THE Duke of Northumberland's Life- boat Essay Competition for elementary schools, has been held this year for the sixteenth time. The number of schools which took part was 2,175, a decrease on last year of 336.

Of this total of 2,175 schools, 1,616 were English, 259 Scottish, 171 Irish and 129 Welsh. There was a decrease in each of the four countries.

The number of essays sent in for the inter-school competition was 1,284, a decrease of 130. The number of schools which held their own com- petitions, but did not send in for the inter-school competition was 891, a decrease of 206.

" What are the Qualities which make a Good Life-boatman ? " The subject was: " What are the qualities which make a good life- boatman ? " The essayists seemed agreed about the great virtues needed —courage, unselfishness, determination, coolness in crises, powers of endurance, good judgment and seamanship ; and many found admirable phrases to describe them. One essayist summed up these virtues by saying: " It is quality that makes a man—not quan-tity," and another in the phrase: " He must be like a British oak tree, sturdy and strong! " Another has thought to some purpose on the subject of courage : "A man with too much imagination needs ten times more courage than the man who has no imagination." Yet another has an excellent and homely illustration, which must surely have come from personal experience, to show the value of coolness in a crisis : "A flurried person is of no help at all. When baby falls into the fire or sets its clothes alight, father shouts and gets flustered, mother comes in and without due noise baby is put to rights. That kind of quality is necessary in a life-boatman." The same cool courage is well described by another essayist: " The courageous way these men go about their work, swiftly and efficiently, with a smile on their face and a cheery word on their lips, makes people think they are going away for a pleasure cruise." So they appear as they set out, but another essayist imagines what they must be feeling behind " the smile on the face and the cheery word." " Giving a sigh for the home heleaves perhaps for ever, he turns his face towards the sea, at once his friend and his enemy, to the task which needs zeal and courage to do, promptness and sureness in action, knowledge and experience to guide his hands aright, perseverance to continue the fight, until man or sea is the master." Those few quotations, admirable in thought and expression, are proof of what one of the examiners reports: " The essays undoubtedly, year by year, show improvement. The various points are made with greater logical sequence, the language is of a better literary quality, and is more restrained." The Need for Charm and Ju-Jitsu.

But there are still to be found among the essays unexpected and happy flights of fancy, and the life-boatman has been endowed with qualities at which no one would be more surprised than himself, qualities which, as one essayist rightly points out: " Cannot be learnt by taking a correspondence course." " Wrestling, boxing, and a little ju-jitsu," says one essayist, " should be known for times when passengers get into a frenzy, and possess super- human strength." Another foresees the same difficulties, but has a gentler method for dealing with them: " The life-boatman must have charm, because this greatly pacifies terrified women." Gaiety is needed as well as charm.

" He must be full of frisk and strong and fearless." He must also be "clever, gentle, infallible and vivacious." Then he must know how to choose the right sort of wife: " He must have good judgment in choosing a wife who has all his qualities and would be ready with warm blankets and hot- water bottles." The ability to get up in the middle of the night has again impressed a number of the essayists as not only essential, but almost superhuman. " I shudder," writes one, " when I think of getting up in the middle of the night, and yet the life-boatman is always prepared to do so " ; but another will have nothing to do with such weakness : " He is a poor lover of mankind who can rest his worthless bones in bed whilst that roaring clutcher of human lives is satisfying his endless hunger on a wreck in his power ! " The Value of Tidiness.

But it is necessary to be able to do more than get out of bed. " It is essential that a life-boatman should be tidy, so that he can find his clothes when he has to get up in a hurry." The need for physical fitness is emphasized by many essayists, but the writer who said the " life-boatman must be fisickly fit " seems to have been boldly trying to combine two necessary qualities in one.

Another has a very simple idea of all that is needed to achieve fitness : " A life-boatman is required to be a man with a good appetite to keep his body in good condition." Though it is a virtue to eat heartily, the life-boatman is emphatically warned against strong drink: " If a life-boat- man took strong drink he would not be much use except as ballast, and as life- boats do not need much of this he would be useless." By eating much and drinking little he may hope to become what he should be: "To have a constitution like an ox " ; " To be hard as nails, supple as a steel spring and strong as a Her- cules " : " To be able to climb up a rope like a monkey, jump like a kangaroo, run like a hare and have the strength of a lion." And now, having seen what a life- boatman should be, let us, in the words of one essayist: " Go to that shop over there and propose a toast to the modest, brave life-boatmen of the world, with ice-cream." The Best Essay.

The best essay in Great Britain and Ireland came from a Scottish girl, Violet Gloag, of Ann Street School, Dundee. It is an admirable essay, thoughtful, well balanced and excel- lently written. Violet Gloag is the youngest but one of the nine winners of challenge shields, but her essay won the special prize on its merits, without the handicap to which her age entitled her. This is the first time in the six- teen years that the best essay has come from Scotland, and the first time that the Scottish challenge shield has been won by a Dundee school.

Of the other eight districts, a Croydon school again wins the challenge shield for Greater London. In the Midlands it has been won again, after an interval of four years, by the Spon Street Council School for Boys, which, by winning the shield in 1930, 1931 and 1932, retained possession of it. In the North-East of England the shield has been won by a school which won it nine years ago, the Bedlington Station Council School, Northumberland, and in Ireland the shield has been won by the Meena- mara School, Dunglow, Donegal, with an essay written in Irish.

Successful Towns.

This year pride of place for the num- ber of winners belongs to Portsmouth, which has no fewer than nine, as compared with five last year. Next comes Orkney, with the same number as last year, eight, and Stoke-on-Trent, which also has eight, as compared with five last year. Coventry ranks with them, having not only the challenge shield winner for the district, but six others. Liverpool has six, as com- pared with five last year ; Londonderry five ; Sheffield, Belfast, Dublin, Cardiff and Barry four each.

Girls versus Boys.

This year the girls have, by a little, beaten the boys. A girl has, as last year, won the prize for the best essay of all. Girls have won four of the challenge shields, boys five. Of the 315 prizes, girls have won 167 and boys 148. The prize for the best essay has now been won ten times by girls and seven times by boys (a boy and a girl tying for it in 1933).

The Awards.

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

Dawson, inscribed by the King when he was 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), cox- swain 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! The 891 schools which did not enter for the inter-school competition, and the 970 schools which did not win a prize in it, will each receive a certifi- cate for presentation to the writer of the best essay in the school.

The Institution's Thanks.

The Institution's thanks are again most warmly offered to the Education Authorities for their permission to hold the competition, and, in many cases, for their help in bringing it to the notice of the schools; to the teachers for their great kindness in so readily undertaking the considerable extra work which the competition lays on them ; and to the judges, to whom the Institution is deeply grateful, not only for reading and judging so many essays, but for their reports and for the extracts from the essays which have been quoted.

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.—Doris Elizabeth Somerford, Ivydale Road L.C.C. Girls' School, Nunhead, S.E.15.

NORTH-EAST OF ENGLAND.—Minnie James, Bedlington Station Council School, Northumberland.

NORTH-WEST OF ENGLAND.—Norah Leadson, Upton Road School, Moreton, Wirral, Cheshire.

MIDLANDS.—Dennis John Harris, Spon Street Council School, Coventry.

SOUTH-EAST OF ENGLAND.—Clifford Beagley, Kingsley Senior Boys' School, Kingsley Road, Croydon.

SOUTH-WEST OF ENGLAND.—Edmund George Reed, Oakfield Church of England Boys' School, Ryde, Isle of Wight.

SCOTLAND.—Violet Gloag, Ann Street School, Dundee.

IRELAND.—Bartholomew Duggan, Mee- namara School, Dunglow, Donegal.

WALES.—George Dugdale,St. Anthony's School, Saltney, near Chester..