Page 224 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Preparedness for Naval War. 205

in any of the occupations of ordinary life. A
man who learns his profession or trade, but
never practises it, will not long be considered
fit for employment. No kind of practical prep-
aration, in the way of systematic instruction,
equals the practical knowledge imbibed in the
common course of life. This is just as true of
the military professions — the naval especially
— as it is of civil callings ; perhaps even more
so, because the former are a more unnatural,
and therefore, when attained, a more highly
specialized, form of human activity. For the
very reason that war is in the main an evil, an
unnatural state, but yet at times unavoidable,
the demands upon warriors, when average men,
are exceptionally exacting.
Preparedness for naval war therefore consists
not so much in the building of ships and guns
as it does in the possession of trained men*, in
adequate numbers, fit to go on board at once
and use the material, the provision of which is
merely one of the essential preparations for war.
The word " fit " includes fairly all that detail of
organization commonly called mobilization, by
which the movements of the individual men
are combined and directed. But mobilization,