State Education in the Navy.
(This Paper was prepared in 1902 under great obligations to Mr. J. R. Thursfield.)
Everyone must now feel that the new system of Entry and Education of Naval Officers must have a fair trial, and all reasonable people will hold that it deserves one.
There still remains to be faced an argument which is certain to appeal to democratic sentiment. Broadly stated, it is this—that the new system, as at present organised, must of necessity take all officers of the Navy from among the sons of parents who can afford to spend about £120 a year on their sons from the age of 12½ until they become Lieutenants at the age of about 20, or even over. In other words, the officers of the Navy will be drawn exclusively from the well-to-do classes.
Democratic sentiment will wreck the present system in the long run, if it is not given an outlet. But let us take the far higher ground of efficiency: is it wise or expedient to take our Nelsons from so narrow a class?
“The Dauntless Three,” Portsmouth, 1903.
Sir John Fisher, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth.
Viscount Esher, President of the Committee of War Office Reconstruction.
Sir George Sydenham Clarke, late Governor of Victoria.
Surely some small percentage of promising and intelligent boys from the other classes could be secured and (if caught early enough, as is now the case) trained to be officers and gentlemen by the time they are grown up.
Nor is it the money barrier alone which excludes them. An exclusive system of nomination is distasteful, if not alien, to the democratic sentiment. Combined with the cost of the subsequent training, our present system absolutely excludes all but a very small fraction of the population from serving the King as naval officers. It admits the duke’s son if he is fit, but it excludes the cook’s son whether he is fit or not. It ought to admit both, but only if both are fit. The cook’s son may not often be fit, but when he is, why exclude him? Brains, character, and manners are not the exclusive endowment of those whose parents can afford to spend £1,000 on their education.
There seems to be only one way of solving this problem. Initial fitness must be secured, as at present, by careful selection at the outset, and if the promise is not fulfilled as time goes on, ruthless exclusion, whether of duke’s son or of cook’s son, must be the inflexible rule. But do not exclude for poverty alone, either at the outset or afterwards. Let every fit boy have his chance, irrespective of the depth of his parents’ purse. This might, of course, be done by a liberal system of reduced fees for cadets, midshipmen, and sub-lieutenants whose parents were in poor circumstances. But in the first place there would be a certain element of invidiousness in the selection of the recipients of the national bounty, and, in the second, mischievous class distinctions would inevitably arise among the cadets themselves—between those who were supported wholly or partially by the State and those who were not. It is most essential that there should be no such distinctions—that the cadets should be taught to look up only to those who are eminent in brains, character, and manners, and to look down only on those who are idle, vicious, vulgar, or incorrigibly stupid. Now, a common maintenance by the State would put them all on a common level of equality. Though the additional cost to the State would doubtless be great, the result would be well worth the extra expenditure.
The quarter of a million sterling required would be lost and unnoticeable in the millions of the Education Vote, yet it would be worth all the millions of the Education Vote if it makes the Navy more efficient, because
The British Nation Floats on the British Navy.
It would put the Navy once for all on a basis as broad as the nation; it would immeasurably widen the area of selection, and place at the disposal of the Admiralty all the intellect and all the character of all classes of the people.