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SYNOPTICAL CHARTS 
APPLIED TO MILITARY SUBJECTS. 
BY 
CAPTAIN B. R. WARD, R.E. 
Instructor in Fortification and Geometrical Drawing 
at the 
Royal Military Academy , Woolwich. 
A Lecture delivered/ at the Loyal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, Thursday, 27th October, 1898. 
Colonel R. Corbett, R.A. in the chair. 
T HE CHAIRMAN :—Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think it is 
necessary to introduce Captain Ward to you; he is very well 
known here. I will, therefore, simply ask him to commence his lecture. 
Captain WARD :—As the subject of Comparative Synoptical Charts 
is probably new to many of you, it may, perhaps, be as well to com¬ 
mence with a few words of definition and explanation. 
The charts published by the Comparative Synoptical Chart Com¬ 
pany, of 5, Copthall Buildings, E.C., are called synoptical in that 
they present in each case a synopsis or bird’s eye view of the subject 
delineated, and they are called comparative in that they enable the 
comparative significance of contemporaneous events to be appreciated. 
Now the root idea on which the work of this company is based is 
that the eye can apprehend in a minute more than the ear can receive 
in an hour. This is a very old and well-established principle. 
In the teaching of geography it is consistently acted upon. Maps 
and charts enable us to realise in five minutes what hours of verbal 
description would never convey. 
In the study of history, graphic methods have, however, (speaking 
generally,) been up to the present conspicuous by their absence. 
Now from the point of view of the student of history, military or 
otherwise, this is nothing less than a monumental blunder, not to say a 
crime. Consider for a moment what the sense of sight can do as com¬ 
pared with the other senses. A landscape with its clearly detailed 
foreground, its less defined middle distance, and its hazy distance, 
presents no difficulties to the sense of sight. We can take it all in as 
we say at a glance. 
How slow and tentative are the methods by which the sense of 
touch, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, and the sense of taste 
convey information to the brain. 
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