s, constraints and adulation which surrounded the Court,
should also avoid the sycophancy and flattery which might be expected in
their cases at a public school--even of the highest. He therefore
decided that a training ship in early youth and the fresh air, vigorous
life and wholesome discipline of the Navy in immediately following years
would be the best system of education. Prince Albert Victor and Prince
George were, consequently, placed on board the _Britannia_ training ship
in 1870 and there they spent two years under conditions of study, work,
training, mess, discipline and dress exactly similar to those of their
shipmates. Their only dissipation was an occasional visit from their
parents and the usual holiday period at home. During the two years spent
on this ship they learned carpentering, the details of a ship's rigging
and a certain amount of engineering.

At the end of this period it was decided by the Prince to send his sons
for a prolonged cruise around the world as midshipmen on H.M.S.
_Bacchante_. They were to have the same duties and treatment as the
other midshipmen--except perhaps that their teaching would be more
careful and their studies more severe. Special instructors in
seamanship, gunnery, mathematics and naval conditions were appointed,
with the Rev. J. N. Dalton, M.A., as Governor, in charge while they were
on shore and with supervision over their ordinary studies when at sea.
Lord Charles Scott, Captain of the war-ship, was, of course, supreme
when the Princes were on board his vessel. The cruise of the _Bacchante_
commenced in September, 1879, and terminated in August, 1882. During
that period it traversed over fifty-four thousand miles and the Royal
midshipmen saw and visited Gibraltar, Madeira, Teneriffe, the West India
Islands, Bermuda, the Cape Verde Islands, Monte Video, the Falkland
Islands, Cape Colony, Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and
Brisbane, Victoria and Melbourne, New South Wales and Sydney, the Fiji
Islands, Japan, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Canton, the Straits Settlements,
Ceylon, Egypt and the Holy Land, Athens, Crete, Corfu and Sicily. In
1886 two handsome volumes, carefully edited by the Rev. Mr. Dalton, and
comprising the private journals and diaries of the young Princes, were
published in London and were found to contain many sensible reflections
and much garnered information upon the many countries visited during
this circumnavigation of the globe. It was not a