PART I. 



I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 



A nation at the beginning of a great war, after prolonged peace, is 

 executing a great increase of its naval and military forces. For these 

 forces officers must be selected in large numbers, as many as 1,000 officers 

 for each division of 20,000 men, or 50,000 officers for 1,000,000 men. So, 

 too, in the naval organization every ship has its commander and lieu- 

 tenants, and there are captains and admirals of the various grades for the 

 command of groups of officers. Each of these officers holds in his hands, 

 as it were, the lives of from 100 to 100,000 men. Obviously it is a matter 

 of the gravest concern that they should be properly selected. Yet the 

 number is so vast and the personal knowledge about the appointee on the 

 part of those who must appoint is necessarily often so slight that every 

 assistance in the general method of making the selection may well be 

 carefully considered. In time of actual battling, selection for advance- 

 ment is made on the ground of performance - - the inferior officers fail, 

 the successful ones are given the higher commands. Our Civil War showed 

 this clearly. It also showed the melancholy fact that the selections made 

 at the outset were often inadequate, and many a colonel and even general 

 confidently appointed at the outbreak of the war was recalled as a failure. 

 The method of selecting exclusively by trial and error is a sure method, 

 but one that is frightfully wasteful of lives and property. What is the 

 best method of selecting untried men for positions as officers? 



Diverse methods of selecting untried officers have been employed in 

 the past. In the navy those who have made good records at the Naval 

 Academy have been selected. Admission to the Academy is ordinarily 

 made on the recommendation of a congressman. The applicant undergoes 

 a physical and perhaps a mental examination. No doubt it is true, as 

 Filchett (1903, p. 3) says: "In these days where the foot rule and the 

 stethoscope and the examination paper are the tests by which our embryo 

 Nelsons and Wellingtons are chosen, the future hero of the Nile and of 

 Trafalgar would infallibly have been rejected." A war may be lost by 

 rejection on a physical examination as certainly as by inadequacy in the 

 supply of men or munitions. All too much is made of the physical exami- 

 nation; all too little of temperament and intelligence. The modern 

 psychological and psychiatric examinations of officers and recruits are 

 excellent. I recall one instance in our Civil War when a colonel ordered 

 a futile attack in which a regiment was nearly annihilated. Investigation 

 quickly showed that the commander was insane and had been so for some 

 tune. On the other hand, the elimination of the feeble-minded must 

 be made intelligently. There is at least one instance in our Civil War 

 where a feeble-minded sharpshooter did great execution. A feeble-minded 

 man may have fired the musket shot that killed the great Nelson. Fight- 

 ing leaders must possess insight, judgment, audacity, and pertinacity. 

 Sharpshooters require little of these qualities, but above all ability to aim 



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