agement as would enable him to keep his hand in, so to speak, and not find himself adrift in such a momentous emergency. It is not impossible, of course, to so arrange his duties at sea, or even to some degree in port.

There are questions as to bonds which may arise, but I do not see the necessity for the exaction of a bond. Already any officer may be called upon in certain emergencies so to serve without bond. Nor, to look at it in a common-sense way, will the ordinary bond exact anything more in the way of honesty and uprightness than the penalty of loss of commission if there be malfeasance.

Regarding engineers, it is in my opinion quite time that the bathos expended on this subject should end. No one will pretend to deny that the first and supreme quality for duty in the engine-room is to be a good mechanic. The duty at sea is a purely mechanical one, and no effort of any man can lift it on to any other plane. It has nothing to do with the conduct of the ship; it ends with keeping the machinery in proper working condition. It should be remembered that it is not the value of a machine which is of importance, but the use to which it is put, and with this use the engineer has nothing and can have nothing to do.

If we continue the education of engineer officers at the Naval Academy, there should be but one such officer on board ship. All the others should be of the present machinist class, a portion of whom should be warrant officers assimilated in rank, etc., with the warrant officers now existing. The idea that we need the whole educational facilities of the country made operative in the direction of turning out engineers for the Navy becomes simply ridiculous when it is known that the yearly waste needed to be made good is about six. These educational establishments would, besides, not furnish the kind we want. We could, in an emergency, get any number desirable and of much higher quality from the merchant service. The engine, as has been well said, does not know whether it is in a man-of-war or a mail steamer, and will run equally well in either under the same superintendence.

I am inclined to think that the utility of marines on board ship is a thing of the past. In any case they should never be there unless the ship be large enough for an officer's guard. If it be a question of marines or blue-jackets, by all means give us the latter-the marines as an addendum but not as displacers of the sailor man.

The experience of England has been too pronounced as to the value of the blue-jacket ashore for our officers to undervalue it; in fact, our ships should be overmanned in order to afford as large a landing force as possible.

The last paragraph of "Officers Afloat" is worthy of every one's attention; it embodies truths of utmost importance.

Training officers.

I agree with what is said as to the Naval Academy, except that I

for admission, taking in more subjects. If every 180,000 of our population cannot furnish once in four years a really well qualified boy between 15 and 17 to enter the Academy, the country is in a poor way from an educational standpoint.

I cannot agree altogether as to the "School of Piloting." I think our cruising ships should form this school. I think the abrogation of the order which required officers to do their own piloting a great mistake. We had under that order an excellent school now thrown away. The junior officers of ships in the North Atlantic Squadron could be as readily trained in pilotage aboard their own ships as in a specialized one, if we did the exercising we should do. Finally, we cannot afford so many different schools of application with our very small number of officers. Let us utilize present conditions as much as possible instead of adding to our complexities.

Warrant Officers.

The gunners and boatswains should be largely increased in number; they would form a far better class from which to add to the number of deck officers in case of war than any body of men taken from without the service, whatever their provenance.

I do not think there should be any compulsory promotion yearly of a certain number from the warrant officers or enlisted men to commissions. It must be remembered that any man who enters the Navy has also a chance to enter the Naval Academy. It is a thoroughly democratic institution, established to form officers in the best manner possible; it is open to every one in a district if a competition be held; if the Representative prefers to make the selection himself he is responsible for any abuse in making it or for any violation of our democratic principles. If the enlisted man has passed over his chance of seeking an appointment to the Academy he has no right to complain that he has been debarred from a commission. All the same, I think there should be a board from time to time to report upon warrant officers or enlisted men recommended by commanding officers as deserving to be considered for commissions. But there is no more inherent right to such promotion on the part of the enlisted man than there is on the part of the commissioned officer to be promoted to a next higher grade unless he be a specially qualified man. The rule is equally applicable to the enlisted man and to the officer; in the one case, however, it has been recognized and in the other not. In no case, however, should there be the promotion of a half-deserving man. His promise as an officer should be as great as that of the Naval Academy graduate, else there is no reason for promoting him; it is the good of the service which is involved, not the question of the advancement of a man or any set of men for sentimental reasons.

No railway promotes a brakeman to be an officer of the road for the mere sake of cheering the others; he must have the qualities and attain

which should apply to the Navy as well, unless we are prepared to accept socialism pure and simple.

It would be much more to the point were we to improve the enlisted man's position in general; give him more space, more comfort, treatment always wise and humane, and give to petty officers that consideration which their position properly demands. These principles applied to the whole body of ten or eleven thousand men would count for much more than the illusory sop of a yearly promotion of one in five thousand. All the same, give this, too, if the man is of a type to command it, for the "Good of the Service."

Commander C. H. DAVIS, U. S. N.-I have read Lieutenant Fullam's essay with great interest, and there can be no doubt that taking the ship as the test, Mr. Fullam's ideas are sound and in the right direction. Those of us who have been in the service long enough can follow by our own recollection the successive steps by which the "vested rights" of the several branches or corps," which are not corps, have grown. There is but one corps in the Navy and that is the Navy itself; or if there are several corps, then each squadron or ship acting singly is a corps. That is a true military definition. No branch of the service can be a corps unless it acts together as a body, which the "corps" never do except in opposing legislation looking to the military efficiency of the Navy as a corps." We have accepted this word, which has not yet been forced upon us by legislation, as the misnomers "staff" and "line" for the civil and military branches of the service have been. I say misnomers, because the staff seldom is a staff and the line never is a line. All these terms are simply indications of the general inefficiency and decadence into which the Navy drifted, with deliberate intent, in the twenty years following the close of the civil war-years of utter inanition and decay, in which military efficiency was deliberately lost sight of and ignored; so the civil branch, or "staff corps," in these years grew prosperous by the very argument that they formed no part of the military body; that they represented civil rights in a military body as opposed to a military oligarchy which sought to rule very much as a fungus will grow to great size on a rotten tree. And they continue to appeal to that argument to this day. It would be hard to conceive of a greater departure from military efficiency in a military body. But the Navy only lived through those years because nobody took enough interest in it to propose to abolish it outright. And there is another tremendous abuse still very dear to us all which these years produced and made legitimate so that it is recognized to-day; that is the abuse of "shore duty." "Shore duty" for sailors-the very idea is anomalous and absurd. Whenever a naval officer accepts "shore duty," or an appointment to shore duty, it should be with a distinct understanding that by so doing he drops out of the line of promotion and accepts retirement. You could always find plenty of retired officers for shore duty, and plenty of active officers who would be willing to retire for the sake of shore duty.

an act prohibiting the employment of active officers on shore, except in certain high administrative posts, and you will have taken a very long stride indeed toward effective reorganization, and will remove a very great obstacle to reorganization, which must include an increased retired list.

2. Of course the question of reorganization, now that we have degun to build good ships and to form an effective material for the fleet, is a burning question, a vital question. There are only two questions as regards the naval service which are more vital, and I propose to say a word about them, too. But as regards reorganization I think Lieutenant Fullam has treated the subject very ably. I have myself almost reached the conclusion that reorganization will come about by the extinction of “ corps." Let the naval officer be the all-round man assignable to any duty on board ship, either as a navigator or chief engineer (engine-room duty being performed by warrant machinists) or executive or paymaster, except the surgeon, who must of course remain distinct. It is not too much to ask of a modern naval officer that he shall be a practical engineer as well as a navigator, disciplinarian, and gunner. I say I have almost reached that conclusion, but not quite, because there are certain fundamental objections to this plan which are still too real. Mr. Fullam's suggestion touches this plan very closely. But I disagree with him as to the abolition of the marines. Of course the withdrawal of the marines from ships means the abolition of the corps, which is a corps in the true military sense, and the arguments for their withdrawal are almost overwhelming, at least they seemed so to me last winter in this ship when I had two-thirds of the entire guard of the ship in the brig for scandalous offenses against order and discipline, and sailors standing guard over them and doing duty as corporals of the guard. But there is an argument for their retention which has been advanced by a great living officer, which seems to me, notwithstanding these facts, unanswerable. So, also, although I agree in theory I would oppose in practice the assignment of active officers to duty as paymasters and paymaster's clerks. It is a good thing to have a paymaster with a military training and military instincts. I have enjoyed that privilege in this ship; but, on the other hand, naval officers do too much mere clerical duty as it is. It is not an impossible case now for a young officer to perform three years' duty in an office on shore, doing purely clerical work, and then be assigned as a clerk or secretary for a whole cruise at sea. What sort of experience is he laying up for himself against the time when he must act on his own responsibility as a seaman on the ocean? The retired list might be a solution of this difficulty also. 3. I have said there are two questions more vital, more pressing and real than the question of reorganization which Lieutenant Fullam has treated so ably. These questions are Naval Policy and Administration. Let Congress declare a distinct naval policy and enact such legislation as will allow the Navy to be administered on sound military and business principles, and every other defect will almost rectify itself. In other words, the real demand for efficiency which has never existed will create

Lieutenant W. H. HALSEY, U. S. N.—The article written by Lieutenant Fullam places clearly before the reader conditions that exist and that should be met in order that the best results may be obtained from the material at hand. From the writer's point of view, the salient points of Lieutenant Fullam's essay are practically beyond criticism, for they all are stamped with the hall-mark of sterling worth, and it is only intended to add a few facts from practical experiences at sea to support the theories advanced.

Service on four of our modern ships, in two squadrons, has made it apparent that efficiency can only be obtained by constant watchfulness, unceasing care, and thorough work. These conditions require a homogeneous organization in which each individual contributes his quota. The days of the "berth-deck aristocracy" have gone by, and the idlers of the past should be replaced by men that work, not at intervals, but working men that bear the burden with their fellows.

The petty officer of to-day possesses the necessary intelligence and education that should fit him for the office it was intended he should fill, an office, taken in its broadest sense, that includes reliability as its chief requisite. From successful individual instances it seems logical to argue that, with proper training and handling, with trust and confidence, the petty officers as a class can be brought to the desired standard. That this standard will add to the efficiency of the ship needs no comment.

There will probably be unfortunate experiences and set-backs while in the stage of transition, but the history of the Navy seems to point to the fact that having passed through the dark ages of wooden ships and antiquated guns to the present time, when our ships and ordnance command the respect of the world, we shall be enabled to tackle these conditions with every prospect of success.

The writer served on the Miantonomoh, on which vessel were no marines; orderly duty was performed by members of the gig's crew. There were no cadets attached to the ship, and the number of commissioned officers was reduced to a minimum. The petty officers were given duties commensurate with their positions, and, as a result, the conditions and discipline on the Miantonomoh were nearer the ideal ship than on any other vessel to which the writer has been attached during his service of nearly twenty-seven years. Eighty-five per cent of the crew were on the first class; drunkenness was unknown, except an occasional habitual returning from liberty, and the ship was efficient and happy.

During the early part of the occupation of Korea by the Japanese a guard of fifty men (twenty-five marines and twenty-five blue-jackets) was sent from the Baltimore, at Chemulpo, to Seoul, the capital, situated about twenty-seven miles from the port. The fleet marine officer commanded this detail at the legation, and had with him as assistants three junior line officers, a medical officer, and a paymaster's clerk as commissary. This guard remained away from the ship for over two months,