The sapient race of quill-drivers ever has hugged to its breast many delusions; some of which border upon the outer intellectual darkness. One of these delusions is that most persistently advertised, least substantial, but forever darling first favorite of timid and inexperienced minds: “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Explanation of the invincible ignorance of the penny-a-liner is simple, viz.:
Of the myriad self-appointed educators to the public, few are familiar even with the rudimentary principles of Military Science and almost none are acquainted even with the simplest processes of Strategetic Art. Hence, like all who discourse on matters which they do not understand, such writers continually confound together things which have no connection.
Ignorant of war and the use of weapons; bewildered by the prodigious improvements in mechanical details, they immoderately magnify the importance of such improvements, oblivious to the fact that these latter relate exclusively to elementary tactics and in no way affect the system of Strategy, Logistics, and the higher branches of Tactics.
Of such people, the least that can be said and that in all charity, is, that before essaying the role of the pedagogue, they should endeavor to grasp that most obvious of all truths:
“A man cannot teach what he never has learned.”
Says Frederic the Great: “Improvements and new discoveries in implements of warfare will be made continually; and generals then alive must modify tactics to comply with these novelties. But the Grand Art of taking advantage of topographical conditions and of the faulty disposition of the opposing forces, ETERNALLY WILL REMAIN UNCHANGED in the military system.”
Naturally, the student now is led to inquire: