THE AUCKLAND NAVAL TRAINING SCHOOL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4406, 4 May 1875, Page 3

THE AUCKLAND NAVAL TRAINING SCHOOL.

. (From the Southern Cross, April 24.) Those who, some four months ago, saw what is now the Naval Training School, at Kohimarama, and who viewed it yesterday, must accord very high praise to all concerned with the establishment. It is as neat, clean, trim, and attractive, outside and in, as it is possible for any institution to be. Order, and discipline, cleanliness and comfort, prevail. Bright and pleasant looks, and an earnest, anxious, emulation, characterise the score or so of ready and willing boys who are being carefully trained, under a painstaking and judicious management, which is at once highly creditable to the officers, and is having a most excellent effect upon the boys. Indeed, to behold the cleanliness and seafaring ability, aijd the prompt and cheerful obedience displayed by the boys, together with the good understanding which exists between them and Captain Breton, the superintendent of the institution, and the schoolmaster, and to consider from what these clean and active boys have been rescued, creates one of the most pleasant feelings which a philanthropic spectator can enjoy. Throughout, the establishment onshore is a perfect picture of neatness, and the order and regularity which reign argues well for the future of the lads, and for the mercantile navy of New. Zealand, which, in a few years, they will help to man—aye, and, we believe, judging from the aptitude so many of them exhibit, to command too. The ground at present is too limited, and the house accommodation, while ample for sixty boys at present, and easily made available for double that number, is, as respects the dwellings of the superintendent and schoolmaster, altogether inadequate. The hearts of both are 'evidently in their work, and that fact, which the sharp eyes and quick perceptions of youth promptly detect, has established a sym-. pathy between the officers and the little bluedressed sailor men from which the best results may be predicted. The Government have been, perhaps, somewhat parsimonious in their experimental essays. Let us say they have been frugal, to put it mildly ; but having soon what the condition of the establishment was a few months ago, and what it is like to-day—-with its little blue-jackets about it and on the schooner, a regular miniature naval brigade—we cannot think that any reasonably liberal expenditure could in any wise be other than well bestowed, or can fail to produce results highly beneficial to the social condition and future maritime progress of New Zealand. This institution will, we venture to predict, prove one of the most creditable ventures of the Colonial Government, and one of which the colony will have reason to be justly proud.