The disinclination to enter boys will, I believe, gradually vanish when the attention of the shipowners, as a body, is attracted to the valuable class of boys who will attend the Navigation schools, for they will be induced to reflect, that although at first sight it may appear to be more economical to enter no boys or apprentices, or a very few only, and those at very low wages,[10] yet that by so doing they are contributing indirectly, but yet surely and certainly, to the deterioration of the whole class of seamen, and to the ultimate injury of the ship-owning interest.
(II.) A disinclination on the part of parents to send their boys to sea.
While sailors are, what they frequently are at present, not the most moral or respectable members of society, it is probable and natural that many parents would regret their sons’ choice of the sea as a profession.
But as sailors and masters improve by the aid of navigation schools, where they will be instructed in their youth, and are received in sailors’ homes at every port where their vessels touch, this class of objections will gradually become obsolete; and the profession of the sailor will take its proper place by that of the high skilled mechanic as one of the noblest professions a working man’s son can adopt, being also one of the highest paid; 3l. and 4l. a month besides victuals and medical attendance being the not uncommon emoluments of a merchant seaman. Moreover, the profession of a sailor, if he is a steady man, may be rendered both healthy, improving, and entertaining, and acts most beneficially on the character and temper. Steam and science are rapidly diminishing the longest voyages, and long periods of absence, one of the not unnatural objections of a parent, are becoming the exception instead of the rule.
The wish to go to sea is implanted by Providence, doubtless for the wisest purposes, in large numbers of the boys of these islands, frequently in those who have never seen the sea. Those parents, ministers, or schoolmasters who take upon themselves to thwart this natural and laudable wish, going the length, as they frequently do, of treating the boy’s desire, as an evidence of a vagabond and depraved taste, may be fairly charged with the responsibility of the boy’s immoral and depraved life, if such unfortunately is the result of his going to sea, for his naval career is probably commenced by running away from home, and he thus severs all those domestic ties which conduce so much to the preservation of purity of life and manners.
This conduct on the part of parents should be deprecated by every one who has the best interests of his country at heart.
Every respectable and well conducted boy who desires to go to sea should be aided and assisted to do so, and this course should be systematically adopted throughout the country. The Government, by the support of navigation schools, show their opinion on this subject. It only remains for the schools to be put on a proper and liberal footing, worthy of the Government and of the object which they are intended to serve. When this is done, the profession of the sailor will be rescued in the minds of the lower classes from all the odium which at present surrounds it.
(III.) A disinclination on the part of boys to go to sea.
This disinclination exists in some ports and not in others; it will decrease wherever it exists when Navigation schools, established on a liberal footing, offering the inducements I have suggested, are placed near the docks in every seaport town of any size or importance. It is advisable that the schools should be so placed that the boys can when out of the school play about among the shipping, witness and long to imitate the evolutions of the sailors aloft, &c.