he line
of duty; of these perhaps the most important are danger, sloth,
and love of pleasure. No human being is perfectly strong along
any of these lines; and some are most tempted by danger, some by
sloth, and some by love of pleasure.

Sloth and the love of pleasure do not act as hinderances to efficiency
in the naval profession any more than they do in other callings.
There is no profession, business, or vocation, in which a man's
efficiency does not depend largely on his power of resistance to the
allurement of sloth and pleasure. In all walks of life, including
the usual routine of the naval life, these two factors are the
main stumbling-blocks to the success of any man. That is, they
are the main stumbling-blocks that training can remove or lessen;
the main stumbling-blocks in the way of his attaining that degree
of efficiency for which his mental and physical abilities themselves
would fit him. Natural abilities are not here considered; we are
considering merely what training can do to develop men as they
are for the naval life.

_Courage_.--Danger is the special influence to divert a man from
duty's line that is distinctive of the army and the navy; and therefore
to secure ability to overcome this influence is the distinct effort
of military training. To train a young man for the army, the training
naturally is directed toward minimizing the influence of one class
of dangers; while to train a young man for the navy, the training
must be directed toward minimizing the influence of another class.
Of course training toward courage in any line develops courage in
other lines; but nevertheless a naval training does not enable
a man to ride a plunging cavalry horse with equanimity; nor does
training as a cavalryman wholly fit a man to brave the dangers
of the deep in a submarine.

Thirty years ago, the present writer showed Commander Royal Bird
Bradford, U. S. N., the wonders of the U. S. S. _Atlanta_, the
first ship of what Americans then called "The New Navy." When I
showed Bradford the conning-tower, I remarked that many captains
who had visited the _Atlanta_ had said that they would not go into
the conning-tower in battle. To this Bradford replied: "The captain
who would not go into the conning-tower in battle would be very
brave, but he'd be a d----d fool."

The obvious truth of this remark, the intimate connection which
it suggested between courage and folly, and the fact often noted
in life that to be br