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Captain A. T. Mahan U. S. Navy.
Six Lectures on the Military Strategy of the Campaign of 1796 in Italy for application to naval strategy
Written at the Naval War College about 1887
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CONFIDENTIAL
Year . . . . . No. . . . . . A - 1 - 5
Author: Mahan, Captain A. T. USN. Contents: Lectures on Military Strategy (5 /6 lectures) Lecture #1.
ARCHIVES OF NAVAL WAR COLLEGE U. S. NAVAL STATION, NEWPORT, R. I.
To be returned
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[40/ C. E. number in Box] [(Original in top left hand drawer of the red desk at [missing word] of room)]
One of the first steps in imparting, or in acquiring, knowledge of any particular subject, is for the teacher to frame and the student to master accurate definitions of the terms, or words peculiar to the subject. Unless these terms, or words, have such fixed meanings and are mutally understood, wrong impressions are almost sure to be conveyed, and teacher and learner are in the position of men endeavoring to exchange ideas by means of a language which to one or the other is unfamiliar. I can remember the time when drills at the great guns were preceeded by no systematic instruction in the nomenclature of the piece and its carriage. Of course, with the simple character of the weapons of those days, the guns' crews day by day picked up, as a child does, the meaning of words by constant repetition and familiar use. Nevertheless, there was a distinct loss of time from the failure to employ the mere rational logical method of first imparting the names and terms to be used in the instruction.
By the a decision of the Board of the College for such a Board at that time existed there has been was assigned to me in 1892 as my particular branch, the treatment of Naval Strategy and Naval Tactics; with these is also associated, necessarily and formally, Naval History. I say necessarily, for Naval History is, in every age the handmaid of Naval Warfare. It contains the