified or abandoned.

The apprentices are often considered of no particular value on board the general service ship, and a good many of the commanding officers consider them a nuisance and bother. They seem to be used principally for messengers and signal boys.

After leaving the training ship it appears that, in a practical sense, the apprentices receive but little special instruction or care, and that they are given, at first, too many privileges of men. The regulations, it is true, require instruction, and an examination every quarter. The examinations are often mere forms, as evidenced recently by one officer having, in a day, examined forty apprentices on a new cruiser. No officer on the training ship can examine one-half that number in one branch alone (seamanship or gunnery) in this time.

Apprentices transferred to a ship just going into commission, or during the first part of a cruise, are lucky, for they, with the men, will be taught their various duties, as every one is making an endeavor to get the ship and crew in as efficient a state as possible; here the apprentices are taken care of. On the other hand, suppose they join a ship nearing the end of her cruise: those already on board have become well drilled, say, and there is a let-up in the vigor displayed earlier in the cruise; hence no one takes any special interest in the new apprentice, and he is left to pick up what he can for himself. Now, how much of this will be done on a new cruiser, probably five-sixths her time in port, possibly in navy-yards? The boy's mind turns to liberty, and the pleasures on shore, and he becomes dissatisfied with the service; and because of this, and also because he sees but little real advancement in the Navy, under present conditions, he leaves the service in some way or other before he is twenty-one, or at twenty-one, not to re-enlist.

There is another difficulty under which an apprentice labors, and that is too much is expected of him by the officers, when he is transferred to a general service ship; and the officers must forget that what training the boy has had is merely a drop in the bucket.

It has not been long since the writer saw how little exercise in seamanship is given both the men and apprentices in a squadron of modern vessels. During ten days, pulling boats, other than the barge and dinghy, were not used, except on one day when some racing took place. Steam launches were used for the reason, as stated by the captain of a fine new ship, that it was less trouble and quicker to get ashore.

A study of the systems of enlisting and training apprentices in foreign services, especially those of England, Germany, and France, will furnish food for thought. It must, however, be recognized that there is a great difference between the people of the United States and those of Europe. In most foreign services enlistments are compulsory, and it is not particularly necessary to offer any inducements, or rewards for service, or give good pay. In a republican form of government, especially that of our own, which differs materially from others, voluntary enlistment of boys and men must be produced by well-found attractions.

The United States is a peace-loving country, and her people are domestic; not yet fully developed, there are grand inducements in all branches of civil life, in fact there is an opening for every young man. There is always a demand for talent, industry, sobriety, and steadfastness. The people of the United States are patriotic, but their patriotism is that of the civil class, which is the love of the country and her institutions, and her protection in case of need.

For the Navy, then, the inducements for enlisting boys and young men must be those of positive advancement, fulfilment of ambition, with no degradation of social status in an ordinary sense. To a great degree these inducements are held out to those entering the Naval Academy; but are they for an American boy enlisting as an apprentice?

As has been often said, we cannot, in the United States, depend upon patriotism in times of peace, nor the love of the sea, for recruiting seamen. If the comparatively little pay and

uncomfortable sort of life of seamen be compared with the higher pay and comfortable homes of a similar class of laboring men on shore, if there be no advancement, beyond a certain point, to the top of the ladder made possible for them as a reward for industry, natural talents, good conduct and efficiency, the best boys and men will not enlist; and for those who do, what becomes of ambition? If there is no ambition in a man, what can we expect of him? Will such a one ever become the modern seaman we want to-day?

The statement cannot be made too emphatic that, for the American Navy, inducements for enlistment must equal those for civil trades and professions; the best in the land must enlist. We do not want those who are incapable of doing anything on shore, nor those who, by reason of their unreliability, cannot keep a position on shore. Some may state that the woods are full of men willing to enlist in the Navy. Many men are willing if proper inducements and comforts are offered; others we do not want at any price. There are now many good men in our service, both American and foreign born, and a large number who are not good men.

It will now be said, that among the inducements for boys to enlist as apprentices there should be the possibility of rising from an apprentice to admiral, and this must be the greatest spur for their ambition. We are a free and independent people, forming a nation in which all alike are equally free-born; and such a people that the humblest boy can rise and become President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. Would it then be too unreasonable for an apprentice boy to rise and become an admiral? Some may say this is theoretically a nice way of arguing, but it can be practical also.

There is too much of that wide gulf existing between the enlisted man and the officer. Not that it is advocated that there should be familiarity between the two, or any lack of discipline. There is the military difference which must exist, and there is the social difference, for the time being, that must exist for military reasons. In time of war, even in peace, it has often happened that men of good social status are privates under the command of more humble-born; discipline was maintained, and mutual respect existed. It might be suggested that the grand inducement, once offered, may tend to injure any appren

tice system, as it is claimed that it did once before, when the entry as an apprentice was made the road to a commission.

The method that will be proposed in this article is not the same. There will be two distinct roads to a commission in the line of the Navy, one through the Naval Academy, the other through the training squadron. The apprentice must rise through seaman, petty officer, and warrant officer, to a commissioned officer without ever going through the Naval Academy, as formerly done, and his commission will be the reward of his own exertions and worth. The service will be guarded by suitable examinations and reports. The system which is here proposed is the result of observations on board our training ships, combined with some study of foreign systems, and the thought created by the numerous essays and discussions written on kindred subjects.

The greatest inducement for parents sending their boys into the Navy having been touched upon, the next point is their enlistment and training. One of the most important parts of the training is the possession of suitable training ships. Allied to these will be a slightly different organization of the seaman branch of the Navy, as necessary to carry out effectively what is an American system-a civil service system, as it were; merit, morals, and good conduct to be the requirements for promotion in all cases.

ENLISTING APPRENTICES, AND INDUCEMENTS.

It must be quite evident that when only ten to fifteen per cent. of the naval apprentices enlisted remain in the service, something is wrong with the system.

The source of supply of seamen for our modern Navy should be the training squadron, with possibly a limited enlistment of young men from 21 to 25 years of age, who could also be given a short course of training, as will be suggested later on.

The average annual waste of seamen in the English Navy is from II per cent. to 14 per cent. In our own service in 1892, out of 8,250 men and boys, 1,614 were discharged for disability, services not required, at own request, requests of commanding officers, bad conduct, illegal enlistments, inaptitude; 1,260 men deserted, making a total waste of 2,874 (not including deaths). In 1893, similar figures bring the waste to 2,719. Taking 2,800