§ SIR HENRY STRACEYsaid, he wished to know, Whether the Regulations coming into force in January, 1864, in reference to Navigation Schools, can be so altered as to make persons ineligible for Masters and Mates unless they acquire a knowledge of the additional subjects there laid down?
§ MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, in reply, that as far as the Board of Trade was concerned, they only required an examination for the certificates of Masters and Mates of merchant vessels in respect to such an amount of navigation knowledge as was sufficient to qualify men to act in those capacities. With regard to the Navigation Schools under the Committee of Privy Council for Education, they, of course, must be regulated by that Committee. He believed that it had been ascertained that a great number of youths who attended those schools never intended to go to sea at all, and merely went to the Navigation School because they got a better education there than at the ordinary parish schools. The Board of Trade, as at present advised, could not alter their regulations, and whether any alteration could be made in the Council Schools he could not say.