Outward Bound eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 298 pages of information about Outward Bound.

Outward Bound eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 298 pages of information about Outward Bound.

The wind was very light, and studding-sails were set alow and aloft.  The ship only made her six knots as she pitched gently in the long swell of the ocean.  The boys were still nominally under the order of “all hands on deck,” but there was nothing for them to do, with the exception of the wheelmen, and they were gazing at the receding land behind them.  They were taking their last view of the shores of their native land.  Doubtless some of them were inclined to be sentimental, but most of them were thinking of the pleasant sights they were to see, and the exciting scenes in which they were to engage on the other side of the rolling ocean, and were as jolly as though earth had no sorrows for them.

The principal and the professors were pacing the quarter-deck, and doubtless some of them were wondering whether boys like the crew of the Young America could be induced to study and recite their lessons amid the excitement of crossing the Atlantic, and the din of the great commercial cities of the old world.  The teachers were energetic men, and they were hopeful, at least, especially as study and discipline were the principal elements of the voyage, and each pupil’s privileges were to depend upon his diligence and his good behavior.  It would be almost impossible for a boy who wanted to go to Paris while the ship was lying at Havre, so far to neglect his duties as to forfeit the privilege of going.  As these gentlemen have not been formally introduced, the “faculty” of the ship is here presented:—­

Robert Lowington, Principal
Rev. Thomas Agneau, Chaplain
Dr. Edward B. Winstock, Surgeon.

INSTRUCTORS.

John Paradyme, A.M., Greek and Latin
Richard Modelle, Reading and Grammar
Charles C. Mapps, A.M., Geography and History
James E. Fluxion, Mathematics
Abraham Carboy, M.D., Chemistry and Nat.  Phil.
Adolph Badois, French and German.

These gentlemen were all highly accomplished teachers in their several departments, as the progress of the students during the preceding year fully proved.  They were interested in their work, and in sympathy with the boys, as well as with the principal.

It was a very quiet time on board, and the crew were collected in little groups, generally talking of the sights they were to see.  In the waist were Shuffles, Monroe, and Wilton, all feuds among them having been healed.  They appeared to be the best of friends, and it looked ominous for the discipline of the ship to see them reunited.  Shuffles was powerful for good or evil, as he chose, and Mr. Lowington regretted that he had fallen from his high position, fearing that the self-respect which had sustained him as an officer would desert him as a seaman, and permit him to fall into excesses.

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Outward Bound from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.