not mean that strategy concerns itself directly with the training of mess cooks and coal-passers; and it may be admitted that such training is only under strategy’s general guidance.  It may be admitted, also, that a considerable part of the training of men in using mechanisms is caused by the requirements of the mechanism itself; that practically the same training is needed for a water-tender in the merchant service as for a water-tender in the navy.  Nevertheless, we must either declare that the training of mechanicians in the nary has no relation to the demands of preparation of the navy for war, or else admit that the training comes under the broad dominion of strategy.  To admit this does not mean at all that the training of a naval radio electrician is not directed in its details almost wholly by electrical engineering requirements; it merely means that the training must be such as to fulfil the requirements of strategy, for otherwise it would have no value.  No matter how well trained a man might be in radio work, his work would be useless for naval purposes, if not made useful by being adapted to naval requirements.  The fact that strategy controls the training of radio electricians through the medium of electrical means is only one illustration of another important fact, which is that in all its operations strategy directs the methods by which results are to be attained, and utilizes whatever means, even technical means, are the most effective and appropriate.

The naval machine having been designed as to both personnel and material, strategy has nothing to do with the material in preparing the machine for use, because the material parts are already prepared, and it is the work of engineering to keep those material parts in a state of continual preparedness.

It must be noted, however, that the naval machine differs from most material machines in that its various parts, material as well as personnel, are continually being replaced by newer parts, and added to by parts of novel kinds.  Strategy must be consulted, of course, in designing the characteristics of the newer and the novel parts; but this work properly belongs in the designing stage, and not in the preparation stage.

Strategy’s work, therefore, in preparing the naval machine for work consists wholly in preparing the personnel.  This preparing may be divided into two parts—­preparing the existing fleet already mobilized and preparing the rest of the navy.

Preparing the Fleet.—­The fleet itself is always ready.  This does not mean that, in time of profound peace, every ship in the fleet has all its men on board, its chain hove short, and its engines ready to turn over at a moment’s notice; but it does mean that this condition is always approximated in whatever degree the necessities of the moment exact.  Normally, it is not necessary to keep all the men on board; but whenever, or if ever, it becomes so necessary, the men can be kept on board and everything made ready for instant use.  It is perfectly correct, therefore, to say that, so far as it may be necessary, a fleet in active commission is always ready.