The age-of-sail Royal Navy often employed educational masters, or "schoolies," aboard ships to provide formal lessons alongside practical service. By the early twentieth century, recruiting only boys who already met the required reading and writing standard would have left a very small officer pool. That constraint mattered in peacetime and would have become more severe during wartime expansion. The Osborne-Dartmouth sequence raised cadets to a common foundation before concentrating on naval formation and leadership.
Notable Point · 22:09-23:16
Shipboard schoolmasters and the officer recruiting pool
Shipboard educational masters could teach young officers, but relying only on candidates who already read and wrote would leave an expanding Navy with too small a recruiting pool.