You are going to make them fitter
to obey your orders and to serve the country. You are going to make them
fitter to see what the orders mean in their outlook upon life and upon
the service; and that is a great privilege, for out of you is going the
energy and intelligence which are going to quicken the whole body of the
United States Navy.
I congratulate you upon that prospect, but I want to ask you not to get
the professional point of view. I would ask it of you if you were
lawyers; I would ask it of you if you were merchants; I would ask it of
you whatever you expected to be. Do not get the professional point of
view. There is nothing narrower or more unserviceable than the
professional point of view, to have the attitude toward life that it
centers in your profession. It does not. Your profession is only one of
the many activities which are meant to keep the world straight, and to
keep the energy in its blood and in its muscle. We are all of us in this
world, as I understand it, to set forward the affairs of the whole
world, though we play a special part in that great function. The Navy
goes all over the world, and I think it is to be congratulated upon
having that sort of illustration of what the world is and what it
contains; and inasmuch as you are going all over the world you ought to
be the better able to see the relation that your country bears to the
rest of the world.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132