THE Duke of Northumberland's Life- boat Essay Competition for elementary schools has been held this year for the fifteenth time. The number of schools which took part was 2,511. an increase of 10 on last year.

Of this total of 2,511 schools, 1,841 were English, 306 Scottish, 216 Irish, and 148 Welsh. This was a decline of 36 in the number of English schools, but in each of the other three countries there was a slight increase.

The number of essays sent in for the inter-school competition was 1,414, a decline of 182, and the number of schools which held their own com- petitions but did not send in for the inter-school was 1,097, an increase of 192.

" Why does our country need a Life-boat Service ? " The subject was " Why does our country need a life-boat service ? " One of the judges writes : " The essays are with few exceptions very satis- factory indeed, and are highly credit- able to all concerned. Most of the candidates express themselves clearly and well, and have evidently got well- defined ideas on the subject. One feature which is quite noticeable is that the candidates are ' full' of the subject, and their difficulty seems to be that of confining themselves to that particular branch of it which is chosen for the essay." Another judge writes : " The essays reveal much variety in the treatment of the subject. The best effects, how- ever, endeavour to point out why we, above all other nations, need a life- boat service." A number of the children found graphic and original ways of describing the dangers of the sea, the importance of saving life, and the life-boats them- selves.

One essayist, more topical, perhaps, than accurate, wrote : " Life-boats to seamen are like Belisha beacons to pedestrians." Another calls them " sea ambulances," and another has trans- ferred to them the description which no longer belongs to the Navy: " The wooden walls of England." Several made bold attempts to describe the horrors of shipwreck.

" The unhappy mariners are buffeted from side to side, each forming his earnest opinion that the next hour would be the last—that he would have shuffled off his mortal coil, to be received into the jaws of the Grim Reaper." Here is a gloomy picture of the life- boat putting out : " Poorly dressed, the life-boatmen run their frail craft into the murky turbid waters, leap in and shoot off into oblivion, with the gods of the sea howling round them." And who could describe better the helplessness and insignificance of man in the midst of a gale than the essayist who writes : " When the sea is in an angry mood she treats the ships like matchwood and counts a man's life as that of a small shell-fish ? " The Value of a Life.

No one can estimate the national value of a life saved, but one essayist puts it rather high : " There is every reason to believe that a baby saved from a watery grave might make history, or when older be a general." Another thinks of the families: " Without such a service countless families would to-day be mourning the loss of foolhardy and indiscreet relatives." Numbers took a very business-like view of the subject : " It is much cheaper to keep a life-boat service running than to pension off the dependants of the sailors and fisher- men who have perished," and this view is summed up by another writer : " What a boon to insurance companies is the life-boat service ! " Perhaps the quaintest phrase of all came from the writer who, trying to imagine how desolate our country would be without a life-boat service, wrote : " To think of England without a life-boat service is like thinking of a millionaire without a home," but the essayists who best succeeded in putting the spirit of the service in a sentence were the two who wrote : " He is all a knave and half a slave who would not harken to save those in peril," and "It is the British inspiration to help the weak." The Best Essay in Great Britain & Ireland.

The best essay in Great Britain and Ireland came from an Irish school. It was written by Alice Chambers, of the Rockvale Public Elementary School, Newry, Co. Down, the youngest by over two years of the nine winners of challenge shields. Her essay won the special prize on its merits, for it was adjudged the best even without the handicap to which her age entitled her.

A Welsh Record.

Wales has set up yet another record.

Last year the Wood Memorial School, Saltney, Flintshire, won the Welsh challenge shield for the third year running, and the shield became the school's property. This had been done once before, but the Wood Memorial School set up a record by winning the shield in each of the three years with an essay from the same boy.

The same school has again done what no other school has done. It has won the shield for the fourth year running.

The boy who has won it is Frederick Channell, a brother of the winner of the previous three years.

Two schools have won a challenge shield for the second year running, and will retain the shields if they succeed in winning them next year.

They are the Clothworker's School, Peel, Isle of Man, and the Grove Road Senior Boys' School, Gosport. The same boy at the Grove Road School. George Baker, has won the shield for his school both years.

In the Midlands the shield has been won by Herbert Thompson, of Hill Top Council Senior Boys' School, Black- heath, Worcestershire, with an essay in verse, in imitation of Pope's " Essay on Man." Successful Towns.

This year pride of place for the number of winners belongs to the Orkneys, which has no fewer than eight. Liverpool has seven, Cardiff six; Bristol, Stoke-on-Trent, Ports- mouth and Birkenhead have five each.

Gosport has not only won the challenge shield, but has the first four places in the list of winners in the South-West of England, and Rotherham, in York- shire, has four winners, including the winner of the challenge shield for the North-East of England.

Boys versus Girls.

The honours are fairly evenly divided between boys and girls. Boys have won five of the nine challenge shields, and girls four, but a girl has won the prize for the best essay of all. Of the 315 prizes, boys have won 163 and girls 152. The prize for the best essay has now been won nine times by girls and seven times by boys (a boy and a girl tying for it in 1933).

The Awards.

Alice Chambers will receive a copy of Britain's Life-boats, by Major A. J.

Dawson, inscribed by the Prince of Wales, and a certificate. Each of the other eight winners of challenge shields will receive a copy of Launch, by Major-General Lord Mottistone (Major- General Seely), coxswain of the Brooke, Isle of Wight, life-boat, inscribed by the author. The schools will hold the shields for a year and each school will also receive, as a permanent record of its success, a copy of the certificate awarded to the pupil. The other prize- winners will each receive a certificate and a copy of Launch. In a few cases, where winners of prizes last year have again won them, they will receive, instead of Launch, copies of Modern Motor Life-boats, by Mr. J. R. Bar- nett, O.B.E., M.I.N.A., the Institution's consulting naval architect.

The 1,097 schools which did not enter for the inter-school competition, and the 1,099 schools which did not win a prize in it, will each receive a certifi- cate for presentation to the writer of the best essav in the school.

Thanks to Education Authorities, Teachers and Judges.

The Institution again owes its warmest thanks to the Education Authorities for their kindness in giving permission for the competition to be held, and, in a number of cases, in sending out the particulars of it themselves, or in drawing attention to the competition in their circulars to teachers. It would also like most cordially to thank the teachers for their kindness in voluntarily undertaking the consider- able extra work which the competition lays on them. The passages quoted from the judges' reports show how much trouble they must have taken to instruct their classes in the work of the life-boat service, and the Institution gratefully recognizes that it is chiefly due to the teachers that, in the words of one .of the judges, " the competition has done a great service in arousing the interest of thousands of children in the Institution." To the judges, also, the Institution's warmest thanks are due. Some of them have now for many years been giving the Institution their generous help.

Below will be found the names of the nine winners of challenge shields and the best essay. The full list; of winners is printed as a separate leaflet and will be sent, with a copy of this journal, to each of the schools which entered for the inter-school com- petition.

Winners of the Challenge Shields.

LONDON.—Edward Franks, The Hither Green Senior Boys' School, Beacon Road, Lewisham.

NORTH-EAST of ENGLAND. — Mary Barraclough. Kimberworth Central School, Rotherham.

NORTH-WEST OF ENGLAND.—Phyllis Quirk, Clothworkers' School, Peel, Isle of Man.

MIDLANDS.—Herbert Thompson, Hill Top Senior Boys' Council School, Blackheath, Worcestershire.

SOUTH-EAST or ENGLAND.—Olive Mae Jakes, The Croydon British Girls' School, Tamworth Road, West Croydon.

SOUTH-WEST OF ENGLAND.—George Baker, Grove Road Senior Boys' School, Gosport.

SCOTLAND.—William Forrest, St. Cuth- bert's Roman Catholic School, Burnbank, Lanarkshire.

IRELAND.—Alice Chambers, Rockvale Public Elementary School, Newry, Co. Down.

WALES.—Frederick John Channel!, Wood Memorial Boys' School, Saltney, Flintshire..