The Education of Naval Architects

Abstract

AT the recent meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects, Mr. L. Woollard gave an account of the methods of training naval architects in Great Britain to-day in Admiralty establishments, at the universities and at the various technical colleges. As is well known, the Admiralty more than a century ago took the lead in technical education, and the work of the schools in the dockyards, at South Kensington and Greenwich, has been reviewed at various times by Sir William White, Sir William Smith and Sir Arthur Johns. To-day, however, there are courses for degrees in naval architecture at the Universities of Glasgow, Durham and Liverpool, while there are no fewer than seventeen technical schools or colleges in England and Scotland where courses can be followed for the National Certificates in Naval Architecture. These certificates are awarded by a Joint Committee of the Institution of Naval Architects and the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, in conjunction with the Board of Education or Scottish Education Department. Mr. Woollard gives particulars of the courses followed at the R.N. College, Greenwich, and elsewhere, the scholarships open to students and a list of papers and articles in the education of naval architects. When referring to Admiralty training, he says that experience has shown that candidates have more difficulty in satisfying the examiners in mathematics than in the other subjects, and students weak in mathematics find great difficulty in keeping pace with the courses at Greenwich.