After two hours of this practical work we shift out of our overalls, resume our uniform jackets and caps, and go to one of the lecture-rooms where, for the remaining hour an engineer officer instructs us in the theory of motors, and turbines, and various other engineering technicalities. Then we are again fallen in outside the shops and marched up to the College, where we have a “break” of a quarter of an hour in which to collect the books required for the succeeding hour of ordinary school work.
One o’clock finds us once more assembled in the covered way to double along to the mess-room for lunch.
After this meal every one must stay in his place until grace is said, when each term rises in order of seniority and doubles out of the mess-room to the different gun-rooms.
It may be here noted that everything at Dartmouth is done at the “double,” i.e. at a run. Strolling around with your hands in your pockets after the fashion of most public schools is of course not allowed in an establishment where naval discipline prevails.
After half an hour allowed for digestion we collect our books and go to the studies for another two hours’ work.
At 4 o’clock we are mustered again for “quarters” as at “divisions” in the morning, and when dismissed double away to shift into flannels for recreation.
The choice of play and exercise is very varied, but no one is allowed to “loaf.” Every cadet must do what is called a “log,” and the manner in which he has spent his recreation time is duly entered against his name each day. The “log” in question may consist of a game of cricket, a two-mile row on the river, two hours’ practice at the nets followed by the swimming of sixty yards in the baths, or a set of tennis or fives.
Any cadet who cannot swim must learn without delay. The bath, eight feet deep at one end and three feet at the other, is thirty yards long. It is opened at 6 p.m., and there is always a large attendance. A spring board for diving is provided, as well as various ropes suspended six feet above the water by means of which the more agile spirits swing themselves along, as monkeys swing from tree to tree.
All exercise is purposely strenuous, for the four years’ preparation is a test of physical as much as of mental strength, and every year some boys are “chucked,” to their bitter disappointment, because they cannot attain to the standard of physical fitness indispensable for the work they, as naval officers, would be expected to perform. Defective eyesight is one of the commonest causes of rejection, for it is obvious that full normal vision is essential for the Navy.