It is a great pleasure to find myself so thoroughly in accord with the essayist in his views in regard to the importance of the sailing ships, but a pity that I fall to carping at once because he does not let himself loose on it. It is an all-inspiring theme, an all-important one to his subject, and I regret that my limited time compels me to talk quick, but I can't let the subject pass without recording the fact that I view its importance as second to none other in our naval profession both now and in all time to come.

It is my sincere belief that square-yard and sail training is the cornerstone and cap-stone of the seaman and officer as much to-day as in the times of John Paul Jones or the studding-sail-boom hero of Cooper's novel. It is the all-in-all, the without which neither officer nor man has any more right to the title of his profession than has a doctor who has never visited a hospital to hang out his sign and aspire to practice. To depart in the slightest degree from the utmost practice of seamanship aloft and on the bridge, as the foundation of a line officer's education and training, is to hazard his unquestioned claim to command; to withhold a single chance from the naval apprentice handicaps his value as a helmsman or a gunner, deprives him of that development which will carry him with firm-set nerves right up to and through the dreadful crisis of the ram or the torpedo.

Away with your sails, if you please, strip your masts of their yards, but after you have done so, produce me a man to compare in fertility of resource, in keen judgment, in fearlessness, in dash, in courage, in leadership, in all that makes a manly man, with the one who has been trained at the weather-earring or in smothering the mad billows of a thrashing sail! You can't do it.

There is a something about the sailing-ship sailor which marks him from his mates of the shovel and oil-can on board ship, a something that shows itself at the gun, about the decks, on shore; a manliness, an independence, a something that catches your eye when looking for volunteers, a something that responds when you call for them. Few men are naturally fearless, still fewer born with a ready wit to meet emergencies as they arise. There is but one school to properly teach those who follow the sea in their country's service, and that is the school of the top and the cross-tree, the surging yard and the bellying canvas. It is calisthenics and morals combined, and far be the day when sails, yards and masts cease to be the main features in the primary training of the naval apprentices.

As a school for the young officer, too, nothing can ever give him that habit of observation, that attention to detail, that self-reliance, that readiness to meet the calls of the minute that are the constant companions of the officer-of-the-watch on a sailing ship. No better school for learning the strength and weakness of men as a class, for studying and appreciating character, for getting "work out of men," as the saying is, than on the deck of a sailing ship, and the essayist does well to call attention to the importance of the sailing ship for both officer and man. The two training brigs suggested would be a most excellent school. With

a lieutenant in command, and a detail of young officers to fill the duties of executive and navigator, as well as watch officers, short cruises of a few days might be made to the great advantage of the officers and apprentices. A ship's cook and a seaman in each part of the ship would be all of the experienced force needed forward, and an interested set of officers aft would soon develop the boys and bid fair to keep alive that class of men made glorious in history by their records of pluck and daring.

There is much that my limited time prevents my passing upon, either critically or otherwise, but I cannot pass the suggestions in regard to “amusements and non-professional instruction" without expressing my belief that it has perhaps as much to do with inducing apprentices to remain in the service as any other attraction, not excepting pay, that can be offered. The last three commanding officers of the Portsmouth were believers in this idea, and encouraged singing, magic-lantern exhibitions, horizontal bars, Indian clubs, dumb bells, and boxing gloves, and as a part of the daily routine, the piping of "all hands to play," whenever the weather permitted, during the evening hours.

A library of light reading, selected with a view to the apprentices almost entirely, was procured by the modest subscription of five cents a month from each officer, man and apprentice who was willing to subscribe, and the appearance of what was left upon the completion of the cruise attested the value which the boys placed upon it. Few, of the several hundred books purchased, were in a condition to be even worth sending to a hospital.

In the matter of food, the custom of commuting a certain number of rations and purchasing articles not covered by the regulation naval ration in addition, resulted in the fact that of over six hundred boys who cruised with me during my last cruise, there were not a dozen who complained at any time of the food, except in cases where some bully in the mess had ruthlessly robbed his weaker messmate of his allowance. This bespoke a contentment on one very important point. Different boys were detailed weekly to take charge of the mess. Their duties required them to set the tables, receive the ration from the ship's cook, distribute it, clean and restore the tables and utensils, and for this they were allowed in cash their 30 cents a day ration; provided, however, that the record of the mess utensils with which they entered upon their duties tallied with that which they turned over to their successors. Inasmuch as they bought their own mess gear, they paid for what was lost.

The suggestion for schoolmasters to accompany every division is unquestionably a good one. There should be a sufficient number of schoolmasters, or boatswain's mates, 1st class, at the training station to provide for at least two for each division of boys, who should be associated with it until it was drafted in the general service, and who should then be re-attached to a new division at the training station.

In regard to a permanent crew for the training-ship, the essayist emphasizes the matter of having men of good habits selected, and every

thing should be done to encourage good men to remain on the trainingships. The commanding officer should further have the assurance that at the end of the training cruise any recommendation that he should make to the Bureau to that end should be immediately complied with, as it would be better to err on the side of perhaps removing a man who was only at fault in his example, by accident, than to have a new draft subjected to the possibility of being the witnesses of another accident. The force of example among boys of that age is very great, and the essayist thoroughly appreciates it.

I can only state in conclusion that the essayist has done a good thing for the service in opening the door for the discussion of this, to my mind, important feature of the naval establishment. I have not agreed with him in many particulars, nor do I expect that others will agree with me, but from all the discussions (and I trust they will be very general) there may arise a more catholic spirit towards the training system and its results than exists now. I have never been thrown with a more conscientious set of officers as regards the duty that was put upon them than in the training service, and I must say that I feel that most of the criticism which the training system has been subjected to has resulted from the failure on the part of the officers with whom apprentices were thrown after leaving the training-ship, from not knowing the regulations covering them, or else, knowing them, failing to properly administer them.

[COPYRIGHTED.]

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

ELECTRICITY IN NAVAL LIFE.

By LIEUTENANT B. A. FISKE, U. S. N.

$750,000,000 is the amount stated by The Electrical Engineer, after a careful investigation, to be the capital invested in the United States in the various electrical arts, such as the electric light, telegraph, telephone, electric railway, etc., etc. In examining the causes for the investing of so large a sum, we must conclude that either the people in the United States are a very unwise and visionary class, or else that electric appliances do really possess some qualities which contribute to their comfort and happiness in a practical way.

In examining the results of the use of electricity in naval life, we must admit that, up to the present time, electricity has fulfilled all the promises it has given us. It has made our ships brighter, cleaner and healthier; it has lightened the task of enforcing discipline; it has increased the accuracy of gunnery; it has made instruction interesting; it has assisted the surgeon in diagnosing wounds and relieving pain; it has given the captain better control of his ship, and the admiral better control of his fleet; it has added an element of intelligent interest and expectation to each new addition to our Navy, and it has brought into active sympathy with the sea-going class a large and influential body of progressive men on shore.

The enormous development of the use of electrical appliances in all countries of the civilized world, and the beneficent effects resulting, are bearing practical fruit in naval life. The experience gained by electric railway companies, electric light companies, telephone companies, telegraph companies, and all the other thousand and one branches of business in which electricity

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is used, has proved that electrical apparatus may be relied upon provided two conditions are fulfilled. The first condition is that the electrical apparatus shall be designed to meet the particular circumstances of each case; the second is that it shall be cared for by men who understand it. The increasing confidence shown in it by naval authorities has been particularly evident in France, where numbers of ships have been constructed in which electric power is used to do almost all the work heretofore done by auxiliary steam engines.

The principal difficulty that electricity has had to meet in our Navy has been the fact that there has been very little incentive for officers and men to study it; so that most of those who have become proficient (enlisted men as well as officers) have gone into civil life, and we find them distributed among the various colleges and electrical enterprises of the land. There they are doing good work for the country and are making honorable reputations for themselves, but, so far as helping the Navy goes, their services are lost. So it is not surprising that electrical apparatus has come into use in the Navy so much more slowly than it has come into use in civil life; but it is surprising that it has come into use so rapidly as it has, and exhibits a more progressive spirit than seamen are usually credited with possessing.

It is frequently stated that the reason for the slow progress of electricity in naval matters is the difficulty of meeting the conditions of ship life; but this position is hardly tenable, because the conditions for the use of the electric light, electric motors and telephones in war-ships are in reality not nearly so severe as they are in hundreds of positions along the coasts of the country and through the long stretches of the mountainous and comparatively unpeopled sections of our western lands. In reality there can hardly be found, outside of the college laboratory, conditions which are in many respects so favorable as those to be met on board a modern war-ship. In the first place, the distances through which the electric current are to be transmitted are extremely short; in the second place, the item of expense does not control to so great a degree as it does in the operations of commercial life; in the third place, in case of any accident or derangement, the place where this accident or derangement occurs is always within a few feet of somebody, so that it will not have to be hunted for, as frequently happens