In a visit to the forecastle among all the crowd there the youngest sailors and the apprentice boys are those that attract one the most. Their alert, intelligent faces give one a pleasant idea of the coming American man-of-warsman and attest the efficacy of the method employed to fit them for their future career. The present naval apprentice system of the United States has been in force since 1875. The candidate for an apprenticeship must be from fourteen to eighteen years of age, of robust frame, intelligent, of sound and healthy constitution and able to read and write. The boy who is found to be qualified signs an agreement to serve continuously until he is twenty-one years of age and is sent to the training station at Coaster's Harbor Island, near Newport, where is anchored a receiving ship capable of comfortably accommodating 500 apprentices. The boys sleep in hammocks, assist in keeping the ship clean and in various ways are gradually accustomed to a nautical life. The daily routine begins at 5:30, when reveille is sounded and all hammocks are lashed and stowed. After an early breakfast the boys wash their clothes, scrub decks and bathe, and then for about six hours are daily occupied with drills and studies, the course of instruction including gunnery, seamanship and English. The hours after supper until 9 o'clock, when all must be in their hammocks, and Saturday afternoons are given up to recreation. Many kinds of games are furnished the boys, and they have also free access to a good library. Each apprentice on leaving Coaster's Harbor Island spends a year on a training ship and is then transferred to a regular man-of-war. Here his education is still continued, and the end of his enlistment generally finds him thoroughly acquainted with a modern ship and her armament and fitted to take the billet of a petty officer. Many of the apprentices who re-enlist are sent to the Washington Navy Yard for a six months' course of instruction in gunnery, a limited number being afterward detailed to the Naval War College at Newport for an equal length of time to be given a practical knowledge of electricity and torpedoes. They then graduate into the service with the rank and pay of seamen-gunners, and that the training they have received warrants its cost is proved by the assertion of experts that American gunners have not their superior in any navy of the world. The making of an American man-of-warsman is a process worth while. [Illustration: A MAN-OF-WARSMAN]