The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-01-10
Training System of Shipping
Board to Be Extended to
Large Vessels.
STUDY FOR Higher PLACES
Young Men Will Learn the Road to
the Quarter Deck and Counting
Roon-High Class of Sea-
men Wanted.

Observation-Disclosures and cadet
officers Will be placed on all large YES
sells of the American merchant marine,
to be trained for higher places, much
the same as sailor boys were trained
to become officers and shipping mer-
chants in the early days of American
seagoing. according TO a plan to be
put into execution at once by the
United States shipping board.
The basis of this plan is a system
of individual training on shipboard
for American youth capable of rising
through instruction to a shipping ca
reer, the ultimate goal of which is the
position of shipmaster, steamship
agent or manager, or trade representa-
tive at home or abroad in the great
program of commercial expansion by
sea by which the country is TO keep
busy its vast merchant fleet.
The plan has been devised as an ex-
tension of the wartime system of
training conducted by the board,
through which large numbers of Amer
lean lads were given brief intensive
schooling on training ships, before be-
Ing sent 10 sea.
or commercial service.
This finished product is expected to
mature in the form of able seamen OF
high type, petty officers, deck and
engine-room OfficerS-all Americans
as well as a needed supply of young
men experienced in sea-going and car
go-handling. who can be further
trained in steamship offices and export
ing and importing business houses,
with view TO later commercial serv-
ice connected with shipping.
II was this system of training that
enabled early merchants of Salem and
Boston to outstrip all rivals in foreign
trade, and make themselves and their
communities rich.
In thus extending its present train
ing service-which continues as here
tofore under the direction of Henry
Howard of BostOn-the shipping board
has the benefit of experience in train
ing cadets at sea gained by its new
director of operations, John II. Ros-
setter of San Francisco.
Mr.. ROsSeter has decided ideas on
the training of young Americans for
seafaring and for steamship opera
ton. He has tried out many of these
ideas in a practical way through his
management of the Pacific Mail Steam
ship company, one of the largest ship
ping interests operating from the
American West coast to the Orient,
South Seas and South America.
At the conclusion of a recent con-
ference at Washington of shipping
board officials interested in develop
ing the training plans of the board I'M
der peace conditions, Mr.. Rosseter
expressed his views on the subject at
length. Later he embodied them in
the following interview:
High Class of Seaman Wanted.
shipping men are agreed that IL at
tainment Of our new and enlarging in
terest in foreign commerce Is to be Sc
cured, we must certainly have a very
high class of American merchant sea-
men; the same kind we have so ad-
developed for our navy.
I'VE all know of the higher social
standard that naturally prevails in
this country; and, personally, / would
say that / would not only accept the
present standards, but l am disposed |
to go a step further, because that is
the tendency; and if we are to get |
good men and train them to be good |
seamen and then good officers. we |
must see that they are placed under |
such environment as will naturally |
evolve into a condition of their being |