Read "Stem to Stern" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"We are not ship-builders, boys; in fact, there is not a ship-builder connected with the school, and I do not intend to engage one even as an instructor," said the principal, continuing his remarks on the platform. "In the present depressed state of this important industry, perhaps it is not advisable to devote much time to the study of scientific construction in ship-building. It looks now as though the ships of the future were to be of iron; and many vessels of this material are built in this country at the present time.
"But perhaps ship-building is rather too ambitious a term to apply to our intended operations. We shall build a boat of considerable size, and while we are doing the work we shall learn what we can about ship-building. Many years ago I built a ship for myself, and superintended its construction from the keel to the trucks. In building our boat we shall not put in every stick used in a ship.