All matters connected with the sea tend to have, in a greater or less
degree, a distinctly specialized character, due to the unfamiliarity
which the sea, as a scene of _action_, has for the mass of mankind.
Nothing is more trite than the remark continually made to naval
officers, that life at sea must give them a great deal of leisure for
reading and other forms of personal culture. Without going so far as
to say that there is no more leisure in a naval officer's life than in
some other pursuits--social engagements, for instance, are largely
eliminated when at sea--there is very much less than persons imagine;
and what there is is broken up by numerous petty duties and incidents,
of which people living on shore have no conception, because they have
no experience. It is evident that the remark proceeds in most cases
from the speaker's own consciousness of the unoccupied monotony of an
ocean passage, in which, unless exceptionally observant, he has not
even detected the many small but essential functions discharged by the
officers of the ship, whom he sees moving about, but the aim of whose
movements he does not understand. The passenger, as regards the
economy of the vessel, is passive; he fails to comprehend, often even
to perceive, the intense functional activity of brain and body which
goes on around him--the real life of the organism.
In the progress of the world, nautical matters of every kind are to
most men what the transactions of a single ship are to the passenger.
They receive impressions, which they mistake for opinions--a most
common form of error. These impressions are repeated from mouth to
mouth, and having the common note of superficial observation, they are
found to possess a certain resemblance. So they serve mutually to
fortify one another, and to constitute a _quasi_ public opinion. The
repetition and stereotyping of impressions are greatly forwarded by
the system of organized gossip which we call the press.
It is in consequence of this, quite as much as of the extravagances
in a certain far from reputable form of journalism, that the power of
the press, great as it unquestionably still is, is not what it should
be. It intensifies the feeling of its own constituents, who usually
take the paper because they agree with it; but if candid
representation of all sides constitutes a fair attempt to instruct the
public, no man expects a matter to be fairly put forward. So far does
this go, in the experience of the present writer, that one of the most
reputable journals in the country, in order to establish a certain
extreme position, quoted his opinion in one paragraph, while omitting
to give the carefully guarded qualification expressed in the very
succeeding paragraph; whereby was conveyed, by implication, the
endorsement of the extreme opinion advocated, which the writer
certainly never held.
Direct misrepresentation, however, whether by commission or by
omission, careless or wilful, is probably less harmful than the
indirect injury produced by continual repetition of unintentional
misconceptions. The former occurs generally in the case of living,
present-moment questions; it reaches chiefly those already convinced;
and it has its counteraction in the arguments of the other party,
which are read by the appropriate constituency. The real work of those
questions of the day goes on behind the scenes; and the press affects
them, not because of its intrinsic power, but only in so far as it is
thought to represent the trend of thought in a body of voters. On
subjects of less immediate moment, as military and naval matters
are--except when war looms near, and preparation is too late--men's
brains, already full enough of pressing cares, refuse to work, and
submit passively to impressions, as the eye, without conscious action,
takes note of and records external incidents. Unfortunately these
impressions, uncorrected by reflection, exaggerated in narration, and
intensified by the repetition of a number of writers, come to
constitute a body of public belief, not strictly rational in its birth
or subsequent growth, but as impassive in its resistance to argument
as it was innocent of mental process during its formation.
The intention of the present paper is to meet, and as far as possible
to remove, some such current errors of the day on naval
matters--popular misconceptions, continually encountered in
conversation and in the newspapers.
Accepting the existence of the navy, and the necessity for its
continuance--for some starting-point must be assumed--the errors to be
touched upon are: