tion of the Redeemer.

A general view would be that this was an award quite appropriate to the
services rendered, an expression by the Greek Government that they
wished to place the names of the gallant savers of their seamen on the
Roll of their Honour. Our Board of Trade objected. Through the Foreign
Office, they appear to have informed the Greek Government that such
distinguished awards were unusual and might prove a source of
dissatisfaction in future cases. Possibly they viewed the appearance of
a ribbon on the breast of a merchant seaman as an encroachment on the
rights of their own permanent officials. The awards were not made;
silver medals were substituted, which Captain Forbes and his officers,
learning of the Board's action, did not accept. On a later occasion the
same unsympathetic influence was exercised; the Russian Order of St.
Stanislaus was withdrawn and replaced by a gold watch and chain!

In supervision of our qualifications as masters and mates, the Board of
Trade has followed the lines of least resistance. It is true that they
have established certain standards in navigation and seamanship that we
must attain in order to hold certificates, but the training to these
standards has never been an interest of their Department. While our
shipmate, the marine engineer, has opportunity in his apprenticeship on
shore to complete his education, we are debarred from the same facility.
Apprenticed to the sea at from fourteen to sixteen years of age, our
youth bid good-bye to their school books and enter on a life of freedom
from scholarly restraint--a 'kindergarten' in which their toys are
hand-implements of the sea. There is no need to worry; there is no study
required for four years; a week or two at the crammer's will suffice to
satisfy the Board of Trade when apprenticeship days were over. And the
fault does not lie with the 'crammer.' Scholarly and able and competent,
as most of them are, to impart a better and more thorough instruction,
the system of leaving all to the voyage's end offers to them no alternative
but to present the candidate for examination as rapidly as possible.
Sea-apprentices of late years did not often share in a scheme of instruction
afloat. Rarely were they carried as complements to a full crew; for the
most part they were workmen in a scant manning--'greenhorns'--drudges
to the whim of any grown man. In a rough measure, the standard of such
seamanship as they _gathered_ was good--el