ime. Practice aloft and the life in general aboard a
sailing vessel give him a broad general foundation of knowledge of the
sea and ships, upon which he can build the special training and
instruction he afterward gets upon a regular man-of-war. When he is
transferred, upon the expiration of his year on the training-ship, he
begins the task of mastering the intricacies of a modern ship-of-war.
Here he remains until his first term of service has expired. If he
re-enlists and has shown aptitude for the service, he is sent to
Washington navy yard for a course of six months' instruction in
gunnery and special branches, such as electricity and torpedoes. He
becomes a seaman gunner, with the billet and pay of a petty officer.

A serious defect in the apprentice system, however, and one which
makes it impossible to man the vessels altogether with well-trained
American citizens, is the fact that the majority of the apprentices do
not re-enlist after receiving their honorable discharge at the age of
twenty-one, for the reason that the special training they have
received enables them to secure better-paid places in civil life than
are possible to them in the navy. In the government service, too, they
cannot attain the rank of officers, as there is no such provision for
the promotion of enlisted men in the navy as there is in the army.

Secretary Tracy, in his report of 1889, forcibly called the attention
of Congress to this condition. As a remedy he recommended that there
be a statutory extension of the term of enlistment to twenty-four
years of age. It was further recommended that the number of
apprentices be increased from seven hundred and fifty to fifteen
hundred, and that the course in the training-ships be extended by the
formation of a special class for training in gunnery on board a ship
devoted exclusively to this purpose. Congress has as yet taken no
action upon these and numerous other recommendations which have been
made for the improvement of the apprentice system, and they remain
pertinent.

The navy, however, in case of war, would not have to depend entirely
upon apprentices and graduates of the training-station for its skilled
seamen. The Naval Militia has become an organization that would render
very efficient service if called upon by the government. It is
composed of about three thousand highly intelligent and well-drilled
young men, and has been organized in sixteen States. It bears the same
relation to the