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But with us the "fighting engineer" must be left in this case to his own devices; for our comprehensive scheme of education has failed utterly to provide for that responsible office-a highly trained directorate. It was fully forty-one days after the battle of Manila Bay before reinforcements left San Francisco, and Admiral Dewey was obliged to telegraph home an urgent appeal for ammunition. The powerful Monterey (monitor) and the ammunition should have been sent him at the first indication of war. But in our system there was no one to give the word. We did not understand our own profession! How much have our line officers advanced since then in the study of the art of war? Two wars (the Civil War and the Spanish War), have brought out the fact that we, as a body, did not know our business; and yet we complacently accept the situation and make no effort. to redeem the errors of the past. There were brilliant exceptions to this sweeping assertion, in both wars, as every one knows. We are dealing here with the larger operations of war, and of the conduct of war in general. We are dealing specifically with naval administration. "Navy, know thyself," is a sound Delphian injunction.

History, both military and naval, is replete with instances of aiming at a wrong objective; and positions have been attacked at great loss of life, and battles have been fought without any appreciable influence on the issues of a campaign, whereas the crucial points have been overlooked. We need not go beyond our own Civil War for examples of disastrous campaigns, both on land and at sea, conducted by leaders of undaunted courage and fired by martial ardor, but wholly ignorant of war. Indeed it was that experience that led to the establishment of this college, and yet the great body of our line officers have failed to appreciate it.

In the absence of those very rare instances of seamen and soldiers gifted by nature with a genius for war, the knowledge of military principles has been furnished by military schools, staff colleges, war schools and the like. The experience of the past quarter of a century has shown that the navy of the United States has deliberately chosen to dispense with that species of knowledge.

There is or should be an office above and beyond that of the commander-in-chief of a fleet. The conduct of war, under any

conditions, calls for the very highest proficiency as a strategist and as a politician, using that much abused term in its broadest sense. The chief of that office must be conversant with the basic principles of military science. He must be familiar with the laws of war, and of our international relations. He must be, in short, an officer of the highest professional attainments. To cover this broad field of knowledge requires years of study and reflection. His work, moreover, must anticipate hostilities. Timely preparation is essential to success in war. The first few moves in the great game may checkmate your adversary. Does it not seem pitiable that it is only a very few of our officers who are trying during a so-called "conference" to cram all these professional acquirements into four short months?

It is clear from what has been said that failure to profit by the lessons of two wars, in respect to reforms in naval administration, did not proceed from dullness of comprehension, but because the navy as a body, partakes so largely (as it naturally should) of national characteristics. As Americans are not a military people, it is not surprising to find that their navy is not imbued with the military spirit. It has been demonstrated by the official reports already quoted that the majority of our young officers prefer the mechanical arts to the military arts. But, as in the great body of Americans there are never wanting men of clear military perceptions, so, in the navy, there are officers of decided military instincts. It was hoped that this college would lead to the discovery of such officers, in order to bring them forward and induce them to follow the professional lines for which they had the most aptitude. It was a very wise step to establish a School of Marine Engineering, that, by holding out a reward for proficiency, general interest in engineering matters might be stimulated, with consequent improvement in naval efficiency. But the figures given (twenty officer-students for the School of Steam Engineering, and not one for the School of War) admonish those of you who have the interests of the naval profession at heart to renewed exertions in securing higher education along professional lines. It is difficult to understand why, in the process of differentiation of studies, and of training long foreseen but only recently inaugurated, the study of the art of war, the very purpose for which the navy exists, should be excluded. That grave error must be rectified; and the sooner, the better will it be for the country.

Those officers who come here of their own volition, impelled by devotion to their profession, will find their reward in the preferment inevitable from professional attainments.

It must be clearly understood, however, that they come here as students, not as controversialists. Each officer-student must be (to repeat it for the one thousandth time *) his own teacher. But he will enjoy the great advantage of finding, in the college staff, officers who have already been over much of the ground to be covered and who, if too modest to attempt to lead, can at least point the way. Thus will be illustrated the sound Socratic principle of "drawing out" from each student of war his military instincts.

One word here about these Summer Conferences. They are the nearest approach the college has ever reached, up to the present, of obtaining a class of officer-students. They were not what the college wanted, but the best the college could get. They have been productive of some good by showing officers of receptive minds how much there is to learn in their profession. But, on the other hand, they have been productive of no little harm, by giving officers, perhaps unappreciative, who came here for only four months, a wrong impression of what the college stands for. Called upon in conference to discuss questions in naval science to which, in many instances, they have never given a moments thought, it has been found, not infrequently, that there is a wide divergence of opinions on important subjects. Experience has shown that officers of the conferences of the past have expressed with great confidence very crude views-the views of bright but untrained minds. When these prevail, as they sometimes have done, the resultant goes forth with the imprimatur of the college, greatly to its detriment.

The remedy for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is simple. Let officers who have completed their terms of sea-service in their respective grades, come here for a two-year course of study; not for discussion, but for study. On the completion of such a course they will then be eligible as conferees to discuss intelligently questions relating to naval warfare-and not

before.

*In the various papers on the War College this point has been repeatedly insisted upon.

An officer should not leave this college thinking he has mastered his profession when he has learned something of his terminology only. It is one of the sayings of Napoleon that to master the art of strategy necessitates incessant study and exhaustive thought. "Productive thought is the chief means as well as the chief end of education," says a recent writer. "Forming one's own opinion," he adds, "is infinitely better than borrowing one." Be good enough to understand that I am not criticising the college or its methods. I am commiserating

it. Without a class of officer-students, and with a term of only four months, these conferences were in a sense forced upon the college. The college has had to take what it could get, and be thankful it was no worse.

The point I wish to make is the lack of perception by the naval profession of the proper relations between the several parts of our system of naval education. Our line officers seem to suffer from a species of "mental astigmatism" (to quote a learned authority on education *), or the inability of the will to focus the mental rays effectively upon the subject of naval education. "The rays of the mind are foreshortened," he says, "or they are unequal, or they are divergent." This is not uncommon with individual students. But it is very rare when the great majority of the members of a profession are so afflicted. Our officers fail to regard the navy as a unit, with several interdependent parts, just as the human body may be considered a unit made up of interdependent parts. The specialist can diagnose his own particular part only, irrespective of all other parts and without regard to the whole. But he only is master of his profession who can diagnose the entire body and discern the relations between the several parts and the influence of each upon the whole. Your profession is the art of war, and nature will be avenged if you violate one of its laws in undertaking to make a part greater than the whole. You give two years to marine engineering and but seventy-eight days to the study of the art you pretend to profess! This is not astigmatism. It is a total eclipse of the mental vision. You cannot even see the grim humor of it!

A False Equation,"

* See very instructive works on Education entitled by Melville M. Bigelow, Dean of the Boston University Law School, and "Unity in Modern Education," by Mr. Brooks Adams.

A notable example of this obliquity of perception in regard to educational questions is to be found in the Navy Regulations of 1909. This was fully set forth in the article "On the true Relations between the Department of the Navy and the Naval War College." (See Naval Institute, Vol. 37, No. 1, page 85, par. 22.) The net result of this provision is to impair the usefulness of the college as an educational institution and to still further expose the weakness of our system of naval administration.

We have made great advances in gunnery and marine engineering and we are justly proud of it. That is gladly conceded. But after all that can be said in that respect, your profession is the profession of war; and yet, to repeat it, you do not study war. Fancy a university man aspiring to the honors of the legal profession and ignoring the law school and the science of law! The result would concern himself only and the disrepute he would probably bring, in his own small sphere of influence, upon a noble profession. But such ignorance on the part of naval officers imperils the honor of the flag and the safety of the country. What confidence can be placed in the first line of national defense" when it is realized that those who compose it have not specialized in the art of war?

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The common explanation for this extraordinary state of affairs is the absorption of the professional mind in the development of matériel to the exclusion of all else. But that cannot be claimed for the entire body of line officers. There are a few officers who have aptitude for certain lines of investigationsuch as ordnance, gunnery, navigation, steam engineering and the rest. It is to those comparatively few we are indebted for the great advance we have made in matériel. What have the rest been doing? Marking time?

I have endeavored thus far to show you the relations (as I see them) which have, up to a recent date, existed between the Naval War College and the line officers of the navy; not by way of discouragement, but to stimulate you, as far as any words of mine can, to your utmost capacity to perform with diligence the work which lies before you. Recognition has come at last, and that, too, from a source which renders it all the more grateful. The General Board has delegated to the War College its most important duties: those of planning naval campaigns and of

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