School ships.
The Secretary of the Navy, to promote nautical education, is hereby authorized and empowered to furnish, upon the application in writing of the governor of a State, a suitable vessel of the navy, with all her apparel, charts, books, and instruments of navigation, provided the same can be spared without detriment to the naval service, to be used for the benefit of any nautical school, or school or college having a nautical branch, established at each of the following ports of the United States: Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore, Detroit, Saginaw, Michigan, Norfolk, and Corpus Christi, upon the condition that there shall be maintained at such port a school or branch of a school for the instruction of youths in navigation, steamship-marine engineering, and all matters pertaining to the proper construction, equipment, and sailing of vessels or any particular branch thereof. (Sec. 1.)
A sum not exceeding the amount annually appropriated by any State or municipality for the purpose of maintaining such a marine school or schools or the nautical branch thereof is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the purpose of aiding in the maintenance and support of such school or schools: Provided, however, That appropriations shall be made for one school in any port heretofore named in section one and that the appropriation for any one year shall not exceed twenty-five thousand dollars for any one school. (Sec. 2.)
The President of the United States is hereby authorized, when in his opinion the same can be done without detriment to the public service, to detail proper officers of the navy as superintendents of or instructors in such schools: Provided, That if any such school shall be discontinued, or the good of the naval service shall require, such vessel shall be immediately restored to the Secretary of the Navy and the officers so detailed recalled: And provided further, That no person shall be sentenced to or received at such schools as a punishment or commutation of punishment for crime. (June 20, 1874; Mar. 3, 1881; Mar. 4, 1911; sec. 3.)