It is scarcely necessary to say that such a method would never be considered satisfactory 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 preparation, 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, although the subjects of it are men, is itself a piece of mental machinery. Once devised, it may be susceptible of improvement, but it will not become inefficient because filed away in a pigeon-hole, any more than guns and projectiles become worthless by being stored in their parks or magazines. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves. Provide your fit men,--fit by their familiarity not only with special instruments, but with a manner of life,--and your mobilization is reduced to a slip of paper telling each one where he is to go. He will get there.