Training For the Navy

Island Boys That Uncle Sam is Watching

There is Only One School in the Country Modeled after Annapolis -

A combination of Jackie and Schoolboy to Be Proud on Lake Maxinkuckee at Culver, Ind.

SOmething, of the soldier's trainf had been welded into many schools

Not so with the sailors.

There are miniature West Points in almosot every state but schools modeled after Annapolis are not so easy to find.

Weere you to look for such a school in the most likely place, on the Atlantic or Pacific seaboard, you would seek it in vain.

As a matter of fact, the only spot at present where you will fiind the combination of Jackie and schoolboy is on an island lake in western state, on Lake Maxinkuckee, at Culver, Ind.

Nor is even this an all-year-around affair, but a summer school that contents itself with a brief eigh weeks' session, in which man-of-war cutters play, a mor prominent part the class rooms, and in which the hardening of muscles and the getting of a healthy coat of tan take precedence over even such things as Latin and Greek.

But despite its briefness, it is a session which amply justifies itself by the wealth of refresh ment it affords the tired schoolboy.

It commends itself also to Uncle Sam by reason of the interest in the navy it arrouses among the western youth, and because the training they receive should make of them good material for officers of the naval militia.

In fact, the navy department has sent out to this little western lake an equipment of man-ofowar cutters similar to those used in the boat drills of the midshipman at ANnapolis, and has lent Hotchkiss guns and other expensive equipment.

It is not in keeping with the hustling spirit of today that a boy even in summer time should spend thee long months without aim or purpose, and so summer camps and other forms of organized vacations have come into existence.

But it is doubtful if any of these make such a strong appeal to a boy's natural tastes or give him more wholesome refreshment a browner skin, or harder muscle than this naval course.

Certainly boys could not enter into a thing with keener zest and more enthusiasm than is put into the manning of oars and halvards by the cadets of Culver summer naval school.

Even an old man-o'0war's man would not disaaprove of the seamanly way in which they get up masts and make sail, or the precision with which they handle their oars, and of the long steady stroke with which they kane the big cutters fairly jump through the water.

Under any conditions a boy loves to row and sail, but possibly the secret of the extra enthusiasm of the Culver lads lies in the appeal that a real man-o'war cutter makes to the love of romance inherent in every boy; for are not these cutters the landing boats and messinegers of the navy?

Were they not used in cutting the cable at Cardenas and in landing troops in Cuba, and, in fact, would not the history of our navy be incomplete without them?

The nautical appearance of the cutters, with their spotless and shining brasswork, and of teir canvas-clad crews, also lend interest to the work.

And, besides, a cutter drill under oars or sail is a far different thing from plain rowing \or sailing. Under oars a ppennant flies in the bow, and the Unidted States clolors from the stern. THe masts are unstepped, and with sails neatly made up, are laid alonf the running board.

One cadet perched in the coxswain's box handles the tillers and gives orders to the ten cadets at the oars/ When he commands "Toss!" the ten oars must spring skywars as one; when he commands "Let Fall!" they must strike the gunwale with a single thud. And these oars are, no lightspoon-blde, sculls, but are fourteen feet of heavt ash, veritable telegraph pole.

Doubtless were you to try to toss one, without knowing the knack of it, it would play seesaw with you over the gunwale.

WHen the individual crews have learned how to give way together, and to back water port and give way starboard; in other words, to handle their cutters quickly in response to commands, the cutters are drilled together.

Various comninations of gaily colored signal flags are displayed at the mast of the instructor's launch, and in response to these the cutters maneuver unto various formations just as the ships of a squadron would do on signal from the flagship.

All of this is interesting enough; but during the race under oars, a feature of almost every drill, no cadet ever remembers that handling a fourteen-foor oar is anything like work. Each youngster bends his oar as if his life depended upon his cutter being first, and the coxwain calls stroke and excitedly urges them on to greater effort; yet with all this exertion the victorious men of the crew never fail to have enough wind left at the finish to announce their triumph with a lusty cheer.

For the drill under sail, oars are tossed and boated, and at the command of "Up masts!" each cadet springs to his place, the masts are whisked from the thwarts and stepped, topmasts raised, shrouds made fast and sheets hauled flat, aft, and in veritable "presto change" fashion the ten-oared rowboat have taken unto themselves wings, and are scudding over the lake.

A cadet tend the main sheet, and another the fore sheet, another the jib. They must not belay their sheets, but must stand ready to let them fly the instant the coxswain commands. Another cadet in the bow keeps a bright lookout ahead. the rest of the crew keep down in the boat climbing to windward when to coxswain wants a shift of ballet, and ready at any instant, to lend a hand in brailing up or lowering away.

Then the cadets are taught to splice and to tie knots, and the other things of marlinspike seamanship. They lean to box the compass, and are initiated into the mysteries of the sextant, and o "shooting the sun". But the most interesting drill of all perhaps is when the Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns are mounted in the bows of the cutters, and each man at the oars has a rifle beside him on the thwart and a goodly supply of blank ammunition.

1905 Jun -Landing drill; firing the Horchkees guns at long distance

A landing is to be made, and an attack on an imaginary enemy on the shore. The Hotchkiss gun crew begins to pound way at once; shot after shot is fires; each time the cutter staggers between the recoil of the gun and its own momentum. Finally as the cutters approach the shore and the keels grabs the bottom, the cadets on the thwarts quickly toss their oars, boat them, spring overboard, and, clinging to the gunwale, rush the cutters high on shore.

Then they grab their rifles and form a long skirmish line, popping away, and advancing, determinedly on the enemy. WHen he has been successfully repulsed; in other wordswhen the blank ammunition is all expended, they shove off again, ans as the boats float free, they clamber over the ginwale, dripping wet, and throughly happy.

The cadets do not confine themselves to boating alone but indulge in swimming, water polo, titling matches, swimming races, baseball, tennis, and in fact all the out-door sports dear to a boy's heart.

The social feature is not neglected either, and the cadets are permitted to invite admiring feminity for pleasure sails in their cutters and to a weekly dance or cotillion in the cadet gymnasium. In the forenoons ther is some studing, but not enough to do more than make the rest of the day more attractive.

As for discipline, the cadets are required to observe the rules of naval cortest and to walk and stand erect, to be prompt and precise.

They are organized into a naval battalion of four sections and form and march to meals, and each day at sunset they are drawn up in line for the firing of the evening gun and the lowering of the colors.

When ever a cadet desires to go beyond the limits of social or other reasons he must have a pass signed by the commandant, but these pases are granted, the only condition being that they shall not be abused.

Last summer the cadets spent a week at St. Louis. The cutters were carried down on flat cars, and each day the cadets have drills in the grand basin of the expostion.

This was the first time that naval craft had ever appeared among the launches and gondolas of an exposition lagoon, and during each afternoon drill thousands of spectatios gathered to see them. At several drills distinguished visitors were tendered the honorary command of each cutter for a race between the crew. On one occasion Gen. Edward Rice, the president's representatinve at the exposition, reviewed the cadets, and in the race that concluded the drill his cutter was first to cross the line the gray-haired general taking almost as keen interest in the outcome as did the excited youngsters in the coxswain's box. - Major L. R. Gignilliat, in Scientific American

FOund in Prattvilee Progress (Alabama) - July 21, 1905