DOES SCHOLARSHIP COUNT IN WAR?
The Spanish war has shown that it is not always the men who stand at the heads of their classes who lead in the more practical duties of ship and camp. Admiral Sampson, one of the greatest thinkers and most profound students in the navy, as a boy and as a man always led in everything he undertook; but, on the other hand, Hobson, though one of the leaders of his class at Annapolis, was demure and retiring, hardly the man one would select to lead a forlorn hope into the jaws of death.
One may go through the list man for man, and find as many backward in their studies as those who have carved high niches for themselves in the Academy records.
No proposition could cover the situation in a general way, for, after all, the men we have heard from were perhaps only lucky,—lucky in being chosen as the instruments of the result. There are hundreds—thousands—of officers in the service, some brilliant, some wise, some brave, some strong, as good as they, who have lacked only opportunity. The singling out of any names for special mention seems an injustice to them,—“the heroes of the heart.”