To this day the _Colegio de San Carlos_, or the College of Surgeons at
Madrid, relies much on teaching the obstetric art by means of wax
preparations; but learning a trade on paper is not confined in Spain to
medical students; the great naval school at Seville is dedicated to San
Telmo, who, uniting in himself the attributes of the ancient Castor and
Pollux, appears in storms at the mast-head in the form of lights to
rescue seamen. Hence, whenever it comes on to blow, the pious crews of
Spanish crafts fall on their knees, and depend on this marine Hercules,
instead of taking in sail, and putting the helm up. Our tars, who love
the sea _propter se_, for better for worse, having no San Telmo to help
them in foul weather (although the somewhat irreverent gunner of the
Victory did call him of Trafalgar Saint Nelson), go to work and perform
the miracle themselves--_aide toi, et le ciel t’aidera_. In our time,
the middies in this college were taught navigation in a room, from a
small model of a three-decker placed on a large table; and thus at least
they were not exposed to sea-sickness. The Infant Antonio, Lord High
Admiral of Spain, was walking in the Retiro gardens near the pond, when
it was proposed to cross in a boat; he declined, saying, “Since I sailed
from Naples to Spain I have never ventured on water.” But, in this and
some other matters, things are managed differently on the Thames and the
Bætis. Thus, near Greenwich Hospital, a floating frigate, large as life,
is the school of young chips of old blocks, who every day behold in the
veterans of Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar living examples of having
“done their duty.” The evidence of former victories thus becomes a
guarantee for the realization of their young hopes, and the future is
assured by the past.
[Sidenote: LUNATIC ASYLUMS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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