[The Navy as a Fighting Machine by Bradley A. Fiske]@TWC D-Link bookThe Navy as a Fighting Machine CHAPTER IX 35/35
This means that all hands must practise at it--not only the staff in their secret sanctuary, not only the commander-in-chief, not only the division commanders, but, in their respective parts, the captains, the lieutenants, the ensigns, the warrant officers, the petty officers, and the youngest recruits.
To get this practice, the department, through the staff, must furnish the ideas, and the commander-in-chief the tools.
Then, day after day, month after month, and year after year, in port and at sea, by night and by day, the ideas assisted by the tools will be supplying a continuous stimulus to the minds of all.
This stimulus, properly directed through the appropriate channels and devoted to wise purposes, will reach the mess attendant, the coal-passer, and the recruit, as well as those in positions more responsible (though not more honorable); and as the harmony of operation of the whole increases, as skill in each task increases, and as a perception of the strategic _why_ for the performance of each task increases, the knowledge will be borne in on all that in useful occupation is to be found the truest happiness; that only uninterested work at any task is drudgery; that interest in work brings skill, that skill brings pleasure in exerting it; and that the greater the number of men engaged together, and the more wise the system under which they work, the greater will be the happiness of each man, and the higher the efficiency of the whole..
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