“I have heard the question raised as to the character and quality of the Japanese _personnel_; I have heard the suggestion that, magnificent as their material may be, their officers and men are not up to the European or American standard. It is not my intention to discuss this phase of the matter. But it is worth while to observe that, if the Japanese officers with whom we are in daily contact as inspectors of work we are doing for their government are average samples, they have no odds to ask of the officers of any other navy whatsoever as to professional ability, practical application, and capacity to profit by experience. And it should also be borne in mind that they have had more and later experience in actual warfare than the officers of any other navy, or of all other navies. While all other navies have been wrestling with the theoretical problems of war colleges, or encountering the hypothetical conditions of squadron evolutions, fleet manœuvres, and sham battles, the Japanese have been sinking or taking the ships, bombarding the towns, and forcing the harbors of their enemy. I do not know how others may view this sort of disparity in experience, but in my opinion it is the most portentous fact in the whole situation, and because of it no navy that has not done any fighting at all has the slightest license to question in any respect the quality of the _personnel_ of the Japanese navy that has done a good deal of extremely successful fighting. “On the whole, the attitude of Japan among the powers is in the last degree admirable. Her aspirations are exaltedly patriotic, and her movements to realize them are planned with a consummate wisdom, and executed with a systematic skill, which nations far older in the arts of Western civilization would do well to emulate.”