172 



Popular Science Monthly 



reached. Thus, in all matters of dis- 

 cipline aboard ship. 



Thus, in matters of discipline aboard 

 ship, in the training of crews and squad- 

 rons, in maneuvers and strategy, in ar- 

 mament and equipment, the idea of mili- 

 tary efficiency has been splendidly car- 

 ried out, and in these matters I hold our 

 Navy ranks second to none. 



Have Our Officers Lost Perspective? 



When it comes, however, to the utili- 

 zation of our yards so that they will be 

 of the greatest aid to the Navy as a 

 military weapon, to the subordination of 

 all our so-called civilian activities in the 

 Department to the great military plan, 

 and to the recruiting of men who will 

 prove the most efficient military units, 

 worthy of promotion, when fit, even to 

 flag rank, many of our high navy officers 

 have lost their perspective. This is all 

 the more curious because the German 

 military organization is continually held 

 up by these naval officers as the ideal to 

 be achieved, and if there is any one fea- 

 ture where the German differs from 

 other organizations it is in the thorough- 

 ness with which the beginnings of things 

 and things ordinarily thought of as par- 

 ticularly civil are bent and subordinated 

 from the start to their place in the final 

 military organization. 



The need of perfectly trained crews 

 so high in character and intelligence 

 that they can grasp the most in- 

 tricate matters of machinery and drill, 

 that they can save tenths of seconds in 

 the firing of a gun or keep in constant 

 repair the most delicate electrical ma- 

 chinery, is recognized by navy officers as 

 highly important, but there were many, 

 until very recently, who considered that 

 no special effort was required to attract 

 to the service the class of men from 

 whom these results can be obtained. Pos- 

 sibly this was because, in Germany, for 

 instance, military service is compulsory, 

 and the men with the brains and intelli- 

 gence needed are compelled to enter 

 some military arm of the service in any 

 event, whereas in this country, depend- 

 ing as we do upon voluntary enlistments, 

 high class men cannot be secured unless 

 there are real inducements far more at- 



tractive than pretty pictures on recruit- 

 ing billboards. 



It was to remedy this failure to begin 

 at the bottom in one of the most impor- 

 tant military matters which led me to in- 

 augurate new ways to attract the right 

 class of men to the service and to keep 

 them in the service when once so attract- 

 ed by making the term of enlistment a 

 great opportunity to obtain, at Govern- 

 ment expense, an education, particularly 

 along technical lines, which would enable 

 the man, upon his discharge, to obtain 

 a higher wage. 



Opportunities for such improvement 

 existed before I became Secretary, 

 and, while they have been considerably 

 enlarged since then, the only sweeping 

 change has been to give to those enlisted 

 men who lacked it the rudimentary 

 school education needed before they 

 could comprehend the mechanical and 

 electrical trades. 



What I have done, however, is to 

 bring prominently before the country on 

 every occasion the fact that such oppor- 

 tunities existed, and I believe there is 

 hardly a young man anxious to improve 

 himself who does not know that in the 

 Navy he can find his opportunity. 



Our Recruits the Cream of Youth 



The result of this campaign has been 

 gratifying in the extreme, and the Navy 

 is now recruited to its full strength from 

 so many applicants that we are able to 

 pick the very cream, our latest figures 

 showing that only seventeen per cent of 

 those who apply are now accepted. In 

 addition, while the value of a man who 

 has already had the training of one en- 

 listment term in the Navy is recognized 

 as being far greater than that of a lands- 

 man just taken on board, and while the 

 military importance of having men of 

 long experience on every ship has been 

 acknowledged, the equal importance of 

 making the service attractive to the en- 

 listed men in order to keep them in the 

 service has not been sufficiently consid- 

 ered until recently. Without abating one 

 jot of the rigid military discipline, with- 

 out pampering or favoring the enlisted 

 man at the risk of destroying his efficien- 

 cy as a cog in a great machine, the num- 

 ber of re-enlistments has increased, as 

 the result, from fifty-four per cent to 



