1 66 Admiral Dewey 



personnel. The same praise must be given the men 

 who actually drilled the personnel, part of which 

 Dewey used. If our ships had merely been built 

 and then laid up, if officers and crews had not been 

 exercised season after season in all weathers on the 

 high seas in handling their ships both separately 

 and in squadron, and in practicing with the guns, 

 all the excellent material would have availed us 

 little. Exactly as it is of no use to give an army 

 the best arms and equipment if it is not also given 

 the chance to practice with its arms and equipment, 

 so the finest ships and the best natural sailors and 

 fighters are useless to a navy if the most ample op 

 portunity for training is not allowed. Only inces 

 sant practice will make a good gunner; though, in 

 asmuch as there are natural marksmen as well as 

 men who never can become good marksmen, there 

 should always be the widest intelligence displayed 

 in the choice of gunners. Not only is it impossible 

 for a man to learn how to handle a ship or do his 

 duty aboard her save by long cruises at sea, but 

 it is also impossible for a good single-ship captain to 

 be an efficient unit in a fleet unless he is accustomed 

 to manoeuvre as part of a fleet. 



It is particularly true of the naval service that the 

 excellence of any portion of it in a given crisis will 

 depend mainly upon the excellence of the whole 

 body, and so the triumph of any part is legitimately 



