Age of admission. Time to be occupied by the course of instruction. Qualifications for admission. No boy should be admitted to the school being younger than eleven, or older than fourteen years. The course of instruction should be so ordered as not to occupy a period of less than two or more than three years. Each boy on his admission to the schools should be able to read fluently in any book of general information, to write a passage from dictation correctly as to the spelling, and in a good hand: to work questions in arithmetic as far as the Rule of Three. After the first year from the establishment of the schools, this limit should, however, be extended to Subjects of instruction decimals. The following subjects should be taught in the schools: in the schools. Text-books required for instruction in nautical science. Text-books on nautical science to be written specially for the use of the schools. The boys should buy their own books. School hours. Nautical Science Practical Mechanics. Plane. The existing text-books in navigation and nautical astronomy are not sufficiently elementary for the use of the schools; the scientific information they contain is not conveyed under the simplest forms, as sanctioned by the present mathematical teaching of the Universities and other places of instruction, and they are more laborious to study, and larger and more costly than is required. Competent persons should therefore be commissioned to write-1st. A text-book on the theory of nautical science ;* and 2ndly. A book of examples in nautical science for the use of the schools. In all other subjects of instruction, text-books are to be found well adapted to the use of the schools. Every boy should be required to purchase these, and also his nautical text-books for himself; but they should be sold to him at a reduced price, and if necessary, he should be allowed to pay for them by instalments. The hours of attendance on the day school should be, in the morning from nine to twelve, and in the afternoon from two until five in the summer, and until *This book might also, with advantage, include a treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry. four in the winter. In the evening school, from six until nine. of the master. As the constant attendance of the master and the Hours of attendance two assistants on the day and evening schools would involve more labour than it would be reasonable to require from them; it may be arranged that two only should attend in the afternoon and the evening lessons, that teacher who is absent from the one, being present at the other. Taking into my view the class of persons for whose Fee of the day school education it is the intention of the Board of Trade, school. in establishing these schools, to provide, I recommend that the school fee be fixed at one guinea per quarter. The fee of the evening school should be the same Fee of the evening with that of the day school, viz., one guinea per quarter; but as many seamen's apprentices may be desirous to attend the school by the month, the fee may be charged at the rate of 6s. per month. No person, being actually in the sea-service, or having been so, should be admitted to the day school. master 1207. The salary of each master should begin at 1201., and The salary of the increase every five years that he remains in the office by 107., until it becomes 2007. insure a retiring pen From this salary there should be deducted annually Out of this salary a sum to be annually a sum sufficient to secure to him, in a public Insurance deducted, sufficient to Office, a retiring pension of 1007. at the age of sixtyfive, at which age he should be required to retire from of 65. the responsible charge of the school. sion of 1004 at the age The master to receive In addition to his salary the master should receive two-thirds of the fees two-thirds of the fees of the evening school. of the evening school. prenticed pupil Each pupil-teacher should be apprenticed for five The salaries of apyears, and allowed a salary of 157. for the first year, to teachers. increase by 21. 10s. annually. receive, in addition to third of the fees of the In addition to their salaries the two pupil-teachers The pupil-teachers to in each school should receive one-third of the proceeds their salaries, oneof the evening school, which sum should be equally divided between them. evening school. chant seamen's ap appointed in every In every port where a school is established, it is A protector of merexpedient that some person should be appointed to prentices should be whom applications for boys to be apprenticed might port where there is a be made by the captains of ships, and who should watch school. over their interests when so apprenticed. men's apprentices ful supervision over If the person appointed to this office were an officer of The protector of seaHer Majesty's Navy on half-pay, selected with a special might exercise a usereference to his qualifications for it, he might exercise, the school. with great advantage, a supervision over the professional instruction given in the school, on which he should report, from time to time, to the Board of Trade. The following is a statement of the total cost of the The cost of the building, of this school and of the site, which includes school building. de a walled play-ground. ings of the proposed Considering that the schools are to be erected in Probable cost populous districts, that besides the school-rooms there of the school buildis to be a master's house, and that certain expenses will schools. have to be incurred in adapting the buildings to the special object of the schools, I think that their cost, when completed with the requisite fittings, should be estimated at 1,300l. The probable cost of the instruments and other ap- Instruments and paratus with which each school should be supplied, and apparatus. which should be of the best kind, would be 2007. in establishing the Supposing that schools are established at the follow- Total cost increased ing seaports, twelve in number, the total cost of esta- schools. blishing them in the first instance would therefore be up the Sea-ports where schools should be established.. The following are the sea-ports which make If each school be fully attended, the school fees (ex- Cost of maintaining clusive of the night school) will produce annually 2407., the schools. applicable to the cost of maintaining it. The cost, by reason of the salaries of the teachers, may be estimated as follows: £. Head master 1204., increasing in 40 years to 2004, average 155 40 Average annual expenditure in salaries . £ 195 The surplus of 451. will be sufficient for incidental expenses. If the schools fill, it may, from this calculation, be assumed that they will support themselves. The education given in them being assumed not to be a mere technical course adapted to the sea, but a scientifie course addressed to the understanding, by methods which experience has shown to be those best adapted to exercise, and to develope its resources, and therefore to fit the boy, when he shall become a man, for any walk in life, in which the exercise of a vigorous understanding, and a sound judgment, may be serviceable to him; it is to be presumed that should he, after having commenced his education at the school, see fit to alter his intention of going to sea, he will yet have been far more benefited by it, than by the course of instruction he would have received at the schools usually frequented by persons of the same class in life. I have the honor to be, &c., To the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, M.P., President of the Board of Trade. |