3. Experimental science: a. Physics, viz, sound, heat, light, electricity, and magnetism. e. Metallurgy. 6. Marine engineering, in all its branches. 7. Naval architecture, in all its branches. *. Fortification, military drawing, and naval artillery. 9. International and maritime law, law of evidence and naval courts-martial. 12. Drawing. 13. Hygiene, naval and climatic. In this extensive programme, the only studies which have not yet, in one shape or another, been attempted, are naval artillery, the law of evidence and courts-martial, and hygiene; the first of which may be assumed to be adequately taught in the Excellent. Of the courses in the list, some are required and some are voluntary; but the privilege of choice is only given to those classes of officers whose attendance at the college is voluntary, and even then under certain restrictions. The voluntary students are officers of certain grades who are admitted to the benefits of the college on their own application. They receive half-pay during their attendance. These half-pay officers comprise captains, commanders, lieutenants, staff commanders, navigating lieutenants, and naval instructors. There are also other officers who are admitted at their own request, and who have some liberty in the choice of studies, but who are not half-pay officers. These are the officers of the Marine Artillery and Lght Infantry, and chief engineers, on full pay, but unattached to any ship; and engineers and assistant engineers, borne for full pay in some vessel in commission. Still a third class is composed of students admitted at their own request, but, once admitted, pursuing a defined course. These are persons qualifying for naval instructors (either chaplains or candidates from civil life); private students in naval architecture and engineering, and lieutenants qualifying for gunnery and torpedo officers. The latter receive full pay and are borne upon the books of the Excellent. Lastly come those officers whose attendance and course are both compulsory. These are acting sub-lieutenants, who are also borne in the Excellent, acting navigating sub-lieutenants, probationary lieutenants of the Royal Marine Artillery, acting assistant engineers (later assistant engineers), and shipwright apprentices, otherwise known as construction students, or students in naval architecture. The three classes last-named receive special rates of pay. It may be added in regard to the construction students and the assistant engineers, that their attendance at the school is not exactly compulsory, in the first instance, as they are selected by competition; but having once entered for the position their course of study is a necessary consequence. The following table shows the classes of officers pursuing study at the college, the number of each, the duration of each course, and its charac ter (whether compulsory or voluntary). The number of officers of each class is given as it stood at a fixed date, the 1st of January of each year, and therefore the aggregate does not represent the total number of students who have attended a college course. The table is taken in part from the report of the Committee on the Naval College, and in part bas on data from the Navy List. The session, or academic year, begins on the 1st of October, and ends on the 30th of June, except in the case of officers pursuing a six months' course (see table), who join at periods a month apart, as they return from sea. From the 30th of June to the 1st of October the college has vacation, and leave is given for ten days at Christmas and a week at Easter. The vacations for acting sub-lieutenants are six weeks at midsummer and a month at Christmas. The arrangement of courses enables officers who desire a higher theoretical education to have two or three years, or even four years, of study at the college, in the course of their career. All are obliged to come in the first place as acting sublieutenants. On their promotion to lieutenant they may be ordered to Greenwich while waiting their turn, and may thus get a second course, for the whole session. After a little interval they may apply for permission to qualify for gunnery duties, and they will then pass a third term of study. There is nothing to prevent them from coming back again, after another interval, as captains or commanders, for a fourth The studies will not be consecutive. A considerable period must elapse between each attendance-a period of four years at least in the case of half-pay officers, two of which must be passed at sea. Nor is it always possible for an officer to arrange his duties so as to carry out such a plan; but the opportunity is given, so that, other things being equal, officers who have the inclination and talents may reach a higher point of scientific culture. The discipline of the college is rather that of a university than of a naval establishment, as is necessarily the case where very few of the students are less than twenty years of age, and a number have reached the prime of life. Such restrictive regulations as exist bear chiefly upon the younger students, especially the acting sub-lieutenants and acting engineer officers and the probationary lieutenants of the Marine Artillery. Only officers on full pay are required to wear uniform. Captains, commanders, and chief engineers are allowed to reside outside the college if they prefer; but all other officers must occupy rooms and join the mess, towards which they receive an allowance of 18. 6d per diem. Special permission may be given to live outside, however, and, in general, the operation of the rule is not so severe as would at first seem to be the case, on account of the relatively small proportion of married lieutenants. The difficult subject of dealing with breaches of discipline and enforcing regularity is in charge of the President, assisted by the captain of the college. A certain surveillance is maintained by the college police. For grave offenses a court-martial is as applicable here as elsewhere in the service, and the negligence or irregularity of voluntary officers may be dealt with by removal from the college. Misconduct on the part of the younger officers pursuing compulsory courses is a more delicate matter, and has always constituted the chief difficulty in naval shore colleges, where the course followed a long period of sea service. The offenses, as a rule, are not serious enough to warrant a court-martial or removal from the service; removal from the college would defeat the object of the college itself; and the offenders are too old to be punished in the ordinary way. Fortunately, at Greenwich, the presence of the older offieers as students gives a certain tone to the establishment, by which the younger cannot fail to be affected, and the compulsory courses are so exacting that they engross pretty thoroughly the time of the junior officers. The general method of instruction, like that of the Britannia, is a system of informal exposition, study, and practice with the instructors. Recitations in the ordinary sense can hardly be said to exist, certainly no recitations for which marks are given. The only recorded test of general results, upon which certificates are given, is the final examination, which occurs at the end of the session, or, in the case of sub-lieutenants, at the end of the six months' course. Examinations are generally held at Christmas and Easter, and in some courses they occur with great frequency,―once a fortnight, or even once a week. These examinations may be marked or not as the professor chooses; but the marks only serve to test progress, and have no bearing on the final result. Text books serve rather the purpose of collateral reading, and in mathematics they are used chiefly as collections of examples. The student is never led to place his chief reliance on the book, in acquiring any subject, but on the instructor; in this way the bad influence of text books is reduced to a minimum, and the vicious practice of slavishly following a text hardly exists. At the same time the objections to a lax lecture-system are removed by the practice of following up the lecture at once, often in the same room, by test exercises accompanied by full and particular explanation, mainly on the subject of the lecture itself. An hour of blackboard exposition, with from two to three hours of work in the class-room immediately after it, is the usual way of passing the morning at Greenwich, with all classes of students. The class-rooms, or studies, as they are called, are furnished with tables, at which the students work, while the instructor moves about among them, answering as well as asking questions, and endeavoring to supply what is wanted by each of his pupils. Mathematics forms the backbone of all the courses. In fact there have been general complaints that the college leaned too much in this direction, without affording sufficient scope in others. This objection only refers, however, to the courses for half-pay officers, as the special students who are to make naval architects, designing engineers, and gunnery officers, can hardly have too much mathematics, and the other important class, that of sub-lieutenants, is not likely to be in any such danger. The teaching staff is by no means confined to the corps of naval instructors. On the contrary, the most important work is in the hands of professors otherwise unconnected with the Navy. The principal among these are the two professors of mathematics, the professor of applied mechanics, the professor of physics, and the professor of chemistry. There are practically three professors of mathematics, but one of them bears the title of mathematical and naval instructor, and belongs to the naval corps. These three take charge of all the higher instruction in this branch. Each of them has an assistant, also a university man, and not in the Navy. One professor with his assistant instructs the engineer and construction students. The assistant also takes the probationary lieutenants of the Marine Artillery. The second professor takes the gunnery lieutenants, the second-year Artillery lieutenants, and the best of the half-pay officers. The third has the half-pay officers who are less advanced. For the separate group of acting sub-lieutenants, whose knowl edge is of the scantiest character, there are four naval instructors. The professors of physics and applied mechanics have engineer officers as assistants. Fortification is taught by a captain in the Marine Artillery, naval construction by officers in the construction department at the Admiralty, and steam by naval engineers. The practice of separating the duties of instructor and examiner is rigorously carried out, and no papers are set at the final examinations by members of the regular teaching staff. The examination of the acting sub-lieutenants is conducted chiefly by a naval instructor borne especially for examinations, who has no duties of instruction. He sets and marks the papers in mathematics, navigation and nautical astronomy, and meteorology. The examinations in steam, physics, French, and marine surveying are given by external examiners or members of the staff who do not teach sub-lieutenants. The general examinations of all students, voluntary and compulsory, in June, which last three weeks and include everything, are chiefly conducted by outside examiners specially employed for the purpose. Even here, however, the Director of Studies has supervision, and all papers, marks, and reports go through his hands. Indeed the number of papers for which he is nominally responsible is so great that it would be simply impossible for him to give all of them even the most cursory inspection. They include not only voluntary and required examinations at Greenwich, but also the examinations for cadetships and clerkships, the semi-annual Britannia examinations, the semi-annual dockyard examinations, and the examinations of junior officers afloat. The total reaches the extraordinary figure of over 270 sets of questions and 11,500 work-papers, a year; of which 176 papers are set and 4,000 work-papers are marked by Mr. Goodwin alone, the examiner of the college. It is only necessary, however, for the Director of Studies to give such attention to the work of the outside examiners as will insure unity of purpose in the questions and keep them within the limits of the course. The examiners themselves include a number of specialists, generally of large experience in this branch of educational work. Among them may be mentioned Prof. A. W. Rücker, examiner in natural sciences, Brasenose College, Oxford; Prof. C. Niven, examiner in mathematics, Trinity College, Cambridge; Mr. Barnaby, Director of Naval Construction, and Mr. Wright, Engineer-in-chief of the Admiralty; Professor Unwin, of Cooper's Hill College; Professor Kennedy, of University College, London; Professor Karcher, of Woolwich, and several others. These examiners do not constitute a mere board of visitors; they receive a syllabus of the work gone over by each class, and upon this they actually give questions and mark papers, thereby insuring to the Navy a rightly-directed course of studies and a high standard of scholarship. Special courses of lectures form a peculiar and important part of the College teaching. They may or may not form some part of a required coarse for one class of students, but they are open to officers generally and all are alike permitted to benefit by them; that is, all the voluntary students. Notices are also sent to the naval clubs, and officers who are Lot students are invited; and the attendance at the lectures is usually |