Their reason for recommending the introduction of Latin is that by giving a few hours a week to it an intelligent boy, reasonably well grounded on entry, would at the age of fifteen be able to read Cæsar, Horace, and Virgil without effort, and that this would be a source of pleasure to him in after years; but this appears to be a purely academic and unpractical view; it might apply to a boy here and there, but certainly not to the generality, and some better reason is needed for its introduction. One of the recommendations of the committee has been tardily adopted in the last year or so, viz. the institution of a board by whom all candidates should be approved before being permitted to undergo the examination; they think that defects which are not discoverable by an educational test might be patent to such a committee. [Illustration: CAPTAIN THE HON. F. A. C. FOLEY. _Photo: Smale & Son, Dartmouth._] Captain Foley, who was appointed in August, 1871, appears to have set about improving the sanitary condition of the ship in a very thorough fashion, and not before it was needed. By clearing out the ballast in some places, and by a rearrangement of the structure of the bilges, he had arrived at a very satisfactory result, which is highly approved by the committee. The seven or eight cadets who are examined are practically unanimous in their views. They found they were "seedy" after the strain of grinding for the competitive examination, and felt very tired every day while it was going on. They were not tired or seedy on board the _Britannia_. They preferred a hammock to a bed. They did not like the idea of a college on shore. They found the food very good, and liked the ship much better than their former schools. One of them was asked, "How would you like to be put into a house on the top of that hill?" "Not at all." "You think you would feel like a schoolboy?" "Yes." "And now you feel like an officer in her Majesty's service?" "Yes." This question was put, no doubt, on account of the view, expressed by two witnesses, that it was a bad thing to have a training ship, as the boy's first acquaintance with a captain would place him, to them, in the light of a schoolmaster; but this is surely a fantastic idea, and one which no one who has been through the _Britannia_ would endorse. "The captain" is always a distinct and novel personality to them, while the naval instructor is as distinctly a schoolmaster. The evidence of Admiral A. P. Ryder was very interesting. He was well known in his time as a good mathematician, and his views in regard to the examination papers were characteristic. He did not see anything in them to frighten anybody, especially as many of the questions which appeared difficult for boys of this age were in reality based on what was learnt in the text-books in use.