Enough has been said in the meantime to show how completely the new system of entry and training of officers has remodelled the British Navy, and it is with the object of using the case of the officers as an argument in considering the case of the men, that it has been dilated on at such length. STATE EDUCATION IN THE NAVY. (_This Paper was prepared in 1902 under great obligations to Mr. J. R. Thursfield._) Everyone must now feel that the new system of Entry and Education of Naval Officers must have a fair trial, and all reasonable people will hold that it deserves one. There still remains to be faced an argument which is certain to appeal to democratic sentiment. Broadly stated, it is this--that the new system, as at present organised, must of necessity take all officers of the Navy from among the sons of parents who can afford to spend about £120 a year on their sons from the age of 12½ until they become Lieutenants at the age of about 20, or even over. In other words, the officers of the Navy will be drawn exclusively from the well-to-do classes. Democratic sentiment will wreck the present system in the long run, if it is not given an outlet. But let us take the far higher ground of efficiency: is it wise or expedient to take our Nelsons from so narrow a class? [Illustration: “THE DAUNTLESS THREE,” PORTSMOUTH, 1903. Sir John Fisher, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. Viscount Esher, President of the Committee of War Office Reconstruction. Sir George Sydenham Clarke, late Governor of Victoria. ] Surely some small percentage of promising and intelligent boys from the other classes could be secured and (if caught early enough, as is now the case) trained to be _officers and gentlemen_ by the time they are grown up. Nor is it the money barrier alone which excludes them. An exclusive system of nomination is distasteful, if not alien, to the democratic sentiment. Combined with the cost of the subsequent training, our present system absolutely excludes all but a very small fraction of the population from serving the King as naval officers. It admits the duke’s son if he is fit, but it excludes the cook’s son whether he is fit or not. It ought to admit both, _but only if both are fit_. The cook’s son may not often be fit, but when he is, why exclude him? Brains, character, and manners are not the exclusive endowment of those whose parents can afford to spend £1,000 on their education.