Then, to me silent, lying on the deck as if in a summer eve, came many-coloured thoughts—the Rob Roy’s rovings by river and sea in brightsome days and thundering nights, the good seed sown by the shore, the thousand incidents of a charming voyage.
But best of them all was the sail in the ‘Dolphin.’
We may begin in faith, and continue in hope, but greatest of the three is charity in
THE END.
APPENDIX. BOYS’ TRAINING SHIPS.
There are 18,000 seamen in our Royal Navy, and nearly a quarter of a million persons of various kinds are employed on board of British registered vessels. On the subject of training boys for sea, full and interesting information is given in ‘British Seamen,’ by Mr. T. Brassey, M.P. In former editions of ‘The Voyage Alone,’ some of the Boys’ Training Ships were briefly described, and the author’s profits from the book have been distributed yearly in prizes and medals among some hundreds of lads in these ships, approved for excellence in Seamanship, Smartness, Scripture-knowledge, Swimming, and “Sums.” In connection with the continuance of this pleasant work, a brief description is given here of all the Training Ships for boys, with the best wishes of the author for their prosperous sail over the sea of life, and their safe arrival on the happy shore above.
ROYAL NAVY TRAINING SHIPS FOR BOYS.
There are Five regular Boys’ Training Ships for the Royal Navy, accommodating 3400 boys.
The ‘Impregnable,’ and ‘Implacable’ (with ‘Lion’), at Devonport (for 700 boys); ‘Ganges,’ at Falmouth (500 boys); ‘St. Vincent,’ at Portsmouth (700 boys); and ‘Boscawen,’ at Portland (500 boys). To each is attached a brig for cruising during the summer months. The boys go through a regular course of instruction at school, in seamanship and in gunnery, till they are “rated,” after a year or a little more, as 1st Class boys, when they have a cruise in the brig. With respect to the school instruction, the principle is to give the more backward boys more schooling than the more advanced, and to this end the boys are divided into Upper School and Lower School: the Upper School boys have one forenoon and one afternoon a week in school, and the Lower School boys twice that amount. The educational attainments of the Upper School correspond to Standards VI., V., IV. of the New Code, and those of the Lower School to Standards III. and II. Of course there is the division into watches, as the routine of the ships is modelled on that of a man-of-war.
With the exception of the band boys entered from industrial schools, no boys are received who have been before a magistrate. It is gratifying to find that as many good and respectable lads as are wanted can be had for this glorious patriotic service. “The expense incurred in training seamen amounts on an average to not less than £300 to £400 for every seaman in the navy:” ‘British Seamen,’ by T. Brassey, M.P. Longmans, 1877, page 158.