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[page 40]
77
(2)
and yet in every case from Admirals to ships' boys there was this wonderful quality of extreme gentleness bred no doubt of a life long service in that wonderful institution - the Royal Navy. I had been shown the mechanism of these big ships, but the humanity of the cabins impressed me more than anything else. Any nation can build ships but it is the men in them that tell when the crisis arises, and in the men who man our Navy we may safely leave our trust; they have been caught young and have spent practically the whole of their lives in studying their jobs and in imbibing the miles of proud traditions out of which the Navy has xxxxxx risen. You will see an Officer with the rank of Commander who cannot be more that thirty three or four and you will think what a young man he is to hold such a high rank: and it is only when you hear him mention something about, "when I was in the old "Ganges" on the China Nation in '97 - ", that you realize that this man has been in the Navy 20 years! He would enter Osborne at 12 and thence graduate through the various Colleges attaining his first ship after three or four years and even then his sc^holastic education would not cease, for each ship carries a schoolmaster, and a midshipman receives a grounding in every day subjects quite equal to that of a Public School boy and in addition is all the while being fitted for the position in the Navy which he is one day to occupy. I developed a great liking and admiration for these midshipmen after seeing them at their work and also as their guest in the Gun Room (the Sub- Lieutenants and Midshipmen's Mess) and can easily understand their good work at Jutland and in running their picket boats during the early days of the Gallipoli land campaign.
A very keen interest is maintained by the Navy in the doings of the armies and I did not see a Ward Room or Gun Room