udy or knowledge of tactics, strategy, or any game of
war, but largely upon good, common sense, sound judgment--almost
intuition--a ready resourcefulness and quick, decisive action-- It was
practically outside of a theoretical conception of any war problem--as
we understand it, but included within the scope of its practical
activities. No book has ever been written, or ever will be, which could
begin to lay down any cut and dried plan of action, rules, or any
fundamental principles in a case like this, or hundreds of other cases
similar to the performance of such special duties, any more than a text
book could have been written prior to 1914 on how to deal with the
German methods of conducting a war for the subjugation of the world by
trench, barbed wire and dug-out systems along the Hindenberg lines, etc.
All the study of a life time involving such problems, or military
knowledge, would be of no avail to some men,--whether civilians or
soldiers--unless they possessed, at the same time, plenty of
resourcefulness and horse sense and could readily adjust themselves to
the ever changing conditions of those same problems. The factors never
remain fixed or constant. It is the same in battle and with the factors
controlling it--which accounts for the lack of success of many so called
soldiers by their failure to get away from fixed rules. There is one
word that seems to involve the main spring of a soldier's action in all
such emergencies--and that is--_Experience_--and the practical
application of that experience to all of the problems of life whether
great or small, but especially in puzzling situations like this, where
the factors are dependent on no fixed rules--are never constant--and
therefore events so shape themselves in such rapid succession that
without quick, decisive action based upon one's resources and sound
judgment gained by experience--the dependence upon study of any books
which might bear in any way upon such conditions would, not only prove a
most ridiculous farce, but would be offering a premium on commonplace
student soldiers--obtuseness and asinine stupidity.

There is such a thing in the development of a soldier along certain
lines for practical work, as _over education_, as well as _over
training_-- In the one case he thinks he knows so much that he cannot be
taught any more, and is apt, therefore, to eliminate entirely the
element of common sense--the one factor for success upon which he must
largely