Royal Navy be ready to acknowledge her usefulness as a good, sound preparatory school for the rising generation of seamen, R.N.

What is true of the Exmouth is also true of the other merchant training-ships, the Warspite, Arethusa, Mercury, &c. They are all doing a noble work and deserve all the help they can get. I know of few institutions that have so great a claim on the generosity of Englishmen.

The Naval Training Service.

`HERE is never any difficulty in getting recruits

TH

for the Navy. Whatever may be the attraction, there are always more boys ready to join the service than can be taken on at any time. Some are the sons of seamen who are keen to follow in their fathers' steps; some are fascinated by the prospect of seeing the world; others, again, are attracted by the novelty of the life, like the youngster to whom the sea was so utterly strange that, as he told me himself, he dipped his hand into the water, as he was being pulled off to join the Boscawen, and sucked his fingers to find out whether the sea was really salt. Stories of adventure, no doubt, have also something to do with this eager desire of boys to "go to sea." The choice being thus practically unlimited, it is found necessary to fix the physical standard high, so that a boy must be "as sound as a bell" if he is to stand any chance of being entered. I have often noticed boys coming on board ship to be examined for entry and as often as not seen them returning disappointed to the shore, unable to "pass the doctor."

Let us, however, suppose a youngster of the required age—that is, between 15 and 163 for boys, and between 16 and 18 for youths to have come through this ordeal successfully. He is now required to procure the consent of his parents and guardians to his engagement and a certificate of good conduct from a clergyman or magistrate. Armed with these he presents himself on board once more, and, after signing an engagement to serve for twelve years from the age of eighteen, is turned over to a ship's corporal to be introduced to the mysteries of his new life. The chaplain sees him and gives him a few words of welcome and encouragement, telling the boy to look on him as his friend to whom he can always come for help and advice in any little troubles he may encounter. The head schoolmaster puts him through his paces and allots him his place in school. Under the direction of the corporal, and with the help of some senior boy told off to lend him a hand and "show him the ropes," he begins to learn his way about, to know the stem from the stern of the ship, to grasp the meaning of the various bugle-calls and the names and uses of some of the strange objects around him.

One of the first lessons instilled into his youthful mind is the wholesome one that what he is told to do must be done at once, if not sooner, that we don't saunter over our work in the Navy, but do it "at the double."

Poor little chap, he finds it all a bit bewildering at first, but he soon shakes down, and, having shifted into his sea-kit and learnt the art of getting into a hammock