or as it becomes apparent that they are useless.  Probably the result would be attained by adding a single battleship to our navy each year, the superseded or outworn vessels being laid up or broken up as they are thus replaced.  The four single-turret monitors built immediately after the close of the Spanish war, for instance, are vessels which would be of but little use in the event of war.  The money spent upon them could have been more usefully spent in other ways.  Thus it would have been far better never to have built a single one of these monitors and to have put the money into an ample supply of reserve guns.  Most of the smaller cruisers and gunboats, though they serve a useful purpose so far as they are needed for international police work, would not add to the strength of our navy in a conflict with a serious foe.  There is urgent need of providing a large increase in the number of officers, and especially in the number of enlisted men.

Recent naval history has emphasized certain lessons which ought not to, but which do, need emphasis.  Seagoing torpedo boats or destroyers are indispensable, not only for making night attacks by surprise upon an enemy, but even in battle for finishing already crippled ships.  Under exceptional circumstances submarine boats would doubtless be of use.  Fast scouts are needed.  The main strength of the navy, however, lies, and can only lie, in the great battleships, the heavily armored, heavily gunned vessels which decide the mastery of the seas.  Heavy-armed cruisers also play a most useful part, and unarmed cruisers, if swift enough, are very useful as scouts.  Between antagonists of approximately equal prowess the comparative perfection of the instruments of war will ordinarily determine the fight.  But it is, of course, true that the man behind the gun, the man in the engine room, and the man in the conning tower, considered not only individually, but especially with regard to the way in which they work together, are even more important than the weapons with which they work.  The most formidable battleship is, of course, helpless against even a light cruiser if the men aboard it are unable to hit anything with their guns, and thoroughly well-handled cruisers may count seriously in an engagement with much superior vessels, if the men aboard the latter are ineffective, whether from lack of training or from any other cause.  Modern warships are most formidable mechanisms when well handled, but they are utterly useless when not well handled, and they cannot be handled at all without long and careful training.  This training can under no circumstance be given when once war has broken out.  No fighting ship of the first class should ever be laid up save for necessary repairs, and her crew should be kept constantly exercised on the high seas, so that she may stand at the highest point of perfection.  To put a new and untrained crew upon the most powerful battleship and send it out to meet a formidable enemy