or unprecedented.  Similarily, if the head of the admiralty of the E fleet were a very skilful strategist, and the head of the admiralty of the F fleet were not, and if the various admirals, captains, lieutenants, engineers, and gunners of the E fleet were highly skilled, and those of the F fleet were not, the E fleet might be victorious, even if materially it were much the smaller in material and personnel.  In case the head of the admiralty of the E fleet were the more skilful, while the officers of the F fleet were, on the average, more skilful than those of the E fleet, it would be impossible to weigh the difference between them; but as a rough statement, it may be said that if the head of the admiralty of either fleet is more skilful than the other, his officers will probably be more skilful than the officers of the other; so pervasive is the influence of the chief.

The effectiveness of modern ships and guns and engines and torpedoes, when used with perfect skill, is so great that we tend unconsciously to assume the perfect skill, and think of naval power in terms of material units only.  Yet daily life is full of reminders that when two men or two bodies of men contend, the result depends in large though varying measure on their relative degrees of skill.

Whenever one thinks of using skill, he includes in his thought the thing in the handling of which the skill is employed.  One can hardly conceive of using skill except in handling something of the general nature of an instrument, even if the skill is employed in handling something which is not usually called an instrument.  For instance, if a man handles an organization with the intent thereby to produce a certain result, the organization is the instrument whereby he attempts to produce the result.

If a man exercises perfect skill, he achieves with his instrument 100 per cent of its possible effect.  If he exercises imperfect skill, he achieves a smaller percentage of its possible effect.

To analyze the effectiveness of skill, let us coin the phrase, “effective skill,” and agree that, if a man produces 100 per cent of the possible, his effective skill is 100 per cent, and, in general, that a man’s effective skill in using any instrument is expressed by the percentage he achieves of what the instrument can accomplish; that, for instance, if a gun is fired at a given range under given conditions, and 10 per cent hits are made in a given time, then the effective skill employed is 10 per cent.

From this standpoint we see that imperfect skill is largely concerned with errors.  If a man uses, say, a gun, with perfect skill, he commits no error in handling the gun; and the smaller the sum total of errors which he commits in handling the gun, the greater his effective skill and the greater the number of hits.

The word “errors,” as here used, does not simply mean errors of commission, but means errors of omission as well.  If a man, in firing a gun, fails to press the button or trigger when his sights are on, he makes an error just as truly as the man does who presses the button or trigger when the sights are not on.