didates who possess greatest skill and experience in the practical knowledge of machinery, other qualifications being equal, shall have precedence for admission. VI. Any of the following conditions will be sufficient to reject a candidate. Feeble constitution, permanently impaired general health, decided cachexia, all chronic diseases or injuries that permanently impair efficiency, viz : 1. Infectious disorders. 2. Weak or disordered intellect. 3. Unnatural curvature of spine. 4. Epilepsy, or other convulsion, within five years. 5. Chronic impaired vision, or chronic disease of the organs of vision. 6. Great permanent hardness of hearing, or chronic disease of the ears. 7. Loss or decay of teeth to such an extent as to interfere with digestion and impair health. 8. Impediment of speech to such an extent as to impair efficiency in the performance of duty. 9. Decided indications of liability to pulmonary disease. 10. Permanent inefficiency of either of the extremities. 11. Hernia. 12. Incurable sarcocele, hydrocele, fistula, stricture, or hæmorrhoids. 13. Large varicose veins of lower limbs. Chronic ulcers. 14. Attention will also be paid to the stature of the candidate, and no one manifestly undersized for his age will be received into the Academy. In case of doubt about the physical condition of the candidate any marked deviation from the usual standard of height will add materially to the consideration for rejection. 15. The Board will exercise a proper discretion in the application of the above conditions to each case, rejecting no candidate who is likely to be efficient in the service, and admitting no one who is likely to prove physically inefficient. VII. If both these examinations result favorably, the candidate will receive an appointment as a Cadet Engineer, become an inmate of the Academy, and will be allowed his actual and necessary traveling expenses from his residence to the Naval Academy, and be required to sign articles by which he will bind himself to serve in the United States Navy six years, (including his term of probation at the Naval Academy,) unless sooner discharged. If, on the contrary, he shall not pass both of these examinations, he will receive neither an appointment nor his traveling expenses, nor can he have the privilege of another examination for admission to the same class unless recommended by the Board. VIII. When candidates shall have passed the required examinations, and been admitted as members of the Academy, they must immediately furnish themselves with the following articles, viz: One navy-blue uniform suit, One navy-blue uniform cap, Ten pairs of white pants, Four white vests, Six white shirts, Six pairs of socks, Four pairs of drawers, Six pocket handkerchiefs, One black silk handk'f or stock, One pillow, Two pairs of shoes or boots, One tooth-brush, One clothes-brush, One coarse comb for the hair, Room-mates will jointly procure, for their common use, one looking-glass, one wash-basin, one water-pail, one slop-bucket, and one broom. These articles may be obtained from the store-keeper of good quality and at fair prices. IX. Each Cadet Engineer must, on admission, deposit with the paymaster the sum of seventy-five dollars, for which he will be credited on the books of that officer, to be expended by direction of the Superintendent for the purchase of text-books and other authorized articles besides those above enumerated. X. While at the Academy the Cadets will be examined, from time to time, according to the regulations prescribed by the Navy Department; and if found deficient at any examination, or dismissed for misconduct, they cannot, by law, be continued in the Academy or Naval service, except upon recommendation of the Academic Board. XI. A Cadet Engineer who voluntarily resigns his appointment will be required to refund the amount paid him for traveling expenses. INSTRUCTION, TRAINING AND PROMOTION OF SEAMEN. INTRODUCTION. UNDER the constitutional powers "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States," and "to provide and maintain a navy," Congress, it is believed, can do more than is now done to provide both the military and commercial marine with intelligent, hardy and skillful sailors, as well as mates and captains, and to elevate the position of the whole seamen class. The frightful accidents from explosions caused by badly constructed, or worn out steam-boilers, led to a system of national inspection which has done something to diminish the loss of life and property from this source, in vessels engaged in commerce on the ocean or our inland waters-but a system of instruction, examination, and promotion, under national authority, with national aid and the cooperation of the mercantile community, of all persons intrusted with the command and navigation of all vessels, registered as national shipping, would put an end to all that class of disasters to life and property which is now attributable to ignorance and want of experience-and which is regarded by underwriters as much the largest portion of all marine disasters. The necessity of doing something led to the establishment of the naval apprentice system, under the Act of March 2, 1837. The original trial was not inaugurated under favorable conditions, and was prematurely abandoned, under the economical action of Congress which compelled the department to elect between men and boys for its arduous service. In 1864 the system was revived by Secretary Welles, a vessel was placed under the command of a competent officer, and a promising class of boys, after a preliminary examination were enlisted, and the work of their instruction was begun by training them in all the details of a sailor's duty at sea. The Secretary in his Report for 1866, expressed himself hopeful of the results-but urged Congress to further legislation, to make the system attractive, by holding out to the most deserving members of the class, appointments to the Naval Academy, and a retiring pension after twenty years' service. His suggestions were not heeded, and under the limitations of the Act of 1866 the trial failed. Commodore Jenkins, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, having cognizance of Naval Apprentices, in his Report for 1866, remarks: A judicious naval apprentice system will secure to the navy every year, after the first enlisted boys are thoroughly trained and educated, a sufficient number of well-disciplined and better instructed seamen to give tone and character to the crews of our vessels of war than heretofore, and if the enlistments were unlimited it would require only a few years to provide all the seamen necessary for a formidable naval peace establishment. But it is not the navy alone that is or ought to be greatly interested in the success of the naval apprentice system. Every ship-owner and shipper in the country will be directly or indirectly benefited as well as the navy. Many of the apprentices will, at the expiration of their apprenticeship, seek service on board of merchant vessels, where the advantages of their previous training and education will be felt. If there were training-ships in every port of the United States for apprentices to the sea service, and the apprentices, after being taught the rudiments of an English education and all the seamanship that could be taught on board of a vessel in port, were sent on long sea voyages, the seamen of the country would soon become more elevated in character than they are at present, and ship-owners would realize the importance of cherishing and protecting a valuable class of our countrymen who are now left to the tender mercies of hardhearted landlords, crimps, and runners. It is a great mistake to suppose that steam vessels can be managed well by landsmen at sea. The terrible shipwrecks, loss of numbers of individuals, and of millions of dollars' worth of property annually on the ocean, is in the main attributable to bad management, ignorance, and want of experience of those in charge of the vessels. It is as necessary that sea steamers should be officered and manned by expert seamen as it was in former times for clipper and other sailing vessels. A good knowledge of seamanship is only to be acquired by a long apprenticeship; nor does the ability to navigate a vessel from one port to another make a man a seaman. There is no vocation, profession, or calling which requires a more varied knowledge and a greater experience than that of an expert seaman. It is not sufficient that he should know how to knot and splice a rope, to reef and furl a sail, to take his trick at the helm, or to give correct soundings in heaving the lead. He must be a good judge of the appearances of the weather, know how to lay his vessel to and under what canvas for safety, on what tack to put his vessel to avoid the strength of the approaching gale or hurricane, when to run and when to lie to, and he must be fertile in resources to save his vessel in case of danger or disaster at sea. The expert seaman is a man full of resources, and ever ready to turn his knowledge and experience to good account; but such is not the estimate of him by those who only know him as an outcast of society, without friends and without influence. As education and careful training elevate those who are engaged in the different pursuits on shore, the same means; if judiciously employed, will elevate and make useful and respectable in their sphere that much neglected and greatly oppressed class of our fellow-citizens-the American sailor. Navigation Schools for the Mercantile Marine. Whatever may be the success of still another trial of the apprentice system to secure a supply of trained seamen for the Navy, the experience of all other countries is decidedly in favor of a liberal system of Navigation Schools, as well as an efficient system of registration, examination, and certificates of competency and of service, administered under national inspection and with pecuniary aid, and under the local management of merchants, ship-owners, and underwriters, for the commercial marine. GENERAL REVIEW OF MILITARY EDUCATION. I. NAVAL SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION. WE can not better introduce the conclusions to which this study of the subject has brought us, than by giving a few extracts from the many communications, which the recent agitation of naval education in England has elicited. Proposed Improvements in Naval Education in England. In 1869, the alternative was offered, on their own petition, to the 2,710 disabled seamen, who resided in the truly magnificent Hospital at Greenwich, on the Thames, which the national gratitude had set apart for their accommodation, when no longer able from wounds, age, or other infirmities to serve under "the meteor flag" of England-to continue there at the expense of the government, or draw their pensions and spend it in their own way, among their friends in their old homes, or wherever they fancied; only 31 elected to remain-and these were too feeble to leave, or had outlived their friends. The old Hospital infirmary, a large detached building, was granted by the Admiralty to the Seamen's Hospital Society for the benefit of the mercantile marine; but the bulk of that immense pile-which is covered in by seven acres of roof, and whose domes and colonnades were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and erected at a cost, from first to last, of not less than a million sterling-full of historic associations as the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth, and the residence of two dynasties of English kings, and the greater Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and for two centuries the home of the British Navy-for nearly two years has stood vacant. The TIMES, in an editorial of September 13, 1871, renews a suggestion made at the time the system of out pensions was under discussion, to continue its use for the Navy. It is almost two years since we hazarded the suggestion that it should be converted into a Naval University. We used the term "University" in the sense of a collective institution, embracing several separate Colleges adapted to a similar purpose. We pointed out how inadequate in extent and in range of education is the present Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, the only institution we possess for supplying to Naval Officers what is termed a higher education." We also reminded our readers that the education of our Naval Cadets between the ages of 12 and 14 is now carried on in a School-ship, which, from the nature of things, must have many disadvantages in comparison with a building of ample space on the brink of a great river and on the border of a 46 Royal Park. We showed that there was already a great Charity-School in the rear of the Hospital, and supported by its funds, for the gratuitous education of 800 children of poor sailors; and we reckoned that the Hospital would still supply ample accommodation for a scheme, suggested to us on high authority, for furnishing at cost price to the children of seamen of all grades in the Navy and Commercial Marine, an education in English, French, the elements of science, and the ordinary rudiments of instruction. In the year 1870 the Admiralty appointed a committee on "the Higher Education of Naval Officers," and directed them to consider whether it was desirable to limit the place of study to the College at Portsmouth, or whether the vacant buildings at Greenwich could be utilized for the purposes of education. The reported evidence of the Committee revealed a lamentable want of scientific knowledge in the naval profession. The witnesses were agreed in stating that few half-pay Officers had knowledge enough to study with advantage after the age of 30, and that few could, with advantage to the service and themselves, be spared to study before the age of 30. It was stated by the Mathematical Master that Commanders and Captains come to the College very badly prepared, and that "some come who are unable to work a decimal fraetion." They come, as the College is now organized, exclusively for scientific study, in which Mathematics are a necessity, and yet are destitute of the most elementary preparation. Of course there are a few brilliant exceptions, but the scientific attainments of the profession as a body appear to be deplorably low. In preparing a scheme for the improvement of what is so modestly termed "the higher education" of Naval Officers, the Committee proposed to add to the voluntary subjects of study a considerable number of practical pursuits. They proposed, under the advice of the late Chief Constructor of the Navy, to add both a short and a long course in Naval Architecture, in which there is at present absolutely no instruction given to Naval Officers. Such an education was supplied between the years 1806 and 1821, but since the latter year it has been altogether ignored and discouraged. It would require considerable space for the exhibition of models, and no sufficient room exists for it in the present College in Portsmouth Dockyard. The Committee proposed to furnish instruction, as now, in Steam, Mathematics, Nautical Astronomy, and Field Fortification, but to add facilities for the study of Languages, Chemistry, including Metallurgy, Geology, Mineralogy, and Naval Tactics. The want of a knowledge of languages in the British Navy was signally illustrated on a somewhat recent occasion, when the French iron-clad fleet visited Spithead, and upon our Admiral signalling for all officers who could speak French to come on board the Flagship, only one officer in the Channel Fleet was able to respond to the summons. The want of a scientific knowledge of the principles of naval architecture has prevented of late many skilled seamen of the Royal Navy from contributing useful and practicable suggestions to the discussions on our ironclad ship-building. The Committee seem to have thought that it would not be practicable to make a year's study in the Naval College in peace time compulsory for every sub-lieutenant, though distinguished officers, like Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, gave evidence in favor of it. But, apart from this abundant source for supplying students, it was anticipated that an extension of the cducation would attract a large increase of scholars; and on general grounds, quite distinct from the accommodation, one-half of the Committee, including the Director of Naval Education, were strongly in favor of establishing the College at Greenwich. Fortified by this concurrence of authority, we recommend again to the consideration of the Government the scheme of a Naval University as the best mode of repeopling that ancient and now vacant Hospital. This "leader" of the Times was followed in the issue for Sept. 20, by a communication from the eminent ship-builder E. J. Reed, who was for several years at the head of the Department of Naval Construction-with reasons for immediately widening and raising the education of naval officers of all classes. The absence of everything like a comprehensive organization for imparting |