department of the military whole of the ship, and that other
consent than his was necessary to their departure. A trivial incident,
with a whole world of atmosphere behind it.

III

THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT LARGE

1850-1860

Probably there have been at all periods educational excesses in the
outlook of some of the Naval Academy authorities; and I personally
have sympathized in the main with those who would subordinate the
technological element to the more strictly professional. I remember
one superintendent--and he, unless rumor was in error, had been one of
the early opposition--saying to me with marked elation, "I believe we
carry the calculus farther here than they do at West Point." I myself
had then long forgotten all the calculus I ever knew, and I fear that
with him, too, it was a case of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. A more
curious extravagancy was uttered to me by a professor of applied
mathematics. I had happened to say that, while it was well each
student should have the opportunity to acquire all he could in that
department, I did not think it necessary that every officer of the
deck should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between a
weight he had to hoist on board and the power of the purchase he was
about to use; which I think a mild proposition, considering the
centuries during which that knowledge had been dispensed with. "Oh, I
differ with you," he replied; "I think it of the utmost importance
they should all be able to do so." Nothing like sails, said my friend
the sailmaker; nothing like leather, says the shoemaker. I mentioned
this shortly afterwards to one of my colleagues, himself an officer
of unusual mathematical and scientific attainment. "No!" he exclaimed;
"did he _really_ say that?"

This was to claim for this mere head knowledge a falsely "practical"
value, as distinguished from the educational value of the mental
training involved, and from the undoubted imperative need of such
acquisitions in those who have to deal with problems of ship
construction or other mechanical questions connected with naval
material. His position was really as little practical as that of the
men who opposed the Academy plan in general as unpractical; as little
practical as it would be to maintain that it is essential that every
naval officer to-day should be skilled to handle a ship under sail,
because the habit of the sailing-ship educated, brought out, faculti