{"id":"01KG8AME7KK0S3PCA1082QB4WY","cid":"bafkreicpzsj7h7nyrvpbum34nslx2pmyrtbn7ofcdoao26vekxuid5tthm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":13227,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":13162,"text":"CHAPTER LXXXIII.\r\nA MAN-OF-WAR  COLLEGE.\r\n\r\n\r\nIn our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes\r\noverboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, curses mix with\r\ntears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave\r\nof those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own. Checkers were\r\nplayed in the waist at the time of Shenly’s burial; and as the body\r\nplunged, a player swept the board. The bubbles had hardly burst, when\r\nall hands were _piped down_ by the Boatswain, and the old jests were\r\nheard again, as if Shenly himself were there to hear.\r\n\r\nThis man-of-war life has not left me unhardened. I cannot stop to weep\r\nover Shenly now; that would be false to the life I depict; wearing no\r\nmourning weeds, I resume the task of portraying our man-of-war world.\r\n\r\nAmong the various other vocations, all driven abreast on board of the\r\nNeversink, was that of the schoolmaster. There were two academies in\r\nthe frigate. One comprised the apprentice boys, who, upon certain days\r\nof the week, were indoctrinated in the mysteries of the primer by an\r\ninvalid corporal of marines, a slender, wizzen-cheeked man, who had\r\nreceived a liberal infant-school education.\r\n\r\nThe other school was a far more pretentious affair—a sort of army and\r\nnavy seminary combined, where mystical mathematical problems were\r\nsolved by the midshipmen, and great ships-of-the-line were navigated\r\nover imaginary shoals by unimaginable observations of the moon and the\r\nstars, and learned lectures were delivered upon great guns, small arms,\r\nand the curvilinear lines described by bombs in the air.\r\n\r\n“_The Professor_” was the title bestowed upon the erudite gentleman who\r\nconducted this seminary, and by that title alone was he known\r\nthroughout the ship. He was domiciled in the Ward-room, and circulated\r\nthere on a social par with the Purser, Surgeon, and other\r\n_non-combatants_ and Quakers. By being advanced to the dignity of a\r\npeerage in the Ward-room, Science and Learning were ennobled in the\r\nperson of this Professor, even as divinity was honoured in the Chaplain\r\nenjoying the rank of a spiritual peer.\r\n\r\nEvery other afternoon, while at sea, the Professor assembled his pupils\r\non the half-deck, near the long twenty-four pounders. A bass drum-head\r\nwas his desk, his pupils forming a semicircle around him, seated on\r\nshot-boxes and match-tubs.\r\n\r\nThey were in the jelly of youth, and this learned Professor poured into\r\ntheir susceptible hearts all the gentle gunpowder maxims of war.\r\nPresidents of Peace Societies and Superintendents of Sabbath-schools,\r\nmust it not have been a most interesting sight?\r\n\r\nBut the Professor himself was a noteworthy person. A tall, thin,\r\nspectacled man, about forty years old, with a student’s stoop in his\r\nshoulders, and wearing uncommonly scanty pantaloons, exhibiting an\r\nundue proportion of his boots. In early life he had been a cadet in the\r\nmilitary academy of West Point; but, becoming very weak-sighted, and\r\nthereby in a good manner disqualified for active service in the field,\r\nhe had declined entering the army, and accepted the office of Professor\r\nin the Navy.\r\n\r\nHis studies at West Point had thoroughly grounded him in a knowledge of\r\ngunnery; and, as he was not a little of a pedant, it was sometimes\r\namusing, when the sailors were at quarters, to hear him criticise their\r\nevolutions at the batteries. He would quote Dr. Hutton’s Tracts on the\r\nsubject, also, in the original, “_The French Bombardier_,” and wind up\r\nby Italian passages from the “_Prattica Manuale dell’ Artiglieria_.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVWWWFZ0PAGZX8HNA4ZW","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AME7AMMYSJS9G8G2KQD5X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.107Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:54.260Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}