INTRODUCTION 



Ordinarily a book of this kind needs no introduc- 

 tion; it either explains itself in the clearness of the 

 diagrams and pages or else it is so didactically incom- 

 prehensible that no amount of introduction could pos- 

 sibly clarify the atmosphere. 



But I am under obligations to various gentlemen 

 whose suggestions, or methods, have appeared to me 

 of great value in presenting and arranging this subject. 

 There is the unknown gentleman — perhaps many of them 

 — who have devised or evolved the typical method of 

 preparing Army drill regulations of the United States. 

 It is the most compact, exact and limpid method of 

 standardizing and transmitting information of this char- 

 acter that has been devised. A thousand years from now 

 men who have never seen the execution of an evolution 

 of our present generation could work and drill in 

 the forgotten maneuvres with as great an exactness as 

 soldiers are drilled to-day. And that is the test of 

 clearness. 



I have therefore adopted the method of the Army 

 manual — not that I intend it as a rigid method of exe- 

 cution for packs or hitches, but that it is absolute in its 



