LOCATING THE TRUCK-GUNS.
FIRING THE TRUCK-GUN
This agility, this precision in the action and decision in the conduct of the boy-sailors and marines, is noticeable at whatever occupation they may be. Such perfection is to a great extent due to the lads' instruction in gymnastics and athletics. As the several illustrations show, in these they pass through a most comprehensive and systematic course. They are trained in whatever may tend towards the development of their muscles. So efficiently are the boys taught, that those whom I have seen at my visit go through most difficult exercises on the horizontal and parallel bars and on the spring-board, I would safely have compete with the best model sections or Masterriegen of Germany's leading gymnastic societies. Yet the Fatherland is the home and, as it were, the academy of systematic physical culture! Highly satisfactory, too, if not truly astonishing, is the perfect manner in which the Lilliputians on board the Exmouth take to their musketry, bayonet, and cutlass drill. Reader, you need but look at the illustrating snap-shots to feel that, when grown up or even before, these lads will prove men and warriors bold and true should occasion arise. Indeed, as it is, when witnessing the earnestness and skill with which each command of the drill-masters is executed, you soon fancy to be face to face with a company of marines—veterans in the exercise of arms—although, in fact, they are a company of mere boys, rescued from the streets and recruited from the workhouses. And as veterans in arms they behave at gun drill. At mounting or dismounting field-pieces, at charging or discharging the truck-guns, they are equally smart. How well the crews are trained, both in the use of rifle, cutlass, and cannon, and in their more extensive and complicated application to military tactics, is demonstrated by the photos, illustrating a sham-fight between a party of sailors and an imaginary enemy. It can be seen at a glance that the proceedings are looked upon by the boys as something more than an amusing intermezzo in their daily routine; with them it is a serious lesson to be learned seriously.
SHAM-FIGHT
AMBULANCE DRILL.
However, the champions of disarmament and the advocates of peace must not assume that the training ship's youthful crew is reared up only in the spirit of militarism, and instructed only in the manifold defensive and offensive uses of the weapons of war. The picture showing the boy sailors and marines engaged upon Samaritan work, carried out with a promptitude and circumspection of which a master in surgery need not be ashamed, would already disprove their assumption. Yet, they may feel further assured that these principles of assisting the suffering are not confined in their educational operation to the mere bandaging and nursing of the wounded. These are inculcated into the mind and heart of the lads by many other methods, and applicable to many and far different situations.
For, hand in hand with their military training, the wards of the Metropolitan Asylums Board receive the benefit of moral training and a sound elementary education under the able direction of Mr. W. Hollamby, the head schoolmaster on board the vessel. This education, in spite of a rather small staff, considering the hundreds of pupils, is not only equal to that provided at any Metropolitan Board School, but it aspires, justifiably, because successfully—even beyond—at a higher, more comprehensive, more thorough-going instruction, excellent though teaching in London's Board Schools frequently is.