CHAPTER VI. SERVICE AT SEA AS MIDSHIPMEN. At each half-yearly examination on board the Britannia, forty boys complete the course, and with it the first stage in their career as naval officers. Soon after they are detached from the training ship, they are ordered to a sea-going ship, still as naval cadets; and it is here that they get their first practical acquaintance with the actual duties of their profession. The Britannia certificates indicate the length of time necessary as naval cadet before passing for midshipman. When this time is completed, an examination is held on board the ship in which the cadet is serving. The general examination is conducted by the captain of the ship, assisted by the next officer; and the naval instructor-two, if possibleexamines in navigation, in presence of the captain or commander. The subjects of the examination, with the relative weight of each, are given in the following table: EXAMINATION FOR RATING AS MIDSHIPMAN. I. Knowledge of former instruction Marks. 200 II. Ability to work a "day's work" by tables as well as by projection; to find 200 100 IV. State of sextant and other instruments 50 V. State of log-books 100 VI. Knowledge of steering and managing a boat under oars and sails; knotting and splicing; rigging lower masts and yards; use of the hand and deep-sea lead VII. Knowledge of great gun, rifle, pistol, and cutlass exercises 250 100 1,000 Certificates are granted in three classes for final marks of 900 or over, 750, and 600 respectively. Cadets failing to get 60 per cent. are rejected; those who pass are immediately rated midshipmen. In this grade they remain four years and a half, at the end of which they come up for promotion to sub-lieutenants. The intermediate time is spent in continuous sea-service. In January, 1879, out of 224 midshipmen, there were only 16 that were not attached to a cruising vessel. * During the four years and a half of sea-service as midshipmen the "periodical examinations" are held in July of each year, and others, known as the "half-yearly examinations," in December. Of the two, the July examination is the more important and elaborate. The papers in extra-professional subjects are made out at the Admiralty and sent to the various ships, on board of which the examinations are to take place. *In the new Admiralty Instructions (1879) both examinations are designated "halfyearly examinations." The examination is in three parts: (1) The professional examination in seamanship (1,000),* gunnery (600),* and steam (400).* (2) The Admiralty papers, ten in number, viz: 1. Arithmetic and algebra. 2. Geometry. 3. Trigonometry, plane and spherical, practical and theoretical. 4. Navigation; practical (I) and theoretical. 5. Navigation; practical (II). 6. Chart drawing. 7. Mechanics and hydrostatics. 8. French. 9. Steam; theoretical. 10. Extra paper of advanced questions. (3) Work done in the course of the previous year, viz: Marks A latitude by meridian altitude of sun. A longitude by sun lunar chronometer.. A longitude by star lunar chronometer Error and rate of chronometer (artificial horizon) from two observations taken on different days... A variation by amplitude... A variation by altitude azimuth A variation by time azimuth. Total.. 18 18 10 13 10 20 20 30 8 10 10 200 The examinations in seamanship, gunnery, and steam are conducted by the officer in command, assisted by the commander or senior lieutenant, gunnery lieutenant, and chief engineer, respectively, or other competent officer. The other examinations are conducted by the naval instructor and navigating officer, or, if there is no naval instructor, by the navigating officer alone. The observations are to be certified, ast having been taken and worked by the junior officer, by the naval instructor, or officer acting in that capacity; and they are to be revised and marked by him. Observations may be taken until correct results are obtained; by which means every officer under examination has the opportunity, if he exercises any sort of diligence, of obtaining full marks for his sights. In addition to the observations, log-books are to be written up, examined, and reported on. *Relative weights. The time allowed is three hours for each paper, except 8 and 9, for which three hours are allowed in the aggregate. The examination occupies about two weeks. At its close, the workpapers, numbered but not named, are examined on board the ship by the officers conducting the examination. They are next forwarded to the flagship, where they are examined anew by the naval instructor on board, or by a substitute designated by the commander-in-chief, and finally they go to the Admiralty. Here they are a third time examined by Dr. Hirst, the Director of Studies at Greenwich; and an exhaustive report is made to the Admiralty in regard to them. The two previous reports are expressly ordered to be published. The half-yearly examinations, held in December, comprise papers in arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and navigation, questions in seamanship and gunnery, and practice in gunnery, and in musket and cutlass exercise. The captain is also required to report on the general ability of his junior officers, specifying their knowledge of steam, and their qualifications in knotting and splicing, in drawing, and in observing; and to say whether they keep a daily and seamanlike reckoning, what instruments they possess, whether they are careful of instruments, whether they can use the mercurial horizon on shore, and what foreign languages they can speak. All these reports and examinations are repeated yearly from the time when a cadet leaves the Britannia until he is promoted to sub-lieutenant. It will be noticed, however, that the examinations are not progressive in their character; the papers are not graduated according to the length of the officer's services or training, but one set of papers is given for all. The object of the examinations is therefore not to test progress, but to serve as a simple check upon indolence, and an incentive to keep up knowledge already acquired. Indeed, it is confessed that midshipmen make no advance in mental acquisition during the long period of sea-service. On the contrary, it has been a very general complaint that the longer the time that had elapsed since they left the Britannia, the less they seemed to know of the subjects they had studied. It was to meet this very complaint that in 1873 the periodical examinations were introduced, with a list of elementary subjects resembling that at the final examination in the Britannia. It is, perhaps, too early to see the result of this experiment, but it is asserted that already acting sub-lieutenants come to Greenwich better prepared, and that this is directly traceable to the periodical examinations. Perhaps it is also due to the introduction of a more systematic arrangement of the detail and duties of naval instructors at sea. Formerly, instructors seem to have been attached to ships in a hap-hazard way, without sufficient reference to the midshipmen on board, so that it often happened that a young officer passed his five and a half years of sea-service without ever seeing one of them. A better arrangement is now in operation, and as much is done as possible to correct the inherent evils of the system of carrying out a course of theoretical training on board of regular cruising cers. An examination of Table E of the Appendix, which has been carefully prepared from the Navy List of January, 1879, will show the class of ships in which midshipmen and naval cadets are serving, the number on board of each, and the distribution of the naval instructors. From this it appears that all the ships, having junior officers on board, carry an instructor, except three, the Blanche, Danae, and Spartan, where the number of pupils is so small as hardly to warrant the expense; and even then the naval instructor's duty can be done by one of the ship's offiThe distribution of teachers and pupils, to be sure, is somewhat disproportionate; ships like the Alexandra and Minotaur, for example, carrying seventeen or more midshipmen and cadets each, and four other ships less than three each; while all have a single instructor. But, on the whole, this could hardly be better arranged without sacrificing something far more important than the mathematical instruction given at sea-the whole groundwork of professional training. For it is here, and here only, that this training is given, and it is this training which, however important scientific principles may be, is the sine qua non of a naval officer's education. The Britannia gives little of this, Greenwich gives nothing, and the Excellent treats only one phase. It is at sea alone, on board a seagoing man-of-war, either practice-ship or regular cruiser, that a young officer can learn his profession. Hence the midshipman's best energies at sea should be directed to this end, and his mathematical deficiencies, which can be made up later, or which, under a better system, would have been met earlier, become a secondary consideration. Whether midshipmen get an adequate professional training under the English system is a question about which it is difficult to get the data necessary for a satisfactory answer. Much can undoubtedly be done for them if the captain is so disposed; but unless there is some prescribed system for him to follow he is not likely to give them the attention they need. The captains of those great ships have had far too serious work on hand for the past few years to sacrifice anything even to the professional training of junior officers. What duties, for example, are given to the sixteen or twenty midshipmen on board the Alexandra, the Minotaur, the Achilles, or the Iron Duke, which train them in practical seamanship? Of practical navigation, as far as it consists in taking sights and laying out courses, they undoubtedly get much; but how are they to acquire the needful skill in the management of a ship under sail or steam, the practiced eye for wind and weather, the ready resource, the rapid and unerring judgment, that distinguished the old seamen, and that are almost as necessary for the seamen of to-day? These things, which alone can make a man an efficient watch-officer, are at present only to be learned by the unsatisfactory process of "picking-up"; and it is a question whether more would not be learnt in a year's practice-cruise in a real training-ship than in five years of midshipman's duty on board an ordinary man-of-war. Certainly, if the first of these five years were so occupied the midshipman would arrive at his seamanship examination better prepared in the fourth and most essential subject, "the practice of maneuvering ships, under all circumstances of wind and weather"; and his promotion would find him better qualified for performing the duties of officer of the deck.* At the end of four years and a half of service in that grade, midshipmen come up for promotion to sub-lieutenants. The examination is in three parts, (1) seamanship, (2) navigation and other branches of mathematics, and (3) gunnery. Of these, the first, in seamanship, is conducted at sea; the second, in navigation, &c., at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, after six months of instruction; and the third, in gunnery, on board the gunnery ship Excellent, at Portsmouth, after a course of about three months. The examination in seamanship is ordered by the senior officer present, on the application in the midshipman, after he has reached the prescribed limit of service. Application must be made within six months after this time. The examination is conducted by three captains or commanders. The subjects of the examination comprise (1) the state of the candidate's log-books, in which track-charts and sketches of headlands must be entered; (2) stowage of ship's holds; (3) masting ships, fitting rigging and sails, rigging ship, mooring and unmooring, shifting masts and yards, laying out anchors, and the details of a seaman's duty in all its branches; (4) practice of working and maneuvering ships, as officer of the watch, under all circumstances of wind and weather; (5) flags and signals, fleet evolutions, and stations of ship's company. The last (5) seems to be considered of less importance than the others. An officer failing to obtain a certificate in seamanship is re-examined at the end of three months; failing then, he is granted a second re-examination after three months more. If he fails at the third trial, he is dismissed the service. On receiving a passing certificate,-first, second, or third class, as the case may be, the midshipman is granted by the commander-in-chief an order as acting sub-lieutenant. He is borne upon the Navy List as an officer of that grade, and his seniority depends on the date of passing the seamanship examination. He remains, however, an acting sub-lieutenant until he has passed the two other branches of his examination for promotion, in navigation and in gunnery. These examinations and the courses of instruction that precede them form part of the organiza*This defect of the English training system is alluded to by Captain (now Rear-Admiral) Lord Gilford, one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, in his evidence before the Britannia commission, Q. 1703. It should be added that the Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, recently published (February, 1879), give a full and suctinet programme (p. 176) for instruction of junior officers in seamanship, and certain general regulations for work under the naval instructors. In order, however, to ascertain the value of these regulations, it is necessary to know how far the seamanship instruction is theoretical and how far practical; whether the regulations are susceptible of daily and regular application on board a ship of war at sea, and how minutely captains are obliged to follow them. |