The way to pay effective homage to the men of the mighty past is to live decently and efficiently in the present. We have a right to expect that every society like this shall be a nucleus for patriotic endeavor in the affairs of the day. Now, in studying the past I wish that societies like this would pay heed not only to what is pleasant for us to read about, but also to what is unpleasant. I do not think that a diet of all praise is good for any one, and it is no better for us as a body politic than for any one of us individually. Admiral Coghlan will tell you that the first step necessary in bringing the Navy up to its present standard of marksmanship was having the Navy understand that its marksmanship was not what it ought to be. I think the facts will bear me out. The thing to do is to remember what Emerson says, that in the long run an unpleasant truth is a very much safer companion than even the pleasantest falsehood. Our pride in what was done in the past should not permit us to be led away into blindness by failure to appreciate whatever was wrong in the past. Read what Washington said about the average militia regiment of the Revolutionary War, and you will not find he used complimentary language. It was because our people declined to accept Washington’s judgment on the militia, and persisted in trying the experiment of fighting the War of 1812 with militia, that the first two years of that war resulted not merely disastrously, but shamefully, and among other things resulted in the burning of the city of Washington. We did not begin to win on land until we had evolved through mighty hard knocks a small army under Brown and Scott on the northern frontier, which, when evolved, proved able to do what no Continental army at that time could do, that is, meet to advantage the best troops of Britain. We won at sea because we had a number of frigates and sloops which had been built more than fifteen years before and whose officers had been trained in the school of their profession at sea and in action. We won these victories because we had the fleet; and if the fleet had been bigger we would not have had to fight the war at all. Now, I ask that societies like this teach the truth; teach the truth that helps, even if it hurts a little in the helping. Take our struggle in building up our Navy to its present strength. We were hampered in that struggle by the ignorant and unspeakably foolish belief that somehow or other America was so big and smart a Nation that we did not need a Navy, and could improvise one out of hand if the need ever arose.