COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE 
 
 oJ02265869 
 
 uuk inavAL 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 AND 
 
 NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE CONDITION OF THE FEENOH 
 NAVY PEIOE TO THE LATE FEANCO- 
 GEEMAN WAE. 
 
 TRANSLATED PROM THE FRENCH 'OP 
 
 M. DE CRISENOY, 
 
 By Commander RICHARD W- MEADE, U. S. N. , 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. VAN NOSTEAND, PUBLISHES, 
 
 23 Murray and 27 Warren Street. 
 
 1873. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 D. VAN NOSTRAND, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 

 
 1 
 
 t 
 
 ) 
 
 
 PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 
 
 The following pages were translated during the mo- 
 ments of monotony incident to a cruise among the dis- 
 tant islands of the South Seas. 
 
 It occurs to me that our Gallic friends have some faults 
 and peculiarities in their system of Naval education and 
 government which our own Service shares in a measure 
 with them, and I have reached the conclusion that if 
 “ done into English,” and published, the remarks of M. 
 de Crisenoy may impart to the brows of my professional 
 brethren in authority a wrinkle or so, to the ultimate 
 benefit of our Naval Service. 
 
 New York, July, 1873. 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 ) 
 
 
NAVAL SCHOOL AND NAVAL OFFICERS ; 
 
 OB, 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE CONDITION OF THE FRENCH NAYY 
 PRIOR TO THE LATE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 
 
 Translated from the French of M. De Crisenoy. 
 
 By R. W. MEADE, Commander, U. S. N. 
 
 “ I have often wondered,’’ wrote the Cardinal d’Ossat 
 to the Duke de Villeroy, Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs under Henri IV., “ that our former sovereigns 
 held our navy in so little account, possessing, as we do, 
 so beautiful and vast a kingdom, flanked on either hand 
 by two magnificent seas, extending nearly its entire 
 length; and when I see here and there the petty princes 
 of Italy, some of whom possess hardly a rood of sea 
 coast, having each, nevertheless, his naval arsenal, and 
 his ships of war, I feel that it is indeed a humiliation 
 that the first Christian power of Europe has not the 
 means of defence against four miserable galleys belong- 
 ing to the Duke of Florence, nor the power to prevent 
 him from placing a chain upon the neck of France and 
 fetters upon its limbs.” 
 
6 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 The great diplomat who penned these lines had inves- 
 tigated this subject closely, and fully appreciated, on 
 many occasions, how necessary is a Navy in its exterior 
 relations to the policy of France. 
 
 Since this epoch both the Navy and the country have 
 had their periods of prosperity, greatness, and glory, and 
 this may perchance be an unfortunate moment for renew- 
 ing the reproaches of the Cardinal, and, after his ex- 
 ample, giving way to bitter regrets. 
 
 We must not, however, be too ready to despise our fore- 
 fathers while regarding them in the light of our recent 
 progress, for if we neglect nothing at this moment, in or- 
 der to endow our Naval material with all the improvements 
 of the day, let us remember in what a condition was our 
 Fleet at the close of the First Empire, hardly fifty years 
 since. Let us recall how uncertain was public opinion 
 under the Restoration, as to the policy and utility of a 
 Naval establishment. Let us not forget how often, when 
 discussing the budget of Naval expenses, short-sighted 
 political financiers sought to effect a dangerous economy 
 at the expense of our Navy and our national honor. 
 
 The eye of Government is indeed fixed upon this mat- 
 ter, and even the country at large has made too much 
 progress in this respect, to fear that a step backwards 
 could or would be contemplated for a moment. But if it 
 is permitted to those who have at heart the honor of the 
 French flag, to view the future with confidence, while 
 casting their eyes upon the present state of the Navy, 
 they may certainly, without being taxed with radicalism, 
 desire to see an important change introduced into some 
 details, which, at this present moment, seem to specially 
 require it. Time is in truth an indispensable auxiliary to 
 the development of all great institutions, but our Navy 
 has not grown old, since, like a Phoenix, it arose from 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICEBS. 
 
 7 
 
 the ashes of the past. The administration to whom its 
 care has been confided, marches onward in this age of 
 progress with a boldness which cannot be too much com- 
 mended; but it finds it necessary to rest itself more than 
 ever upon public opinion, and derive fits strength from 
 the enlightened sentiment of the country. This is more 
 especially the case when it finds itself brought face to 
 face with thos'e questions pertaining to the personnel of 
 the service, the more difficult and delicate to disentangle 
 since they are not to be solved by mathematical calcula- 
 tion, and do not belong to any branch of exact science, 
 but are purely practical. 
 
 Let us be grateful, then, to our Naval administrators, 
 whose duties are so complex and so extended, for all that 
 they have done and contemplate doing ; but let us not 
 fear to frankly draw their attention to certain defective 
 points which have evidently escaped their observation. 
 
 In the Naval service, the “ personnel” and the “materiel” 
 are to each other what the soul and the body are to the 
 human system, both necessary to life, but having diverse 
 needs according to their nature. While the second 
 needs material supplies, that is to say, money ; intelligent 
 connection and constancy in the system pursued, above 
 all, continual and intelligent care, are absolutely neces- 
 sary to the first. While the instantaneous creation of a 
 materiel is but a question of expense, we canpot at any 
 price instantaneously improvise a personnel. Under the 
 Republic we had magnificent ships, guns, and munitions 
 of war, but we had no sailors, and, above all, no officers ; 
 and the Committee of Public Safety, which could and did 
 organize armies and create skilful G-enerals, were abso- 
 lutely incapable of creating a Fleet. 
 
 That complex and delicate structure — the ship of war 
 — powerful as it is when controlled by the trained sea- 
 
8 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 man, is in truth but an inert mass in unskilful and in- 
 experienced hands. We had the proof of this for the 
 second time at the close of the Empire. Fifteen years 
 had not sufficed to repair the disasters of the Reign of 
 Terror, while an unequal war had carried off and sadly 
 reunited again in the enemy’s hulks, the remnant of our 
 naval officers and men which had escaped the proscrip- 
 tions of 1793, and notwithstanding the enormous sums 
 spent in repairing and building ships of war, notwith- 
 standing the genius of the great Napoleon, France had 
 to succumb. 
 
 But all that has passed and gone ; we have had time to 
 heal those wounds, and no one can deny but that we 
 have worked hard to that end. It may, then, seem in- 
 teresting and opportune to examine into these labors, 
 and see how far they may have been real and efficacious; 
 to set forth the progress made and the work accomplished, 
 as well as that task which, being unfinished, may, without 
 danger, be adjourned awhile, in view of a movement 
 which is transforming, with systematic rapidity, our 
 naval materiel to meet the economical conditions of the 
 day. 
 
 That which first draws our attention in the midst of 
 this multitude of men, bronzed by exposure to the ele- 
 ments — these swarthy sailors who pass their existence 
 their hands griping the wheel, resting on the breech of a 
 gun, or perched like birds on the lofty spars of their 
 ships, — that which, we say, requires our first attention are 
 their leaders, in short, their officers, with whom they 
 share their perils and labors, and to the intelligence and 
 devotion of whom they owe their safety on the great 
 deep — their chiefs to whom are confided these admirable 
 machines that we call ships, and which offer the most 
 complete, striking and grandest, perhaps, of human con- 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 9 
 
 ceptions. See that great hulking mass, inert in appear- 
 ance, which, by its immobility, resembles a monster 
 sleeping on the surface of the sea, and cradled in the 
 rocking of the waves ! Awaken it ! Order it to move ! 
 It will obey you, and when gales arise, and nature 
 awakes in the wild fury of the elements, it will be obe- 
 dient to your will, and pursue its path without caring 
 even for the obstacles which beset its course — the winds 
 and the waves which howl and break around it. The Eng- 
 lish call this “ a man of war,” and under this novel form 
 it is indeed a Man ” that you see — a man of iron frame 
 and sinews of steel, lithe and agile in movement, whose 
 blood boils in his veins, and whose soul enlightens and 
 directs all its movements. 
 
 This soul is the Naval officer. One may under- 
 stand, then, how much more vast and delicate is his 
 task than that of any other. Isolated on the deck of his 
 ship; separated sometimes by immense distances from 
 the civilized world, and all the resources that it contains, 
 it is necessary that he should find sufficient resources in 
 himself, without resorting to any light from without. 
 He must be able to move the numberless springs of 
 action under his control ; above all, he must be a seaman 
 and navigator, able to handle his ship and sails in all 
 weather, and follow his course by the aid of the stars of 
 heaven, determining exactly the almost imperceptible 
 ooint that his vessel occupies on the surface of the globe. 
 He must understand, besides, the mode of constructing 
 and handling the heavy gims which fill his broadsides, 
 and know how to handle them, even in the midst of a 
 tempest. 
 
 He must not be ignorant either of the connection be- 
 tween the construction and repair of his floating dwell- 
 ing, and of the powerful engines which render him the 
 
10 
 
 OUE NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 master of the elements, any more than of Hydrography, 
 the Military art, and Naval administration. And with- 
 out being endowed with unusual faculties, which are the 
 rare apanage of some men of genius, the Naval officer 
 must possess a sufficiently precise knowledge of the ele- 
 ments of these sciences and arts to be able to make use 
 of them at all times. 
 
 Is there in human nature the power to fulfil similar 
 conditions ? The problem to be solved from this ques- 
 tion might raise great doubt if two hundred years of 
 experience had not resolved it in the affirmative. The 
 Naval officer can and does exist such as we have depicted 
 him, that is to say, master of his situation, and equal to 
 any emergency. But it is upon two conditions. The 
 first is, that we do not exact of him the entire science of 
 the Naval constructor or artillery officer, nor expect of 
 him the qualities of the accomplished administrator, and 
 that, leaving to the first the care of constructing ships, 
 to the second that of arming them , to the third that of 
 equipping and supplying them, we ask him solely to 
 utilize and animate the product of the labor of his col- 
 leagues in concentrating towards this sole end all his 
 activity and his faculties. 
 
 The second condition is, that he should receive from a 
 very early age an education conformable to the very ex- 
 ceptional mission he is called on to perform. These 
 two principles, which we regard as essential, have been 
 foreseen from the formation of our Navy; the second 
 especially has never ceased to attract the attention of 
 those Ministers of Naval affairs who have at heart the 
 prosperity and glory of the Service. 
 
 When, after the unfortunate and perhaps premature 
 attempts of Charles Y. and Francis I., Richelieu laid the 
 foundation-stone of our Naval establishment, he occu- 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 11 
 
 pied himself at once with the project of founding a Naval 
 School destined to give France, in the future, good com- 
 manders for the vessels of his Sovereign, and fifty-five 
 years later, in 1682, three companies of Marine Guards 
 became definitely the nursery of this corps, which, hardly 
 in existence as yet, under the impulse given by Colbert 
 and De Seignelay, filled the world with the glory of its 
 exploits. 
 
 Notwithstanding the imperfection of these first schools, 
 we may judge of the importance attached to them from 
 the care brought to bear upon the course of instruction 
 and exercises, as well as in the choice of professors and 
 instructors, some of whom have made their mark in the 
 annals of science. 
 
 This first attempt remained stationary, and almost 
 abandoned, for more than half a century — for the close of 
 the reign of Louis X1Y. — the regency — the niggardly ad- 
 ministration of Cardinal Fleury, were anything but favor- 
 able to the Navy. 
 
 It made no progress whatever until after the death of 
 this preceptor of Louis XV., when, under the influence 
 of the scientific movement, which commenced to agitate 
 the minds of men of that day, the sense of its importance 
 spread little by little through our seaports. 
 
 The Duke de Choiseul has the honor of encouraging 
 this feeling, and of availing himself of it, in order to 
 animate with renewed life, the institution of “ Les 
 Gardes de la Marine,” and to prepare in this way the 
 elements of that brilliant naval awakening which illus- 
 trated the reign of Louis XVI. His successors imitated 
 his example. M. de Boynes established at Havre in 1773 
 the first Naval School — an attempt unfortunately epheme- 
 ral, but which we have seen attempted on the same plan 
 in our day. At last, in 1784, M. de Castries, cutting him- 
 
OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 12 
 
 self adrift from the past, established upon an entirely 
 new foundation, two floating schools at Brest and Toulon, 
 completed by two preparatory colleges at Yannes and 
 Alais. 
 
 Towards this epoch, the corps of Naval officers which 
 had been drawn for thirty years from these Naval nurser- 
 ies, maintained with care, encouraged and enlightened by 
 the labors of the Naval Academy, exercised by distant for- 
 eign cruises, and in the American war, which brought 
 out the genius of Suffren, d’Estaing, and La Mothe- 
 Piquet, had arrived at the highest degree of prosperity, 
 and nothing seemed able to destroy its influence and 
 progress in the future. 
 
 It only needed a few years more to be strengthened 
 and consolidated, but these years unfortunately were not 
 given to it. 
 
 In the space of nineteen years, we had no less than 
 seven Ministers of Marine ; and each one believed it his 
 duty to overturn the established order of his predecessor. 
 M. de Sartine, among others, struck with the science and 
 capacity of Naval officers, had effaced, in order to give 
 place to them, all the other specialties of the Naval ser- 
 vice, and the result was a perturbed state of the Navy, 
 which had a disastrous influence on its usefulness. 
 
 Shaken, in truth, by successive shocks, this body of 
 men, which had rendered but recently such brilliant ser- 
 vices to its country, saw itself sacrificed by the National 
 Assembly. On one hand, the suppression of the schools ; 
 on flie other, the guillotine, finished the work of destruc- 
 tion, of which the Republic and the Empire soon felt the 
 dismal consequences. 
 
 A day came, nevertheless, in which Napoleon I., profit- 
 ing by the bitter lessons of experience, comprehended 
 that it was not sufficient for France to be invincible on 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 13 
 
 land. This was in 1810 ; he therefore resolved to re- 
 create a powerful Navy ; and first of all, he hastened to 
 establish at Toulon and Brest two Naval Schools, which 
 were not long in bearing their fruit, if we may believe the 
 reports made in the case to Louis XVIII., six years later, 
 when indiscreet loyalists sought to suppress the “Bona- 
 partist Schools.” * 
 
 Naval officers, however, hardly profited by the favora- 
 ble disposition of the Emperor, and they still lacked co- 
 hesion, scientific knowledge, and those traditions absolutely 
 necessary to a Navy, when the Restoration came in to 
 disorganize them anew by decimating its members of the 
 Bonapartists, and founding at Angouleme a Naval Col- 
 lege, which, after resisting for ten years the protests and 
 outcries of all sensible Naval officers among the Admirals, 
 finished by sinking under the weight of a defective Con- 
 stitution. It was an abortion. 
 
 It was then, in face of the enormous void in the 
 service, the entire lack of officers, and the elements nec- 
 essary to fill up the register, that the Board of Admiralty 
 under the presidency of Baron Mackau was charged 
 with the duty of seeking a remedy to an evil which be- 
 came worse every day ; and after some feeble attempts 
 it resulted (1827-8) in the organization of the Naval 
 School, such as it exists to-day, at least in all essential 
 principles. Established in the harbor of Brest on the 
 line-of-battle ship “Borda,” this school is the first step 
 in the career of the Naval officer. It is there that he re- 
 ceives the principles of his peculiar and special education, 
 of which we have presented a faint sketch. 
 
 * In this report, the Minister declares that of 640 young midship- 
 men drilled in these schools all could, by their superior education, 
 olaim the highest position in their grade. 
 
14 
 
 OtJR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 With this system, then, as a starting point, let us exam- 
 ine into the condition in which we find our Naval school 
 at this moment, and let us consider the degree of per- 
 fection to which it may be carried. This is our first 
 duty. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It is on the 1st of October in each year that the candi- 
 dates selected at the competitive examination are required 
 to present themselves on board of the School Ship at 
 Brest, in order to commence their Naval career.* 
 
 The age is not allowed to exceed seventeen years, a 
 limit much inferior to that of all other technical or 
 special schools ; although It exceeds by one year the age 
 fixed upon when ‘the Naval School was originally organ- 
 ized. 
 
 In making this additional concession to the candidates, 
 the authorities have the satisfaction at least of possessing 
 in the French Empire a few “ bachelors,” more or less, 
 and of not interrupting the studies of those who “ bilge ” 
 {i. e. fail) at the competitive examination ; but it must 
 be borne in mind, that those who have entered the ser- 
 vice are, at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, only 
 poor devils of midshipmen after all, living no better than, 
 if as well as, ordinary College boys, and hardly having a 
 private corner to retire to, forced at all hours of the day 
 or night to run aloft, or to perform boat service in the 
 ship’s cutters. 
 
 “A midshipman,” says a well-known note in the Regu- 
 lations, “must eat and sleep when he can and where he 
 
 * All the departments of Prance have the privilege of sending a 
 certain number of young men before the Board to compete for the 
 privilege of entering the French Navy. The best only are selected. 
 
AND NAYAL OFFICERS. 
 
 15 
 
 can.” His entire existence as a midshipman is summed 
 up in these few words. 
 
 Such an excessively restless life may have its charms to 
 offer at eighteen or twenty, but four years later it be- 
 comes dull and insupportable, and the service is not long 
 in feeling the effects of it. 
 
 Beyond this inconvenience, however, which the author- 
 ities have sought to remedy lately, by not requiring mid- 
 shipmen of the second class in "certain cases to perform 
 more than one year sea service, it is not thought that the 
 tardy admission of the Cadets militates in any sensible 
 degree against their education, for, thanks to the objects 
 which constantly surround them, they quickly identify 
 themselves with a shipboard life. 
 
 It is aloft or in the rigging that they take their recrea- 
 tion and exercise ; they rest their books on the immense 
 chain cables when called to the blackboard to demonstrate 
 some mathematical problem, and the huge main-deck bitts 
 of the “Borda,” christened by some wag the “Cafe de-la 
 Bitte,” is the place where all conversation and discussion 
 takes place. 
 
 All is matter of instruction, even to that certain piece 
 of timber known as “a fore and aft carling,” against which 
 the new comers regularly break their heads as they de- 
 scend to the steerage, so little is their mind penetrated 
 by its name and the important part it performs in 
 strengthening the vessel ; even to the hammock — the 
 hammock, which alone of itself is worth a naval educa- 
 tion, and in which our youngster sleeps better than in a 
 bed of down, that is, as soon as a few tumbles on the 
 deck have taught him to get into it properly. All this 
 imperceptibly but rapidly transforms the landsman into 
 the sailor. 
 
 Admiral JDecres, on a certain occasion, asked the 
 
16 
 
 OUE NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 Emperor to establish a Naval School on shore. “Just 
 so,” said Napoleon; “ I will also require the Minister of 
 War to place the Cavalry School on board ship.” “ Oh, 
 anything but that, your Majesty,” said the Admiral. 
 “ Yery well, then. Admiral, do you know of any means 
 by which we can educate these lads under the water ? ” 
 “No, Sire!” “Then,” said Napoleon, “until you have 
 found some way to do so, suppose we educate them upon 
 it.” 
 
 Napoleon had the true Naval instinct stronger than his 
 Minister. Although the few advocates of Naval Schools 
 on shore strenuously assert that it is possible in such 
 barracks to educate our young officers thoroughly, and 
 though, perhaps, such a sys'tem may give us here and 
 there a few really good lieutenants, it is absolutely certain 
 that the majority of the graduates will be worthless mid- 
 shipmen, and still more worthless ensigns. 
 
 Our Naval School, then, seems to us irreproachable in 
 its principle, and we may add that, the discipline being 
 at once military and paternal, the actual life of the Cadet 
 is really more comfortable there than, perhaps, anywhere 
 else away from his home. But amusements and relaxa- 
 tions are completely wanting to his life, and that not in 
 consequence of any regulation to that effect, but solely 
 owing to a system which, since the creation of the School, 
 has not ceased to preside over its direction, and to ex- 
 ercise a baleful influence upon the morale of the Cadets, 
 as well as upon their instruction. 
 
 In support of this assertion, it will simply be necessary 
 to cite the following passage, which is an extract from the 
 report of a Special Commission, in 1834, for improving 
 the discipline of the School, drawn up at the close of its 
 first sitting. 
 
 Jn the absence of instructions to the contrary, the fort 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 17 
 
 Admiral at Brest had taken upon himself to grant to 
 those Cadets who desired to visit their homes, a leave of 
 absence between the periods of the scholastic terms. 
 “After debating the matter, we have concluded,” says the 
 Commission in question, “ that an absence of six weeks 
 cannot but be injurious to the Cadets of the Second Di- 
 vision, in causing them to lose sight of the military lessons 
 inculcated, thus retarding their professional education, 
 and above all in aiding them to forget, in the entirely 
 different customs of their homes, the subordination and 
 discipline which is the rule on shipboard. The Commis- 
 sion, therefore, decides that it will be proper to suppress 
 entirely the leave hitherto granted to the Second Divi- 
 sion. 
 
 “ Nevertheless, as a certain amount of relaxation is 
 necessary after ten months of constant study, and as, on 
 the other hand, it is requisite that the Professors and In- 
 structors should receive a certain period of leave of ab- 
 sence, the Cadets of the Second Division, between the two 
 scholastic terms, will not be required to study or recite. 
 They will continue simply to be exercised in their sea- 
 manship drills, and at the great guns. They will visit 
 all the different establishments of the dock-yard and 
 port, and the Commander of the School Ship will take 
 care to procure for them all the amusements that the 
 situation admits of. At the end of the entire course, the 
 Cadets admitted into the Navy may, upon their own re- 
 quest, obtain leave to pass some time at their homes 
 before being ordered on regular sea duty.” * 
 
 * This Commission was composed of Baron Hamelin, as President, 
 and Messrs. De Bougainville, De Hell, De Bonnefoux and Reynand, 
 officers of the line, and Messrs. Lefehure do Fourcy and Fournier, 
 Professors. 
 
18 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 This exhibit of reasons, and the conclusions which 
 terminate it, certainly possess, in default of any other 
 merit, that of clearness. 
 
 And, in consequence, it has had the effect of suppres- 
 sing not only the annual vacation which in all schools 
 and colleges is looked upon as indispensable, but also the 
 greater part of the daily leaves of absence to visit the 
 shore. 
 
 From the 1st of October until the 1st of February, the 
 period at which the rules relax a little in their severity, 
 none of the Cadets go on shore at all, and the authorities 
 do not seem to fear the destruction of the most steadfast 
 inclinations for a sea life in thus condemning lads of six- 
 teen and seventeen to an imprisonment on shipboard, 
 that they would not even impose upon the oldest of our 
 sea dogs without absolute necessity. 
 
 The effects of this are easily foreseen. 
 
 During this period the studies are generally very 
 “ feeble ” and infractions of discipline, and fights between 
 the several divisions, of frequent occurrence,* and thus 
 in a measure (so far at least as the Cadets are concerned) 
 is broken, somewhat rudely, the intolerable monotony of 
 the long sojourn on shipboard, for the interior distrac- 
 tions of the “Borda ” are quite as rare as the promenades 
 on shore. 
 
 There is not, properly speaking, at this school any 
 
 * Since 1850 it has been found necessary to isolate more or less 
 completely the new comers from the older Cadets, whose practical 
 jokes upon the greenhorns had ended by violating all limits of reason. 
 This state of things, which is not without its great inconveniences, 
 has no other moving cause than that of ennui, and if our Naval 
 Authorities wish to bring to a happy conclusion the means taken at 
 this present moment to do away with “ hazing,” they must opeq. 
 some other outlet for the surplus activity of the older Cadets, 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 19 
 
 other recreation but that of seamanship exercise, and 
 when bad weather prevents the Cadets from going on 
 board the drill corvette for exercise, Thursdays and Sun- 
 days, they have no other resource but that of loitering 
 listlessly about the several decks of the School Ship, from 
 ten o’clock in the morning until nine at night, or else of 
 lounging on the desks which are ranged along the side of 
 the vessel. The new comers, it is true, devote themselves 
 eagerly to the perusal of the books drawn from the 
 library, which is open on these days; but in a little 
 while ennui gets the better of them too, and they can 
 read no longer, besides which the curious and instruc- 
 tive works contained in the library are not much appre- 
 ciated by lads so young, and are so unfrequently at their 
 disposition that they are not able to read intelligently 
 and continuously. 
 
 When evening comes, they drag themselves listlessly 
 along the decks, exhausted by the great fatigue of doing 
 nothing, until all hands are called to stand by their ham- 
 mocks, which is a joyful call for the majority of them, and 
 thus terminates that which is grimly termed by Regula- 
 tions “ a day of rest and amusement ” — destined to pre- 
 pare the minds of our youngsters for the labor of the en- 
 suing day. 
 
 We should not, however, omit to mention that there is 
 occasionally amusement of another description, which is 
 quite as exciting as it is rare. It is winter we will say, 
 and suddenly there comes on one of those terrific west or 
 nor’ west gales so common in this locality, so that the poor 
 old craft, remembering her “ good old cruising days,” 
 commences to roll and tumble about with surprising vigor 
 for her vears, and a movement as regular as clockwork, 
 or else, heading the heavy sea and strong gale which 
 draws through the inlet (Goulet of Brest), she surges and 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
20 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 tautens her chains as if she would suddenly snap them 
 and recover her ancient liberty. 
 
 The gale increases, and the officer of the deck, whose 
 ordinary duties are simply confined to morning inspec- 
 tion or seeing hammocks piped down at night, resumes 
 his regular post on the poop, the sailors attached to the 
 ship are sent down on the lower deck where our Cadets 
 are silently at their books and studies — to range and get 
 ready the chains of the huge sheet anchors, whose 
 flukes are just seen through the ports, as the anchors hang 
 a’ cockbill. Of course these preparations produce a per- 
 fect ferment in these young heads. If the ship would only 
 drag ! if they would only let go all the anchors ! if the 
 ship would only take the ground, or drag ashore upon 
 some sand bank in the harbor, and so on and so on ! 
 
 In the great majority of cases of this kind these hopes 
 are not realized, the anchors hold well, and the chains too 
 — the gale subsides, and another chance for relaxation is 
 thus lost. 
 
 This is not always the case. 
 
 On a certain occasion, among others, at the end of 
 February, 1848, a violent gale came on in the Road of 
 Brest, while a hurricane of another description raged at 
 the same time in Paris. For two days all communication 
 between the ship and the shore was interrupted, and in 
 one of the furious clearing up squalls of the gale, the 
 Cadets being at their studies at the time, the ship all at 
 once was felt to fall off in the trough of the sea, and 
 broadside to the gale — a moment after, the loud tones 
 of command came from the officer of the deck, to stand 
 by both sheet anchors; the sailors jumped to their sta- 
 tions on the lower deck and got the Cadets out of the way 
 of the cables on which they had been seated ; then came 
 the command “Let go!” and both chains ran out at 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 21 
 
 once, while, in order that nothing should be wanting, the 
 stern-post of the great ship gave a tremendous thump on 
 the bottom at the same moment ! 
 
 This time the hopes of all were crowned with success, 
 and for a time there was an end to all silence and study. 
 Even the most determined of students felt it his duty to 
 abandon his lessons and look out the already crowded 
 ports — for the cables had to be seen, of course, and the 
 topic of conversation was the rapidity with which they 
 ran out the hawse holes and the tremendous thumping 
 of the stern-post on the bank, which, jarring the ship fore 
 and aft, threatened in their eyes to rend her in pieces. 
 However, at the end of an hour or so the gale subsided, 
 and the necessary steps were taken to haul the old craft 
 off the shoal on which she had grounded. The launch 
 was sent to carry out an anchor, the manger boards and 
 bulkheads were unshipped, the lower deck capstan rigged, 
 and the messenger passed, and, 0 fortune unhoped for 
 in the morning ! the two divisions of Cadets were called 
 on to work cables and haul in on hawsers for a part of 
 the day. 
 
 It was in the midst of such occupations that, communi- 
 cation with the shore being re-established, the startling 
 news was received of the revolution in Paris, and the 
 flight of Louis Philippe. 
 
 Decidedly might the Cadets say on that day, “It never 
 rains but it pours.” 
 
 But winter has now passed away, aud soon smiling 
 spring ushers in the beautiful month of May. The heavy 
 topmasts and lower yards, down all winter, are now sent 
 aloft, and soon the old ship is all a-taunt once more and 
 wears her customary look. The hill-sides and the shores 
 of the harbor are covered with verdure and flowers ; the 
 beautiful road of Ajot, which overlooks the bay, is revested 
 
 _ 
 
 
22 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 with its spring dress, and thronged with gay vehicles and 
 smiling promenaders, and during the beautiful long even- 
 ings, the Cadets, dolefully gathered on the poop deck or 
 lounging in the gun ports half hidden in the shades of twi- 
 light, follow with eager, wistful eyes every movement on 
 shore, listening to the faint music in the distance, of the 
 military bands, which are playing in the Place d’Armes. 
 Then comes Tattoo and the prolonged echoes of the heavy 
 gun from the fort; finally, the thousand and one whisper- 
 ing sounds of nature at work in the early spring repair- 
 ing the breaches made during its long winter’s slumber, 
 brought off by the night wind, while for these poor lads, 
 not a blade of grass to tread under foot, nor even a chance 
 for a moment to stretch their young legs, benumbed by 
 the torpor of their long confinement on the ship, — nothing 
 but the wooden deck, that everlasting infernal deck which 
 seems now to fairly burn under their feet. 
 
 Is it any great wonder, then, that these young hearts 
 become oppressed with sadness and discoui'agement, we 
 might even say despair in certain moments, when they 
 remember that they have yet to pass eighteen months of 
 this sort of life ? These impressions, easily effaced by the 
 night’s slumber, return to them the next day, and the 
 next ; then, all at once the gun ports commence to look 
 narrow, the sides of the ship grow thicker, the decks 
 become more gloomy and sombre, the word “ prison ” oc- 
 curs to their younef minds, and it finishes by graving 
 itself deeply in their hearts. 
 
 Yes, to them it is indeed a prison — the ship ! they seem 
 to have passed a century on board ! Will they ever be 
 allowed to leave her ? These ideas are but natural, for 
 truly at this age, a year is indeed a life-time to these 
 young hearts, who have reckoned, as yet, so few of them ! 
 
 Nevertheless, June brings with it some relief. The 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 23 
 
 course of studies is finished, and the water is now warm 
 enough to allow the bathing parties to resort to the 
 beach of Ninon ; they at least enjoy a run on the sands 
 of the bay shore, and can eat their fill of splendid Ploft- 
 gastel strawberries, which the numerous shore-boats bring 
 to them. 
 
 Then comes the annual examinations, and the parting 
 from the graduates, who, having finished the course, are 
 about to be set at liberty at last. These events succeed 
 each other in rapid succession; finally, they are em- 
 barked as sailors, on the Practice Ship, where they are to 
 pass their two months’ “vacation.” 
 
 Well ^employed, truly, if we may credit the official re- 
 port ; after which, no youngster so behind-hand but that 
 he is ready to measure his skill against the smartest top- 
 man, in furling a sail or passing a reef point. On their 
 return to the harbor about the middle of September, the 
 youngsters scatter like a covey of partridges, for, in the 
 last few years, it has been discovered by those in author- 
 ity, that the paternal hearthstone is not so injurious as 
 was thought in 1834, by the gentlemen who composed 
 the Special Commission on Discipline. 
 
 Thanks to this short vacation, the second year of 
 study opens without actual disgust, mingled with fatigue, 
 on the part of the Cadets, as was formerly the case ; but 
 this impression is of short duration, and, notwithstand- 
 ing the increasing interest of the course of study, the 
 spirits of the First Division are not completely raised un- 
 til the grand fete given in honor of the “ C.” 
 
 As is usual in most Schools and Colleges, each Cadet 
 has a special number given him when he enters, and the 
 “ C ” is the number expressed by the highest number in 
 the School ; and it also represents the number of days 
 which must elapse before they can take their final leave 
 
24 
 
 OtTR HAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 of the ship. Therefore, if in the starboard division 
 there are eighty Cadets, the last number will be 160 “ C,” 
 representing 160 days ; and upon his entrance, each Cadet 
 will have, for example, 655 days to pass on board, or 
 15 + 4 C. 
 
 Each morning “ the equation of 0,” as it is called, is 
 written in large figures on one of the blackboards, ranged 
 along the deck, and when towards the commencement of 
 the second year it happens that the First Division have 
 no longer “ C ” days to serve, the event is celebrated by a 
 grand dinner, that the poor “Plebes” (fisteaux) silently 
 regard with envy through the cracks in the bulkhead.* 
 
 On the day in question, each mess table is at lib'erty to 
 have a banquet prepared on shore and sent off, provided 
 only, no wines or liquors are introduced. Therefore, 
 when the great day arrives, huge pates de foies gras, ices, 
 confectionery, etc., make their appearance on board, ac- 
 companied by silver-ware (more or less pure, of course, 
 but none the less brilliant for that,) and damask table- 
 linen of dazzling whiteness. This fete introduces, as it 
 were, new life into the class. 
 
 From this time henceforward the course of study, so 
 far as they are concerned, seems finished; in fact the 
 several studies very soon come to an end, one after 
 the other, after which follow practical exercises in navi- 
 gation with the sextant, and the astronomical calculations 
 at the Observatory, as well as the target practice with 
 great guns, all of which carry our Cadets frequently out 
 of the ship to their great delight. On board, a swarm of 
 tailors may be seen every Wednesday measuring the 
 
 * This dinner usually took place on Shrove Tuesday. In 1863, 
 however, it was suppressed altogether, having been found “ prejudi- 
 cial to discipline and injurious to the course of study.” 
 
AND NAVAL OFFiCENS. 
 
 25 
 
 young gentlemen for their new uniforms as Midship- 
 men, while scattered about here and there, are seen 
 swords, gold lace, embroidery, etc., all being the fore- 
 runner of the coming day of deliverance. 
 
 Of course, every day seems an age to those about to 
 depart ; but all ennui has long since fled, and the last few 
 months of the course are those in which the class studies 
 with renewed ardor, new strength being born of the 
 hope which wells up in all these hearts previously so 
 downcast. Some weeks are passed in this way. At last, 
 after a long and perfectly sleepless night, the happy day 
 of final departure dawns ! With throbbing hearts, and 
 some doubt at the same time as to whether they are 
 really awake or dreaming, the Cadets dress themselves for 
 the first time in their new uniforms, make a neat bundle 
 of their old clothes, return to the mate of the steerage the 
 keys of their lockers, and make final tours fore and aft 
 the ship, which they are about to quit at last. It is now 
 seven o’clock, and the shrill whistle of the boatswain’s 
 mate is heard calling away the cutter — destined to carry 
 them on shore for the last time. 
 
 This time, instead of rushing as usual down the accom- 
 modation ladder and jumping into the boat to seize the 
 tiller or get the best place in the stern-sheets, the ten 
 midshipmen allowed to leave each day descend into the 
 cutter with grave and dignified demeanor, as if fully im- 
 pressed with a sense of their new-born importance to the 
 service ; nevertheless, they cast a final look at the old 
 ship’s sides, dotted with its rows of black and white ports 
 —that ship which they have at length quitted for the last 
 time, thank Gf-od ! 
 
 They are now in the cutter, but still alongside the ship. 
 It is the grand moment, the moment of moments, of 
 their lives! “Shove off!” says the officer of the boat. 
 
26 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 “ Shove off, sir ! ” repeats the bowman, using his reversed 
 boat-hook, and suiting the action to the word. That 
 simple command, “ Shove off,” penetrates the youngster’s 
 heart to its deepest core, and leaves there a souvenir 
 which he will carry with him to the latest moment of his 
 existence ! 
 
 In face of this profound emotion, inspired by the feel- 
 ing of his long-lost, but now regained liberty, the final 
 examination which our Cadet is now required to under- 
 go on shore disturbs him very little indeed. During his 
 passage to the shore everything seems to wear a smiling 
 aspect, and to have its own particular expression for him 
 and him alone. The harbor, the docks, the slips, the 
 streets of Brest, all are joyous, and nature seems to wel- 
 come him with open arms. He departs, carrying with 
 him a pleasant remembrance of the Examining officers, 
 whom he hopes some day to meet again on shipboard, 
 and the School Ship is the only thing he quits without a 
 sigh of regret. It has been his prison ; he has been shut 
 up there for twenty-two long weary months! Now, 
 gentlemen in power, to speak frankly, is this the souvenir 
 of Alma Mater that these young lads ought in justice to 
 carry away with them into the service ? 
 
 •If we have been prolix on these points, it is because we 
 feel it to be the best and only way to call attention to the 
 ugly defects of the actual system pursued. 
 
 It is only within a few years past that the School has 
 become sufficiently old to see its graduates reach posi- 
 tions of authority and influence in the service; and now 
 that this is so, and these graduates by their rank may 
 exact respect for their opinion, it is our duty to remind 
 them of their former career, to the end that they should 
 do for the Cadets of the present day what they would in 
 former days have desired officers in power to do for them. 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 27 
 
 How often, in truth, is it the case that we find in this 
 world men who, by dint of their own hard struggles 
 through life, have forgotten their own early impressions, 
 and when advanced in years endeavor to persuade them- 
 selves that all amusements militate against labor and 
 study, while, in reality, the one is as necessary to the 
 other, as air and light to the life of man. 
 
 “ All work and no play, 
 
 Makes J ack a dull boy,” 
 
 says the old English proverb ; and so it comes about, 
 that, instead of earnestly seeking with intelligence to 
 choose amusements suitable for these lads, they issue a 
 sweeping condemnation of all amusements, with the in- 
 evitable result that we have seen. These youngsters, 
 discouraged from the first, find their sojourn at the 
 School, which should be a round of joyous labor, activity 
 and emulation, transformed into a dull, unvarying routine 
 of indolent performance of compelled duties and studies, 
 mingled with feelings of positive disgust for the life, and 
 a desperate ennui. The old ideas adopted at the origin 
 of the School are not, it is true, the only obstacle to a 
 change of system. There exists another vei'y material 
 one in the position of the ship herself, which, by her 
 great draft of water, obliges her to be moored a long 
 distance from the shore, for it is considered that if 
 moored closer she would interfere with the other vessels 
 in the port, and, moreover, the situation would not be so 
 advantageous for the Cadets themselves. 
 
 Perhaps at Toulon it might be possible to find a better 
 * berth for a School Ship ; but that dockyard does not 
 seem to us as advantageous in point of locality as Brest, 
 where the climate is more healthy, and the weather 
 better, notwithstanding the winter gales. It seems to us, 
 
28 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 also, that the very air of Brittany and its misty atmos- 
 phere breathes the true spirit of the sea, and makes the 
 sailor, to a far greater degree than that soft southern 
 climate and beautifully clear sky of Toulon, which never 
 changes its aspect, even w 7 hen the fierce mistral whitens 
 the sea with foam. Notwithstanding these difficulties, 
 the problem is one of easy solution. For some time 
 past a steam gunboat has been used as a tender to the 
 School Ship, and serves to transport the Cadets back and 
 forth; and it might even be that the old ship could have 
 her bottom made flatter, so as to draw less water, in 
 which case she could be moored close to the shore, and 
 yet preserve all her imposing external appearance. She 
 could be placed, let us say, quite near the entrance of the 
 port, either on the Ninon side of the harbor, or on that of 
 the new town, and then communication would be easy at 
 all times. 
 
 If we pass now from the general system pursued at the 
 School to the details of the course of instruction, we are 
 at once struck with the great voids and superfluities ex- 
 isting therein, which, let us hope, may disappear in the 
 re-organization which is now going on, thanks to our 
 increased experience. In glancing over the list of studies 
 pursued we are at first brought into contact with a com- 
 plete course of French grammar and ethics. 
 
 Can it be credited, that after having required as a pre- 
 liminary step to the admission of a Cadet, a perfect 
 knowledge of composition and a Latin version of some 
 French theme, it should be found requisite to send these 
 young people to a 11 Naval School ” to be instructed for 
 an entire year in grammar, the rules of punctuation, and 
 a knowledge of participles, to say nothing of a course of 
 rhetorip ! ! ! When this is done they pass to a course of 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 29 
 
 universal history, in which the Navy (at least in former 
 clays) was completely overlooked. 
 
 In going through this course, some fifteen years ago 
 one of the Professors was seized with an intense admira- 
 tion for certain Albanian, Hungarian and Polish heroes, 
 so that Scanderbeg, John Huniades and Podiebrad were, 
 actually held up before the eyes of the Cadets as models 
 for the imitation of officers of the French Navy, instead 
 of such men as Duquesne, de Tourville and Suffren, who 
 were never even so much as mentioned ! 
 
 Since this ridiculous episode, Naval history has been 
 made a part of the course, but it is even now taught by 
 the Professor of Grammar, who passes without difficulty 
 from a recitation upon the rules of Syntax, to the recital 
 of famous naval battles, whilst at the same time there 
 exists a course of Naval tactics which no one ever dreams 
 of illustrating by a reference to our past maritime wars. 
 
 This same Professor is also obliged to instruct the 
 Cadets in a course of geography which includes among 
 other things, besides the grand divisions of the earth, 
 such definitions as the word river, stream, island, penin- 
 sula, etc., etc., the rudiments of geology and physical 
 geography, his duties terminating by a course of lectures 
 on international law and maritime warfare and prize.* 
 All will allow, we think that this is a heavy imposition 
 on the good nature of one man, and we very much ques- 
 tion whether there are many college Professors in France 
 willing to accept such a task as this. 
 
 In short, it is not possible to observe without amaze- 
 ment that the method of instruction so completely and 
 
 * Whilst the course of ethics alone occupies the first year of study, 
 that of Universal and Naval history, physical geography, and mari- 
 time law divide between them the second year, 
 
30 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 so well systematized in our military schools on shore is 
 here absurdly at fault. 
 
 When they leave the school, the Cadets are so com- 
 pletely ignorant of the Naval system of accounts, that 
 were it not for the presence on board ship of a Commis- 
 sary they would not know that such a thing existed.* 
 
 It results, then, from this, that some of these young' 
 men sometimes evince a great repugnance to perform 
 duty of this kind, frequently mingled with a sovereign 
 scorn for all persons and things connected with it, while 
 the greater number of them have not the faintest idea of 
 the manner in which a Navy is organized, clothed, equipped 
 01 fed. Subsequently nevertheless, they become lieu- 
 tenants and officers of divisions, and throw the burden of 
 their legitimate duties on the shoulders of the Commis- 
 sary of the ship ; or if, as is . sometimes the case, they 
 happen to sail with one of those rare commanders who 
 makes every one do his duty, and looks upon all this account 
 keeping as part of the profession, as much so indeed as 
 seamanship or gunnery, and who strictly requires his 
 subordinates to perform their share of such matters, they 
 are very much astonished, and believe they are degraded 
 by being called upon to perform such duties. 
 
 . While, still later, when these same young men become 
 Commanders, or executive officers, they know so little 
 about the matter as to be utterly unable to verify the 
 yeoman’s accounts of the ship they command. 
 
 This is not, indeed, astonishing, and we ought not to 
 
 * In order to explain this it must be remembered that any officer in 
 the French Navy commanding a vessel with less than 100 men, may 
 be called upon to perform a Commissary’s duty, and all commanding 
 officers are obliged to certify to the accuracy of the ship’s accounts.— 
 Translator . 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 31 
 
 blame them for it, when we consider that the “ Special 
 Commission for improving Discipline, etc.,” in drawing up 
 a programme of studies for this School did not find it 
 necessary to include in the course of instruction that 
 which every Cadet should be absolutely obliged to learn. 
 
 All these deficiencies can, however, be remedied, and all 
 defects easily corrected by suppressing certain branches 
 now taught at the School which are absolutely useless, 
 supplying their place with others more necessary, and 
 making a good use of the steam gunboat we have refer- 
 red to in order to teach upon a better plan those branches 
 which by all means should be retained. 
 
 Already we find that a great improvement has taken 
 place in the instruction in chemistry. In former years 
 this branch was always taught on the School Ship, where 
 there was neither laboratory nor proper materials for the 
 subject, and where in consequence (at least some years 
 since) the Professor’s practical experiments failed about 
 three-fourths of the time, amid the great applause and to 
 the intense amusement of the Cadets. 
 
 At the present time the practical part of this branch is 
 taught on shore, and a lecture room in the Naval Hospital 
 devoted to the purpose. 
 
 In addition to these changes, the Infantry drills have 
 been arranged upon a better footing, though the system is 
 still capable of great improvement. Until last year these 
 exercises for lack of room on shipboard were confined 
 almost entirely to instruction in the Manual of Arms and 
 the firings, while the midshipmen the moment they left 
 the School for service afloat became, as is frequently the 
 case in the Navy, victims of a system which without pre-' 
 vious teaching requires of them an unreasonable amount 
 of information, being called upon to know not only the 
 
32 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 School of the Company but the battalion drill, and obliged 
 sometimes to command both. 
 
 This, however, is no longer the case, for now the 
 Cadets are called upon to exercise in company and bat- 
 talion drill on shore accompanied by artillery, to march 
 and skirmish, to bivouac in advance and retreat, with 
 pickets thrown out in the advance and rear, and the 
 whole system is now regarded as an indispensable exercise 
 and a salutary physical recreation. 
 
 But we will not fatigue our readers by pursuing this 
 examination in detail. What we have already said will be 
 quite enough to show that of all special military schools, 
 that of the Navy [the most difficult to systematize per- 
 fectly by reason of the extreme youth of the Cadets, and 
 the wide range of information required of Naval officers] 
 has remained up to this time the most thoroughly neg- 
 lected. 
 
 A new system was commenced on the 1st of October, 
 1863, in a new School Ship, and the good results already 
 attained thereby, lead us to hope that a new era is about 
 to dawn upon this institution, and that the eye of the 
 Minister of Marine once fixed steadily upon it, no means 
 will be left untried to bring it to the greatest perfection 
 possible. We may here add in a few words, that the 
 principal changes required are a re-modelling of the en- 
 tire programme of studies in such a way as to bring out 
 in relief, as it were, the principles and elements of all the 
 scientific branches taught ; to add to every branch all the 
 practical examples and illustrations it is possible to have 
 suited to the eye and hand, for to see a thing once done 
 practically, is worth ten times as much as an hour of ver- 
 bal explanation. At the same time, such branches as 
 shipbuilding, ordnance and Naval history, should be con- 
 fided to men who have made a special study of the same ; 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICEBS.' 
 
 33 
 
 in other words, who are themselves “ experts,” and who 
 know, not merely the course required, but very much 
 more. 
 
 This first task accomplished, there remains then, merely 
 the recognition of this truth, that no system of study, not 
 even the best that can be devised, will produce its full 
 effect except in proportion as the Cadets bring a good 
 disposition to their work and labor cheerfully and ambi- 
 tiously. Let nothing, then, be neglected which may ex- 
 cite among them a generous emulation and desire to 
 labor. Excite their self-love, their curiosity and their 
 interest, and above all, do not forget to give them a full 
 share of recreation and innocent amusement, for it can- 
 not be too rigidly insisted upon that, so far from being 
 injurious to study, these occasional distractions form the 
 greater part of the success which invariably attends any 
 good system of instruction. 
 
 In short, it is important that the Cadets should be 
 trained as much as possible in an atmosphere of common 
 sense and intelligence, in an atmosphere, moreover, im- 
 pregnated with that spirit of ambition and patriotism 
 which animates the service of which they are soon to be- 
 come a part. Under this head much yet remains to be done, 
 for up to the present moment literally nothing has been 
 accomplished towards surrounding these young lads with 
 the traditions of the Navy, and its brilliant souvenirs. 
 
 By all means, then, let these traditions and these sou- 
 venirs of the past be revived, not only in a lengthened 
 course of Naval history, but as illustrative of the practice 
 of gunnery, Naval construction, the defence of a coast line, 
 dock-yard organization, the training of seamen, organiza- 
 tion and equipment of distant expeditions for conquest or 
 discovery, in which our Navy has borne so conspicuous 
 a share. Everywhere let this appear, so that when some 
 
34 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 dead hero’s name is mentioned, the instructor may be 
 able to say, “ This man whose name you now hear pro- 
 nounced, has deserved well of his country, these are his 
 deeds ! these are the difficulties he surmounted and over- 
 came! see what patience, what energy, what persever- 
 ance, what heroism, in short, he displayed! You have 
 chosen to follow the same glorious vocation, and to be- 
 come an inheritor of his fame. You are now of the same 
 race, and he is now reckoned among your ancestors in 
 glory. Never, then, forget that one day, perhaps, you 
 may have the opportunity of imitating him ; and labor 
 now to the end that, when that glorious day comes, you 
 may be worthy of him, indeed.” 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A midshipman of the second class on leaving the 
 “Borda” to commence his Naval career, has a good deal 
 in common with those young fellows just quitting col- 
 lege, with their university honors fresh upon them ; that is 
 to say, he is very near to knowing a great many things, 
 but as equally near to knowing nothing at all ; * the more 
 so, as from his debut he remains many months without 
 putting into practice what he has learned. Generally 
 speaking, even in the best disciplined vessels, we find too 
 little attention paid to the instruction of these young men, 
 or, with this object in view, any attempt to utilize the 
 long sojourns in harbor or voyages at sea, even when 
 there are on board of the vessel, officers who have ac- 
 
 * The best rendering of this passage is our English expression, 
 “What he think » he knows would fill a volume; what he does not 
 know would fill a library.”— Translator, 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 quired, by certain service, a special knowledge of impor- 
 tant duties. 
 
 Those, for instance, who have served at the “experi- 
 mental battery,” or on the Gunnery Ships, and those who 
 have been on detached service, whether in the batteries 
 at Sebastopol, the expedition in China, Cochin China, or 
 Mexico, (and these last are quite numerous at the pres- 
 ent moment,) might easily instruct their younger com- 
 rades by means of lessons, from which they would derive 
 much more profit than they do from waiting on a wharf 
 until a late hour in the night, watching their boat’s crew 
 until their Captain returns from a ball, or the ward-room 
 officers return from the theatre ! 
 
 This service is, in truth, one of the last vestiges of cer- 
 tain ideas which pervaded the Service thirty years or 
 more ago, and according to which it was believed to be a 
 solemn duty to render a midshipman’s life as hard and 
 disagreeable as possible while trying to make a sailor of 
 him. These were the good old days when quarantines 
 were common, and midshipmen more often in arrest on 
 the orlop deck, or perched upon a top-gallant yard to 
 keep a sharp lookout for rocks, than promenading on 
 shore ; and when they oftener passed their nights by the 
 light of the stars of heaven than in their hammocks. 
 
 In those days it was considered “the thing” to have 
 tarry hands, a quid of tobacco always in the cheek, and 
 to possess no more outfit than would fill a cocked hat 
 box, to disdain, in short, whether far or near, all that 
 which savored of luxury or comfort ; and this feeling ex- 
 tended even to the affairs of the mess, if we may credit 
 some of the officers of that day, who would have us be- 
 lieve that a midshipman’s provision for a long cruise was 
 neither extensive nor difficult to make. According to them, 
 the steerage stores consisted of a sufficient number (more 
 
— r ~ 
 
 36 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 01 less) of bottles of rum, and a couple of lean chickens, 
 which, after having served to provide a mess of twelve 
 midshipmen for a number of weeks, reached port hale 
 and hearty after all ; the means taken to accomplish this 
 wonderful feat being anything but miraculous. Every 
 morning when the decks are washed, the chicken coops 
 are placed on each side of the deck to be scrubbed also. 
 Of course, it frequently happens that during this opera- 
 tion, some of the birds escape from the coop. The steer- 
 age boy was in those days required by the midshipmen 
 to hold himself quietly in readiness near the coops, and 
 whenever “a steerage chicken” was seen running about 
 the decks, to catch it at once and place it in the steerage 
 coop ; of course, all stray chickens were “ steerage chick- 
 ens and in this way the mess was always abundantly 
 - supplied, and no “ injustice ” done to anybody. This in- 
 genious process, however, which no one ignored, and 
 scarcely blamed, has of late years fallen into disuse in 
 common with many other “ good old practices ; ” and for 
 quite a number of years past, midshipmen have become 
 civilized and respectable, in spite of the regrets they so 
 frequently hear expressed around them by some of the 
 older officers. 
 
 Those who have inaugurated this transformation, are 
 to-da\ officers, and indeed such excellent officers, that they 
 ought not to fear going much further in this way of prog- 
 ress and regulating or reshaping duty (on every occasion 
 in which the discipline of the ship will not be injured 
 thereby) to the profit and instruction of the midshipmen 
 
 [ placed under their care, who will all reap the benefit of these 
 reforms, though there are some that we will now advert to, 
 who stand more particularly iu need of just such advan- 
 tages. 
 
 Every one knows that the Polytechnic School furnishes 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 37 
 
 a few scholars every year to the Navy.* Now, although 
 the special school of any service ought to be organized in 
 a way to give to the young people who enter it an educa- 
 tion as conformable as possible to the requirements of 
 their future service, this arrangement, maintained simply 
 within its actual limits, could not, we believe, produce 
 always the best results, and at the present moment the 
 Navy owes to a wise departure from this system a cer- 
 tain number of its highest officers that it would not like 
 to see eliminated from its list. It is thus that some of 
 the members of this large body possess a very superior 
 mathematical education, which cannot, and in truth ought 
 not to be given at a Naval school — simply because such 
 knowledge is generally, and in fact practically useless to 
 the Cadets ; although in some rare cases it may render 
 great service. 
 
 It is true that Naval construction and ordnance which 
 play so important a part in our Naval system, number 
 among the sea officers [i. e., Line officers] a certain num- 
 ber of followers who serve as a connecting link and bond 
 of union to the men who by different routes are* all striv- 
 ing to attain the same end. A corps cannot, moreover, 
 isolate itself and repel all elements apparently foreign to 
 it, without exposing itself to the fate of some of those great 
 families we read of, who, by persisting for generations in 
 marrying only among themselves, have finally ended in 
 becoming perfectly and entirely exclusive — hated by their 
 neighbors and equals, and either idiotic or sterile. 
 
 Here again, as regards the Cadets who enter the Navy 
 from the Polytechnic, the principle is excellent, but the 
 same cannot be said of the result. 
 
 In truth, the Cadets intended for the Ordnance, Con- 
 
 * Eight entered the service last year. 
 
OtTR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 struction, Engineeringor Mining branches, before entering 
 their respective corps, pass a certain time, more or less 
 extended, in schools of instruction, but whether it is the 
 Navy is not regarded as a special service, or whether it is 
 that the Polytechnic School is looked on as a ship — 
 whose chimneys are masts, whose stairways are ratlins, 
 and whose dormitories are gun-decks, it is certain that 
 of all its Cadets those alone destined for the Navy are 
 deprived of the special preparation required, and launched 
 into their Naval career without any one seeming to care 
 for their instruction or being at all doubtful as to whether 
 or not they do not yet lack something under this head. 
 
 They become in a trice midshipmen of the first class, 
 that is to say, with rank of second lieutenants, and 
 although (as is sometimes the case) they may never have 
 put their foot on board ship, they are called upon on the 
 very first day they join their vessel to command the senior 
 midshipmen inured already to the Naval service, as well 
 as those of the second class, who alone have had three or 
 four years service afloat. 
 
 In face of a situation so mortifying to their self-respect, 
 as well as injurious to their future instruction, and the 
 discipline cf the Service, they have no other course to 
 pursue than bravely to assume tlieir duties among their 
 equals as well as inferiors in rank, and to learn their sea 
 duties by selecting a couple of good boatswain’s mates, 
 and under their instruction learning to knot and splice, 
 and handle the great guns. Still, after much hard labor, 
 they lack the knowledge of many things that they cannot 
 learn except by slow degrees in their service afloat, and 
 of which some of them remain for ever ignorant. In a 
 word, those who possess sufficient moral courage to stoop 
 in order to learn, become good officers, but without ever 
 having been good practical sailors ; and this quality, 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 39 
 
 whose importance it is not necessary to exaggerate, is 
 nevertheless exceedingly useful in the lower grades of the 
 Service, where it always inspires the confidence and re- 
 spect of the crew, 
 
 Whatever may be the motives alleged to justify an 
 anomaly so strange, the true and only reason is probably 
 that, owing to the small number of Cadets of this kind 
 they have been overlooked, not having perhaps ever been 
 thought of. It should have appeared and it does appear 
 now very easy to send them on board of one of the drill cor- 
 vettes at the Naval School for instruction in the practical 
 parts of their profession, the time chosen being from the 
 early part of August until the 20th of September, when 
 the exercises are going on. 
 
 Associated during these two months with the Cadets of 
 the “ Borda,” they would be the object of special care, 
 and also able to make for themselves many friendships 
 among their comrades of the future. They might after 
 this receive their appointments, and, after two months’ 
 leave, they could report at Toulon, somewhat broken in 
 to a sea-life, and in a condition to understand that which 
 is constantly going on around them on shipboard. 
 They should be embarked together for six months on 
 board ship with officers specially designated to give 
 them a course of practical instruction. They would thus 
 pass through a regular school of practical instruction, 
 and would no longer be subjected to the mortification of 
 having to take charge of a watch without knowing either 
 the method required or the orders necessary to work the 
 vessel, or be obliged to place themselves under the tui- 
 tion of their subordinates among the crew, when they are 
 surrounded by their seniors, whose business and duty it 
 is to instruct them. Such is, according to our view of 
 the case, the true method of reaping all the benefit pos- 
 
40 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 sible from the precious and hitherto too much neglected 
 material that the Polytechnic School sends every year 
 into the Navy. 
 
 We have now reached the lowest grade of commis- 
 sioned officer, and the Epaulette has replaced the “ Ai- 
 guillette.” The Ensign is theoretically qualified to the 
 charge of a ship; he is a fair sailor, but his experience 
 has not yet been great enough to allow his knowledge to 
 mature, as it will do in the future; in short, is more or 
 less incomplete in accordance with his opportunities for 
 service. Unfortunately, he is likely to remain a con- 
 siderable time without the necessary experience required, 
 since no precaution is taken to assure for him, during 
 the first few years of his Naval life, that access to the two 
 great schools indispensable to the finishing of his educa- 
 tion — distant ocean cruising, which makes the sailor; 
 and cruising in squadron, which makes the officer. 
 
 It must be allowed, however, that in such active times 
 as those we have had in the last ten years, it might be 
 difficult, if not impossible, to attain such results as we 
 would like to see attained. Under such a condition of 
 things, it is necessary for each man to outstrip experi- 
 ence by taking his own education in hand, and learning 
 as best he can, and how he can, his duties; but the active 
 service which we refer to is of itself a certain sort of 
 schooling, and has its own decided merit in forming 
 officers ; but such stirring periods are not frequent, and 
 we can remember many long years of quiet and peace in 
 which three-fourths of our ships were laid up in ordinary, 
 and when the same officers made over and over again, 
 during their entire Naval career, the same cruises. 
 
 The great seaports on the Atlantic and Channel fur- 
 nish ships for distant stations and ocean cruising, whilst 
 Toulon serves to fit out our squadrons and fleets, which 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 41 
 
 duty is always preferred by our Naval officers, and at- 
 tracts, little by little, to this port those officers who do 
 not care to stay at the others from family reasons, or 
 something of that nature. These latter ports, completely 
 stripped, are often obliged to require officers from 
 Toulon and the Mediterranean ports, which invariably 
 causes much trepidation among the officers located at 
 the latter. There was in such cases usually a general 
 scatter to the right and left ; the first officers in the 
 roster for duty, warned by their friends at headquarters 
 some little time beforehand, got out of the way in the 
 best way they could — one got leave, another a furlough, 
 another sick leave, a fourth some permanently “ soft 
 billet ; ” in short, when the fatal sea orders came, such 
 and such a man, who eight days before was tenth or 
 twelfth on the list for sea duty, found himself, to his 
 great astonishment and intense disgust, at the head of 
 the list, without there having been any apparent change 
 going on in the station. Of course good order and the 
 harmony of the Service was often rudely shaken by such 
 occurrences, and it in fact often happened that some 
 officers belonging to the ocean ports (i. e. Atlantic and 
 Channel ports) reached the grade of Post. Captain with- 
 out ever having been able, notwithstanding all their ex- 
 ertions, to serve in the fleet or squadron, while others 
 had never seen any other service, never having quitted 
 the Mediterranean. 
 
 Besides the measures necessary to complete the educa- 
 tion of our young officers in varying their cruising 
 grounds, there are many others which, being susceptible 
 of immediate application, might all work towards the 
 same good result, and the omission of which it is diffi- 
 cult to explain. Such for instance are “Manuals of 
 Naval Practice,” and/' Aides-memoires,” which combine 
 
42 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 in a portable and convenient form all the instruction 
 necessary in regard to the manifold details of the man- 
 agement and care of a vessel. These are at the present 
 moment almost completely lacking, and the profession of 
 all others which exacts the greatest variety of information 
 is the only one it seems for which no one dreams of com- 
 posing a special book. Besides which, libraries to contain 
 technical works, voyages, and military histories, accord- 
 ing to the available room on board, would offer a pre- 
 cious resource during long cruises at sea, without greatly 
 increasing the Naval budget of expense. 
 
 We may also mention as very much to be regretted the 
 absence of “ general inspections,” and of associations or 
 meetings among officers for improvement in professional 
 subjects. Scattered over the four quarters of the globe, 
 they cannot, we admit, keep themselves constantly 
 posted in the improvements hourly going on at home, 
 and which, within the last few years, have changed so 
 completely the principles of maritime warfare in regard 
 to the attack and defence. They cannot, in short, acquire 
 this information, unless while abroad they meet fre- 
 quently among themselves to hear such subjects spoken 
 of and discussed by those recently from home. These 
 conferences (simply good-humored talk among them- 
 selves), that commanding officers might in a thousand 
 ways render agreeable as well as useful both to them- 
 selves and their officers, would perfectly attain the end 
 we indicate. 
 
 As to the “ general inspections,” they ought to be made 
 as much as possible by Admirals specially charged with 
 this important duty; but in any case, and this is the 
 main point, they should bear not only on the good order, 
 drill, and discipline of ship and crew, but also upon the 
 degree of information and instruction of the officers of 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 43 
 
 the ship themselves, whose condition it is impossible to 
 ascertain in any other way, and to this should be added, 
 a report as to the manner in which they understand and 
 carry out the Regulations of the Navy. Is it necessary 
 here to recall to the minds of our Naval readers how 
 completely ignored or imperfectly known, prior to the 
 year 1852, were those regulations even which had special 
 reference to the officers themselves, and what a sub- 
 stantial benefit and boon was that little work in portable 
 form,* which made its appearance about that time, and 
 has since been within the reach of all ? 
 
 These general inspections would make known at once 
 the needs of this nature, and would furnish at the same 
 time information as to the special labors of particular 
 officers, and add reliable data upon which advancement 
 in the service could be made which would have the effect 
 of stimulating the zeal of others. 
 
 In the course of a long cruise many commanding offi- 
 cers carry out their instructions with a great degree of 
 intelligence and ability in regard to reporting everything 
 of interest to their Government which they may see on 
 the voyage, but they forget much too often to associate 
 their officers with them in these labors — those, at all 
 events, who would be only too happy to second them in 
 their task. Thanks to the customs of the service, thanks 
 to the absence of official instruction on the subject, the 
 greater number of our officers remain absolute strangers 
 to the countries they visit. Hardly is the anchor down 
 in a foreign port when they recommence a course (as 
 equally monotonous and dull for them as for the crew) 
 of the everlasting exercises required by the Routine Table. 
 As to a verification of the charts, to a study of the mili- 
 
 * “ Le Service interieur de la Marine Francaise,” etc. 
 
44 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 tary defences or fortifications of the harbor, of the re- 
 sources of the port they are in, its facilities for repairing 
 or provisioning vessels, its productions, industries, com- 
 merce, or political condition, why, they might as well 
 have never heard of it, or visited it ! 
 
 If they are anchored near some foreign ship of war, her 
 construction, rig, battery, engines, internal fittings, etc., 
 whose examination would offer so much of interest and 
 instruction, pass equally unnoticed, while it would be so 
 very easy to have in the officers of every ship just as 
 many pairs of sharp, intelligent eyes open upon every- 
 thing of interest which surrounds them, and as many 
 ready pens encouraged to make full reports (while labor- 
 ing for their own instruction) of all that their possessors 
 see in their incessant cruises around the world. 
 
 The complement of a vessel of war, as most persons know, 
 is composed of a Captain and a certain number of inferior 
 officers ; finally, of a Commissary and a Surgeon, and, al- 
 though neither of these last-named may be educated for 
 Naval life, yet the duties they are called ou to perform 
 are of such a nature, and so closely allied to the labors of 
 their Naval brethren, that we think our observations 
 would be incomplete if we passed on to the questions of 
 importance which still remain to be treated, without 
 glancing for a moment at the duties of the Commissary 
 and Surgeon. 
 
 The title of Commissary of a vessel of war is, perhaps, 
 the most ancient (if we except that of Admiral) known to 
 the French Navy ; but the original importance of the po- 
 sition has diminished little by little since the period of 
 the middle ages, until we find it as it exists in our day. 
 Placed originally upon the “Naves” that the king hired 
 to guard the interest of the crown and defend the sea- 
 coast, he was subsequently charged with the duty, not 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 45 
 
 only of overlooking the outlay and expenditure, but often 
 of the conduct and character of his commander. He was 
 charged with the duty of reporting to the High Stewards 
 or Intendants of the realm the conduct of the Captain, 
 both at sea and during an engagement ; and it was not 
 without a long struggle, in which the most bitter animos- 
 ity was shown, that these last finally obtained some mod- 
 ification of this state of things — so little in accordance 
 with proper ideas of discipline. But this was at a period 
 when the corps of officers was imperfectly organized, and 
 when the responsibility which devolved on the comman- 
 ders not being well guaranteed, the independence, more 
 or less complete, of the accountant, seemed in truth the 
 only safeguard of the king’s treasury. 
 
 This necessity, of course, no longer exists in our day, and 
 the Commissary is, at the present time, simply a member 
 of the Council of Administration (i. e. Staff of the Cap- 
 tain), and charged with specific routine duties just as any 
 other officer ; and, although often of the same rank, un- 
 der the orders of the Commander. 
 
 The question has even arisen during the last few years 
 as to whether it would not be advisable to pursue the 
 same course as is adopted in the Army, and confide these 
 duties to one of the officers of the Ship. This project, 
 however, has few advocates and has encountered much 
 opposition. It is alleged by Naval officers that the sys- 
 tem of account-keeping and duties of Commissary are 
 quite foreign to their tastes, their habits, and to their 
 profession, already exacting such a variety of informa- 
 tion on all subjects, when their position is compared with 
 other military ones ; and, moreover, that they have little 
 aptitude for “ quill driving,” as was amply shown in an 
 unsuccessful attempt of this kind which took place during 
 the Ministry of M, de Sartine, 
 
46 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 We must own our belief, however, that these motives 
 do not seem to us very conclusive. It would be easy to 
 cite very many institutions or customs which are in full 
 prosperity at the present time, which in former years 
 were regarded as quite impracticable, or which absolutely 
 failed, a century ago, and it is not a question at all of 
 exacting additional knowledge of our officers, since they 
 are already in many cases obliged, under their responsi- 
 bilities, actual or pecuniary, to keep themselves wholly or 
 partly familiar with accounts, so as to control the opera- 
 tions of the Commissary. In short, repugnance and lack 
 of aptitude for this kind of duty seem to us to be more 
 imaginary than real among them, and without looking- 
 very far away, we have in the English Navy a striking 
 example of the little foundation for the greater part of 
 the prejudices of this kind. The officers of the Royal 
 Navy, for example, regard as secondary to their position 
 and unworthy of their rank, the duties of the Master* 
 (such as superintending the rigging of the ship and the 
 care of the chronometers), that duty which with us is gen- 
 erally assigned as a special privilege to the officer chosen 
 through the confidence of his Captain. 
 
 This singular prejudice of our British neighbors will 
 certainly disappear on that day when the grade of Mas- 
 ter (ricketty enough at this moment) is finally suppressed 
 altogether, and this same effect will doubtless be produced 
 among our Naval officers as soon as a new order of things 
 in regard to matters of administration and accounts is 
 established which may prove more in keeping with their 
 true interests, and those of the Service. Is it not to be 
 regretted, for example, when we see in certain difficult 
 and painful emergencies of a cruise, two or three Ensigns 
 
 * Navigating Lieutenant, 
 
47 
 
 AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 or Lieutenants obliged to keep watch day and night and 
 perform their drill duties besides, when in the same mess 
 there is a Commissary whose whole business employs him 
 not more than two or three hours in the twenty- four, and 
 who cannot, no matter how willing he may be, give them 
 the slightest relief ? "Without alluding here to the many 
 advantages which would result in employing for the 
 **“ Administration ” of line of battle ships and frigates, sea 
 officers chosen by the Captain, who, with the assistance 
 of the Staff of clerks and writers, would be perfectly 
 equal to the task, and without crying out on principle for 
 a measure of transformation so radical, we believe that 
 at this moment, there would result manifest advantage to 
 the service in replacing the Commissary on all ships not 
 carrying armaments, by a sea officer, enjoying a small 
 additional salary and doing his duty on deck at sea, 
 while keeping the ship’s accounts in port. In fact, when 
 the Commissariat was reorganized lately, all Captains of 
 vessels having less than 100 men, were saddled with the 
 duties of Commissary in addition to those of their com- 
 mand. Whether we regard this as permanent or not, it 
 is a step towards the system we have pointed out, but 
 on principle, and as often as possible, according to our 
 view, it should be one of the officers and not the Captain 
 who should perform this duty. 
 
 We have simply a word to say in regard to the Sur- 
 geons. They are men who, having scarcely entered upon 
 their professional career, and barely in possession of the 
 very first elements of their medical education, are sent on 
 shipboard. They pass their entire lives at sea ; the more 
 they cruise the slower they advance, and they often under- 
 go a lengthened period of sea service, enduring long and 
 toilsome cruises, their chances for advancement to the 
 summit of their profession growing fainter and fainter 
 
48 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 thereby. The highest position they can reach is that of 
 a grade corresponding to “ chef de bataillon,” for the 
 higher positions in the Navy being few, are reserved ex- 
 clusively for the Professorships. This curious state of 
 things arises from the fact that the special schools of 
 medicine for the Navy exact of the personnel of the corps 
 repeated competitive examinations, separated by long 
 intervals of time and at particular periods. 
 
 A Naval surgeon, for example, in order to obtain a 
 higher grade must prepare himself daring his cruises at 
 sea, and must be fortunate enough on his return home to 
 arrive at the stated period for these examinations; if not, 
 he may remain all his life in the third or second class, no 
 matter what bis services may have been, or however favor- 
 able the report of his superiors on shipboard. In conse- 
 quence of the necessities of an active cruising life, these 
 examinations fail in their object, and often present incred- 
 ible inequalities to the detriment of the most meritorious 
 men. But these inconveniences, already very serious, 
 are as nothing when we consider the deplorable conse- 
 quences this system entails upon the crews who are sub- 
 jected to the treatment of incompetent persons. The 
 Surgeons of the 3d class having little knowledge of their 
 profession, and, above all, still less practice — since they 
 are only beginners — are frequently embarked alone, and 
 in the position of chief, on board of vessels having less 
 than 45 men. 
 
 It would seem to follow then from this, that on board 
 of these craft it is not allowable, under pain of being- 
 deprived of the doctor’s care, to have more than a certain 
 number [foreseen in advance] on the sick list, which is 
 all the worse for those men who audaciously allow them- 
 selves to break through this rule, and have a greater 
 number. 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 49 
 
 These extraordinary facts have been known to the ser- 
 vice at large for a long time, and for a lengthened period 
 many persons have sought for a means to remedy these 
 evils ; but it must be that the problem is a difficult one, 
 since no person has yet been able to solve it satisfactorily. 
 Nevertheless, a few weeks since there appeared an anony- 
 mous pamphlet, attributed to a gentleman high in author- 
 ity in the medical department of the Navy, which at once 
 
 > 
 
 drew public attention to these points we have alluded to, 
 and some days after its appearance a Commission was 
 appointed by the Minister of Marine to examine into the 
 matter. 
 
 We are ignorant whether or not these two facts have 
 any necessary connection between them, or whether, 
 against all appearances, their succeeding each other at 
 such a short interval is the simple effect of chance ; it is 
 nevertheless, however, certain, according to our judg- 
 ment, that the projects set forth in the said pamphlet 
 contain the basis of a satisfactory solution which we may 
 trust to see realized by success, judging from the vigor 
 with which M. de Chasseloup-Laubat brushes away in 
 his department the dust of superannuated customs. 
 
 According to the plan proposed, the competitive exam- 
 inations, after being re-modelled, will no longer be held 
 (outside of the Professorship) except for the two first 
 grades or degrees, after which the medical career may 
 be pursued freely up to the grade corresponding to that 
 of Post Captain in the Navy, and all Surgeons embarked 
 on shipboard, whether as chief or second, must have a 
 doctor’s diploma. 
 
 We have now gone over with our readers some of the 
 most striking features of the shipboard existence of our 
 Naval officers. Let us now rise a little in our position, 
 and take a bird’s-eye view of the entire service. 
 
OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 We see a re-union of men in which community of ori- 
 gin, labor, and existence strikingly dissimilar to all others, 
 gives a character apart, a physiognomy, in short, strong- 
 ly marked. Nevertheless, and this is a singular feature : 
 we have often heard the complaint, not without remon- 
 strating against the exaggeration of such an opinion, that 
 this elite body of men lacked unity, cohesion, or, to 
 speak shortly, “ esprit de corps.” 
 
 We cannot believe that our Navy lacks “esprit de 
 corps,” and if any one will take into account the close 
 relation brought about under the influence of daily needs 
 and mutual supports, it will readily be seen that esprit 
 de corps ought to be, and in fact is, stronger, more intelli- 
 gent, and more elevated in the Navy than anywhere else. 
 
 But in order to acquire all its energy and all its lofty 
 purity, this sentiment must rest upon the firm basis of 
 the great and noble traditions of the past, of great and 
 lofty aims and endeavors in the present and for the fu- 
 ture. Now in our Navy, these traditions which are as 
 numerous as in other military bodies, are almost un- 
 known, and there seems to exist no natural disposition to 
 recall them or preserve them, while in our Army, the regi- 
 ment is by its very perpetuity a faithful depository of its 
 traditions, and as it were, an open book to be read by all, 
 preserving by means of the men who succeed each other 
 in its ranks from generation to generation, the immortal 
 witnesses of its glorious actions in the past. 
 
 Without seeking, nevertheless [as many Ministers of 
 Marine have uselessly attempted over and over again], to 
 copy servilely an institution which cannot be adapted to 
 its needs, the Navy also possesses its famous ships and 
 the venerable names they bear. Ships wear out, it is 
 true, as do men themselves, and their existence is not as 
 long even as that of the latter ; but their names never die, 
 
AND NAYAL OFFICERS. 
 
 51 
 
 at least never ought to be allowed to die. Have we not 
 yet a “ Cordeliere,” a “ Couronne,” a “ Belle-Poule,” a 
 “ Bretagne,” a “ Yille-de-Paris,” and many others whose 
 predecessors were famous in different periods of the mon- 
 archy, whilst these same names are often only so many 
 dead letters, so frequently is it the case that the officers 
 on board of the ships which bear them are utterly igno- 
 rant of their previous history. 
 
 Now this is all wrong ; these traditions should be ex- 
 plained and revived ; it would animate the service as 
 if with a new life. Every ship of war which has a 
 history should preserve it, not solely in the archives of 
 the Minister of Marine [which is no great thing after all] , 
 but on board, and her history should be in three parts — a 
 detailed account of all her services and the battles she 
 had been engaged in, a roll of honor, or summary of the 
 same; finally, a plate of copper should be engraved with 
 her history, and fastened over the wheel at the break of 
 the poop, while another should be attached to the main- 
 mast, so that every man in the ship should know the 
 vessel’s history. 
 
 No page, no line should ever be added to this without 
 the consent of the Board of Admiralty, and this triple 
 history should carefully be preserved, and, when the ves- 
 sel is laid up in ordinary or disarmed, carefully deposited 
 at the “Prefecture Maritime.” 
 
 We are convinced that every officer in the Navy would 
 hail this innovation with satisfaction, and although it is 
 apparently an insignificant thing in appearance, it would 
 not be long without exercising a most happy influence 
 upon the minds, even of the crew ; for if men do exist 
 (and we admit there are many) who have no need of the 
 examples of th§ past to nerve them to the accomplishment 
 of prodigies of devotion and valor, yet even these, and 
 
52 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 with very much stronger reasons, all others may find that 
 there is nothing like that sentiment which is inspired by 
 being surrounded with the memorials of time-honored 
 and noble souvenirs. 
 
 So much, then, for the traditions of the past ; let us take 
 a look at the labors of the present and the future. 
 
 These labors are so widely scattered over all the points 
 of the globe, both habited and uninhabited, and are so 
 numerous, that, in fact, a few years ago our officers 
 could not obtain the smallest leave of absence in order 
 to enjoy that repose so indispensable after the fatigues 
 of long and exhausting cruises, and were not numerous 
 enough to supply even the actual demands of the 
 service, daily increasing.* It was, therefore, necessary 
 to increase the number in the grades, a measure al- 
 ways popular, but only advantageous for a corps when 
 brought about by a need permanent and real, since, if 
 otherwise, it exposes them to the painful necessity of an 
 ultimate reduction. In reality, however, it was not the 
 Crimean war, nor the Italian war, nor the wars in China 
 and Cochin-China, nor the land expeditions sent into 
 Italy and Mexico, which necessitated the increase of the 
 personnel of the service, but the introduction of a system 
 entirely novel, in short, worthy to be termed from the 
 proportions it has assumed within the past ten years — a 
 powerful “transport Navy.” 
 
 Before the Crimean war the transport fleet numbered 
 only thirty -two (32) sailing vessels, of an aggregate ton- 
 nage of 15,550 tons, and requiring to man them 2,000 
 men and 150 officers, some of these ships being armed or 
 employed as School ships, whilst others had no more than 
 a single officer, or perhaps a pilot, on board. At this 
 
 * Report of Minister of Marine to the Emperor. 
 
AND NAYAL OFFICERS. 
 
 53 
 
 moment, however, we posses 75 transports, of which 43 
 are steamers, aggregating a total tonnage of 60,000, and 
 requiring a personnel of 7,000 persons, of which 400 are 
 officers, and in this imposing list are not included at all 
 those line-of-battle ships, frigates and corvettes which 
 have frequently been similarly employed. 
 
 It would seem, then, from the data which are furnished 
 by official documents disseminated through divers publi- 
 cations which we have at present before our eyes, that of 
 1,000 subaltern officers, such as Lieutenants and En- 
 signs, embarked on shipboard during the last four years, 
 400 or 500 at least (the figures are rather below than above 
 the truth) have been employed in the transport fleet.* This 
 fact explains at once, very naturally, the necessity for in- 
 creasing the number of officers in the several grades. 
 
 But beyond this the fact has sufficient importance of 
 itself to arrest our attention for the moment, while we 
 examine a little closer into the probable consequences. 
 
 In a material point of view, this new fleet is considered 
 as an indispensable addition to our military power as a 
 means of quickly mobilizing our Army and of striking de- 
 cisive blows by throwing a force suddenly and without 
 warning beyond the seas. That would be, of course, a re- 
 sult of which no one would dispute the advantages, but in 
 looking at the matter a little closer, we perceive that of the 
 three elements which compose an army, viz. : men, horses, 
 
 * England possesses, at the present moment, 21 transports, of which 
 11 are commanded by Masters. The other 10 employ 25 Lieutenants 
 out of a total of 627 Lieutenants and Sub-Lieutenants actually on sea 
 service. It is easy to see what a tremendous difference there is be- 
 tween these figures and those we have given above for France. 
 
 Englishmen have always been zealous, perhaps to an excessive de- 
 gree, of preserving to their officers a character purely and wholly 
 military. 
 
54 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 materiel and provisions, the second alone exacts for its 
 transportation a special kind of vessel ; for experience 
 has proved that, in order to transport men, there is noth- 
 ing like a fleet of ships armed “ en flute”* {i. e., with spar 
 deck guns only), and all merchant ships are able to carry 
 equipments, stores, and provisions. The transports es- 
 pecially for horses are those alone which it is necessary 
 to have, but even for these it is necessary to avoid 
 running into extremes, since after having constructed 
 them, some authorities may wish to make use of them, 
 and for lack of horses to transport employ them in car- 
 rying materiel, which would be a ruinous piece of economy 
 for the Gfovernment, which sails its vessels much more ex- 
 pensively than merchants do, and employs twice or three 
 times as many persons to do exactly the same work. 
 Moreover, this plan would be detrimental to commerce, 
 which finds its profits in such charters, of which it would 
 thus be deprived, as well as injurious to the sailors them- 
 selves, who are always better paid when working for pri- 
 vate companies or individuals. This ruinous economy, 
 we say, has not been spared us in the last four years, if 
 we may judge by the figures we have given, and, above 
 all, it has had the effect of turning a considerable number 
 of officers away from their legitimate duties, causing them 
 to lose their military habits and ideas of discipline, and 
 obliterating from their memory a multitude of profession- 
 al details. On board of a transport, it is true that an 
 officer is practised in navigation and seamanship, but it is 
 not in the actual circumstances that we may fear for him 
 
 * Of course it will be understood here that it is not a question of 
 embarking troops upon ships of war exposed to the chances of battle . 
 That system, essentially bad, has long since been condemned, and no 
 one dreams of reviving it. 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 55 
 
 the lack of this knowledge. Beyond this his work con- 
 sists solely in embarking and disembarking men and 
 packages, stowing both so as to occupy as little space as 
 possible, and in organizing the men’s mess and steward’s 
 arrangement for the table of the officers who may be pas- 
 sengers. This last duty is not the least difficult by any 
 means, and is, as a rule, so apt to compromise the officers’ 
 dignity that it is much to be desired that the Department 
 of Marine would establish victualling contractors on board 
 of transports to remedy the inconveniences of the present 
 regime. 
 
 In face of these multiplied occupations, it is no longer 
 a question with these officers, either of the discipline and 
 cleanliness of their ship or of the instruction of the men, 
 to the very great detriment of the military regularity re- 
 quisite in the Navy, and it frequently happens that after 
 two, four, or even ten years of such duties, the officer 
 finds himself unexpectedly on board a regular man-of- 
 war either as officer of the watch, divisional officer, or 
 ordnance officer of an iron-clad. He is thus suddenly 
 called upon to perform his legitimate duties, and finds 
 himself no longer able to do so efficiently, owing to the 
 changes which liava taken place during his absence in 
 “ transport service.” Whether it be the improvements in 
 construction, ordnance, or material of war, he is ignorant 
 of them all, and while he is hard at work studying to re- 
 gain what he has lost, another officer takes his place in 
 the transport service, to forget also all that he has ac- 
 quired in the performance of his proper duties. 
 
 This is a true picture of what has been going on in the 
 Navy lately, and it would seem to be of a nature to cause 
 us reflection, since we desire to have a Navy for purposes 
 of war, and we spend every year for this object 125 mil- 
 lions ($25,000,000), but if we do not take care we risk 
 
56 
 
 OUR NAVAL SCHOOL 
 
 the chance of being greatly deceived at some moment. 
 If the Minister of War, for instance, employed half his 
 cavalry force in continually guarding wagon trains, he 
 would hardly expect after twenty years of such service to 
 find his cavalry fit for their regular duties, or imagine he 
 had a cavalry force for combat ; why then should similar- 
 causes have a different effect on the Navy ? Let us take 
 courage and look this new danger in the face, and see 
 what can be done to remedy these evils. Do we wish ab- 
 solutely to keep up the transport service or increase the 
 number of these vessels ? Then there should be no hesi- 
 tation, no halting between opinions, but a corps of spe- 
 cial officers for this service should at once be created, 
 either as auxiliary, if the command of these ships is re- 
 served to Naval officers, or on half-pay if one prefers 
 (after a plan too long to be discussed here) to form for 
 the ordinary duties of this service a nucleus of officers 
 coming from the Naval School, and advancing by them- 
 selves from the grade of Ensign to that of a flag officer, 
 in which case they would not be distinguishable from 
 their comrades except by the diversity of their duties. 
 
 But better than all, according to our view, is to stop 
 at once and not proceed any farther in this matter, leav- 
 ing to the merchant marine and the Navy the rdle which 
 belongs to each naturally. Leave to the merchant cap- 
 tain the care of transporting to all quarters of the globe 
 the products of our industry, both material and agricul- 
 tural, — -to render, in short, all the service which may be 
 the object of direct remuneration, since in performing 
 this task while enriching himself he enriches his country. 
 
 On the other hand, leave to the Naval officer the care 
 of showing our flag everywhere, of protecting our com- 
 merce, of undertaking for its benefit those distant surveying 
 expeditions which open up new routes through distant seas. 
 
AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 57 
 
 To him belongs the honor of being the shield of France 
 upon the ocean. He alone has the glory of defending 
 its coasts, sword in hand, and striking from afar all who 
 may attack his flag, or who fail to respect it. This task 
 is certainly sufficiently grand, sufficiently noble and vast, 
 to prevent his being diverted from it by occupations for- 
 eign to the profession, at the risk of altering the char- 
 acter and tone of the entire corps of officers, and of caus- 
 ing a festering wound in the service, it may be difficult, if 
 not impossible, to heal, — at the risk, in short, of discover- 
 ing, perhaps too late, on the eve of a great maritime war, 
 that we possess, indeed, ships, steamships, cuirassed ships, 
 ships to go under water, over water, and perhaps even 
 through the air, but that we have no longer any officers. 
 
 We fear that even the limited number we now have are 
 gradually disappearing little by little, and are not being- 
 replaced, as was the case in former years, while the young- 
 men throughout the country, who are drawn by their in- 
 clinations to the profession of arms, no longer dream of 
 entering the Navy. This effect is already seen in a most 
 striking- way, for at the competitive examinations of the 
 last dozen years more than 500 young men annually dis- 
 puted for the positions of Cadets at the Naval School, 
 while within the last four years the number has been only 
 from 250 to 330, and it will be in vain, in our opinion, 
 that the authorities seek a remedy for this falling off in 
 increasing the grades, in special promotions, in decora- 
 tions, in any favors of any kind ; the human heart has 
 higher needs than the mere bestowal of trifles. Let skep- 
 tical moralists reason at random upon the progres- 
 sive decadence of humanity, and complain of the self- 
 interest and egotism which, according to their notions, 
 pervades this age, we will not oppose them, but we, who 
 are aiming at a practical result, remember that it is 
 
 
 ________ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
58 OTJR NAVAL SCHOOL AND NAVAL OFFICERS. 
 
 even now as was the case eighteen hundred years ago, 
 that man does not live by bread alone,” and that until 
 the termination of the world, the only means of creating 
 a corps of intelligent, educated men, ready at all times to 
 devote their lives to the service of their country, is to 
 hold out to them noble duties to perform, labors to 
 undergo, difficulties to conquer, while exacting of them 
 the high qualifications required of them in their profes- 
 sion. Grive them, then, position, advantages, and suitable 
 rewards — that is only justice pure and simple ; but let 
 us not be seduced into the belief that we have done 
 everything required, because we have given them ribbons 
 for their button-holes, embroidery for their coats, or 
 sprinkled a few stars here and there on the crests of their 
 epaulettes. 
 
VALUABLE WORKS 
 
 ON 
 
 Naval Science and Naval Engineering. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 D. VAN NOSTRAND, 
 
 23 Murray and 27 Warren Street, New York. 
 
 LUCE’S SEAMANSHIP: Compiled from various authorities and 
 illustrated with numerous original and select designs. Eor the use 
 of the United States Naval Academy. By S. B. Luce, Lieutenant 
 Commander, U. S. Navy. Fourth edition, revised and improved. 
 Crown octavo, half roan, $7.50. 
 
 MODERN MARINE ENGINEERING-, Applied to Paddle and 
 Screw Propulsion. Consisting of 36 Colored Plates, and 259 Practi- 
 cal Woodcut Illustrations, and 403 pages of Descriptive Matter, the 
 whole being an exposition of the present practice of the following 
 firms : Messrs. I. Penn & Sons, Messrs. Maudslay, Sons & Co., Messrs. 
 James Watt & Co., Messrs. T. & J. Rennie, Messrs. R. Napier & Son, 
 and other prominent Builders. One vol., 4to, cloth, $25.00 : half- 
 morocco, $30.00. 
 
 NAVAL DRY DOCKS OF THE UNITED STATES. By Gen- 
 eral C. B. Stuart. Illustrated with twenty-five fine engravings on 
 steel. Fourth edition, 4to, cloth, $6.00 
 
 SUBMARINE WARFARE, DEFENSIVE AND OFFENSIVE. 
 Comprising a full and complete Plistory of the invention of the Tor- 
 pedo, its employment in \V ar, and results of its use. Descriptions of 
 the various forms of Torpedoes, Submarine Batteries and Torpedo 
 Boats actually used in War. Methods of ignition by Machinery, 
 Contact Fuzes, and Electricity, and a full account of experiments 
 made to determine the Explosive Force of Gunpowder under Water. 
 Also a discussion of the offensive Torpedo system, its effect upon Iron- 
 Clad Ship systems, and influence upon Future Naval Wars. By 
 Lieut.-Commander John S. Barnes, U. S. N. With illustrations. 
 1 vol., 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 METHOD OF COMPARING THE LINES AND DRAUGHT- 
 ING VESSELS, Propelled by Sail or Steam, including a chapter on 
 Laying off on the Mould Loft Floor. By Samuel M. Poor, Naval 
 Constructor. With illustrations, 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 SLIDE VALVE AND LINK MOTION, To Stationary, Porta- 
 ble, Locomotive, and Marine Engineering ; with new and simple 
 methods for proportioning the parts. By W. S. Auchincloss, C. E. 
 Illustrated with 37 Woodcuts and 21 Lithographic Plates, together 
 with a Travel Scale and numerous Useful Tables. Third edition, 
 8vo, cloth, $3.00. 
 
NAVIGATION AND NAUTICAL ASTRONOMY: Prepared 
 for the use of the United States Naval Academy. By Prof. J. H. C. 
 Coffin. Fourth edition, enlarged, 12mo., cloth, $3.50. 
 
 THEORETICAL NAVIGATION AND NAUTICAL ASTRON- 
 OMY. By Lewis Clark, Lieut. Commander U. S. N. Illustrated, 
 8vo,. cloth, $3.00. 
 
 THE STEAM ENGINE INDICATOR, and the Improved Man- 
 ometer Steam and Vacuum Gauges : Their Utility and Application. 
 By Paul Stillman. New edition, 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 NAUTICAL ROUTINE AND STOWAGE, -with Short Rules in 
 Navigation. By John McLeod Murphy and Wm. N. Jeffers, Jr., 
 U. S. N. 1 vol., 8vo, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 LESSONS AND PRACTICAL NOTES ON STEAM, the Steam 
 Engine, Propellers, etc., etc. For Young Marine Engineers, Students 
 and others. By the late W. R. King, U. S . N. Revised by Chief- 
 Engineer J. W. King, U. S. N. Twelfth edition, 8vo, cloth, §2.00. 
 
 A TREATISE ON THE RICHARDS STEAM ENGINE INDI- 
 CATOR, with Directions for its use. By Charles T. Porter. Re- 
 vised, with Notes and Large Additions, as developed by American 
 Practice; with an Appendix, containing Useful Forrnuhe and Rules 
 for Engineers. By F. W. Bacon. 12mo, illustrated; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 TREATISE ON NAUTICAL SURVEYING. By Capt. W. N. 
 Jeffers, U. S. N. Illustrated; 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 A TREATISE ON ORDNANCE AND NAVAL GUNNERY: 
 Compiled and arranged as a Text Book for the U. S. Naval Academy. 
 By Commander Edward Simpson, U. S. N. Illustrated with 185 
 engravings, 8vo, cloth, $5.00 
 
 SQUADRON TACTICS UNDER STEAM. By Foxhall A. 
 Parker, Captain U. S. Navy. Published by authority of the Navy 
 Department. Illustrated with 77 Plates, 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 FLEET TACTICS UNDER STEAM . By Foxhall A. Parker, 
 Captain U. S. Navy. Illustrated by 140 Woodcuts, 18mo., cloth, 
 $2.50. 
 
 GUNNERY CATECHISM, as applied to the Service of Naval 
 Ordnance. Adapted to the latest Official Regulations, and approved 
 by the Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Department. By J. D. Brandt, 
 formerly of the U. S. Navy. Revised edition, illustrated, 18mo., 
 cloth, $1.50. 
 
 ORDNANCE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES 
 NAVY. Part I. Relating to the Preparation of Vessels of War for 
 Battle, and to the Duties of Officers, and others when at Quarters. 
 Part II. The Equipment and Manoeuvre of Boats, and Exercise of 
 Howitzers. Part III. Ordnance and Ordnance Stores. Published by 
 order of the Navy Department. Illustrated. 8vo, cloth, $5.00. 
 
 NAVAL DUTIES AND DISCIPLINE: With the Policy and 
 Principles of Naval Organization. By F. A. Roe, Late Commander, 
 U. S. Navy. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 THE RECORDS OF LIVING OFFICERS of the U. S. Navy 
 and Marine Corps. Compiled from official sources. By Lewis B. 
 Hamersly, Late Lieutenant, U. S. Marine Corps. Revised Edi- 
 tion. 8vo, cloth, $5.00.