There are also examination papers in spelling, scripture, grammar, history, geography, arithmetic, French, and trigonometry. The papers here given were all for the most advanced (or first nautical) division, in which were 17 persons. No. 1 of the divison made 80 per cent. of the maximum marks; the ninth, 50 per cent.; the last, but 31 per cent. The following school routine of the Conway shows the division of time on board that ship: Twenty-one boys left the Worcester after the midsummer examination in 1878, and twenty-seven were sent from the Conway. Nearly all of these entered the merchant service as apprentices. Six from each ship received honorary appointments as midshipmen in the royal naval reserve, the marine militia of Great Britain. The time has come when, if we expect to build up our merchant marine to anything like its former comparative proportions, we must copy such schools, and give that technical education which we have no means of supplying in our present marine afloat. If ships are built, men are necessary to command; and the better trained the brain that directs and controls, the fewer the shipwrecks, the less the loss of life and property. A statement such as this seems axiomatic. One cannot think of the enormous yearly loss of shipping without astonishment. In 1877 the losses of the English marine* comprised 560 sailing-vessels and 68 steamers, representing a value, with cargoes, of $18,000,000. With these ships were lost 2,700 lives. In 1875 the total number of wrecks of all nationalities was 4,259; a number equal to that employed in our whole sea-going marine. Two-thirds of these wrecks are, in the case of the English, set down by the British Board of Trade as the result of ignorance and incompetency. There would thus (taking the losses of England alone) be a saving of $12,000,000, if the masters were better fitted for their duties. The interest on this sum (which the results of official inquiry show might be saved) would support eighteen such ships as the Worcester and Conway. The application of an increased intelligence, of a better education and training, would diminish catastrophes by one-third at least; so that from a merely monetary point of view the establishment of such schools would be wise, politic, and economical, apart from all humanitarian considerations, which in. volve the question of the sacrifice of thousands of lives yearly, chiefly through ignorance and incompetency. The city of New York expends yearly $3,500,000 in educating the men who are to serve in all the other varied callings found amongst the population of a great city. Only the one hundred and twentieth part of this sum is devoted to the education of those who are expected to sail the ships and carry in safety the vast wealth which enters and leaves its harbor. The unwisdom of such a course in reference to a great seaport seems to me to need no setting forth; the self-interest of the city should serve to enforce a more liberal attitude towards those upon whom its well-being so much depends. The question, however, is not one only applicable to New York, but to every port from which ships are sailed, and has a national importance well worthy the attention of the national government. * See Report of British Board of Trade for 1878. S. Ex. 52-11 |