y versed in the work problems which concern them,
_he can command them in any situation_. This is the real bedrock of
command capacity, and nothing else so well serves to give an officer
an absolutely firm position with all who serve under him. As said
elsewhere in this book, within the armed establishment, administration
is not of itself a separate art, or a dependable prop to authority.
When administrators talk airily of things that they clearly do not
understand, they are simply using the whip on the team without having
control of the reins.

However, the greater part of military operation in present days is
noteworthy for the extreme diversity and complexity of its parts, and
instead of becoming more simplified, the trend is toward greater
elaboration. It is obviously absurd to expect that any officer could
know more about radio repair than his repairman, more about mapping
than his cartographical section, more about moving parts than a
gunsmith, more about radar than a specialist in electronics and more
about cypher than a cryptographer. If the services were to set any
such unreasonable standard for the commissioned body, all would
shortly move over into the lunatic fringe. Science has worked a few
wonders for the military establishment but it hasn't told us how to
produce that kind of man.

Plainly, there must be a somewhat different approach to the question
of what kind of knowledge an officer is expected to possess, or the
requirement would be unreasonable and unworkable.

_The distinction lies in the difference between the power to do a
thing well and that of being able to judge when it is well done._ A
man can say that a book is bad, though not knowing how to write one
himself, provided he is a student of literature. Though he has never
laid an egg, he can pass fair judgment on an omelette, if he knows a
little about cookery, and has sampled many good eggs, and detected a
few that were overripe.

"He who lives in a house," said Aristotle, "is a better judge of it
being good or bad than the builder of it. He can say not only these
things, but wherein its defects consist. Yet he might be quite unable
to cure the chimney, or to draw out a plan for his rooms which would
suit him better. Sometimes he can even see where the fault is which
caused the mischief, and yet he may not know practically how to remedy
it."

Adjustment to a job, and finally, mastery of it, by a service officer,
comes of persistent pursu