Clearly, the problem is not only very important but very difficult--perhaps the most difficult single problem before the country; and for this reason, naval officers have long marvelled that the leading minds of the country do not undertake it. Perhaps one reason is that they do not know how difficult it is: that they do not realize the extraordinary complexity of modern ships and engines, and the trained skill required to handle them; that they do not realize what Great Britain now realizes, that we must prepare for one of the most stupendous struggles ever carried on; that we must have a personnel both of officers and enlisted men trained to the highest point, because they will have to meet officers and enlisted men trained to the highest point; that the training must be such that the skill produced can be exercised by night and day, in cold and heat, in storm and calm, under circumstances of the utmost possible difficulty and danger; that, while it takes four years to build a ship and get her into the fleet as an effective unit, it takes much longer to train an enlisted petty officer as he should be trained, and a lifetime to train officers of the upper grades. Perhaps also our leading minds do not realize the intellectual requirements of the higher realms of the naval art, or comprehend what the examples of Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Nelson, and Farragut prove: that, _in the real crises of a nation's life her most valuable asset is the trained skill in strategy that directs the movements of her forces_.