1918        Collins, James H. "Vikings of the Future." _St. Nicholas_ 45 (10) (August 1918).

Another mention of the merchant marine training program set up by Howard, and the role of chanteys.

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… Only men of draft age—twenty-one to thirty —are taken, and the novices are taught the rudiments of their new calling in six weeks of intensive instruction aboard one of the training-ships.

There are four of these training-ships in commission now, three of them located at Boston and one at San Francisco, while others are to be stationed at Norfolk, New Orleans, and Seattle. They are big, comfortable, roomy ships. One is a former ocean greyhound which held some speed records in her day. Another, the Calvin Austin, a former coastwise passenger-ship, with her load of recruits in training was the first ship to reach Halifax after the disaster there.

The young man who takes this training is equipped with a uniform and receives thirty dollars a month while he is in training. The students are grouped in squads of ten, with an instructor for each squad. Eight hours a day are consumed in the study of the compass, knots and splices, the nomenclature of ships, both sail and steam, the handling of life-boats, and other important things…

Mr. Howard has put spirit into the training by reviving the old sailing-ship practice of chantey singing. The sea chantey is a slow, melodious song whose measures fall into the rhythm of a gang of sailors hauling on a rope. Mr. Stanton H. King, of Boston, an old deep-water sailor, is the chantey instructor; and now on our modern, standardized, steam vessels of wood or steel, or even concrete, are to be heard such ancient windjammer tunes as "Shenandoah," "Blow the Man Down," and "Bound for the Rio Grande."
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