640 
COMMENDED ESSAY, 1892 . 
the recruit is given a scanty elementary course, and his subsequent 
training is by the easier method of fault-finding. Many batteries live 
from hand to mouth, the morrow takes care of itself and technical 
training is subordinated to the more pressing requirements of daily 
administration and the rendering of returns. 
For this let us substitute some definite method, applying the chain 
of responsibility to instruction, as well as to interior economy, and 
dividing our time into progressive periods, each with a goal to be 
reached, and in its turn left behind for some fresh one, and surely we 
may look for an outcome far in excess of what we at present obtain. 
It is in this belief that the following suggestions are made as some 
indication of a direction in which our Royal Regiment has still much 
to attempt and much to achieve. 
And here, perhaps, a slight digression is necessary in order to 
disclaim, in ioto , any idea of depreciating the value of good horse- 
mastership, and its overwhelming importance. Guns which are making 
fair shooting on the battle-field are obviously of more value than ones 
which have not been able to reach it, and efficiency in front of the 
splinter-bar is quite as necessary as behind it. This question is, 
however, so obviously outside the limits of the subject that it is only 
alluded to this once in order to avoid any possibility of misapprehen¬ 
sion. 
Conditions of the Problem. 
Taking, then, the conditions of service at home into consideration, 
we find that though fresh men come and go at all periods of the year, 
yet the instruction of the battery is largely influenced by two main 
epochs : the winter trooping season and the summer drills or manoeuvres. 
The rapidity with which the various phases of field days of the three 
arms follow each other renders them very unsuitable for the practice 
of artillery technique , and thus we are under the obligation of finishing 
it before they begin. It may almost be said—tho' with bated breath 
—that their tendency is rather to undo many of the good results and 
strict discipline so laboriously attained on the drill-ground (though 
obviously of great use to the higher ranks), and we must endeavour to 
obtain, before they begin, all the fire discipline which we now look 
upon as so needful. 
The beginning of the summer being then our time limit, whether it 
be on account of summer drills or practice camp, it becomes necessary 
to commence our task well before the end of the furlough season, and 
indeed this is in many ways most advantageous, as theoretical instruc¬ 
tion in gunnery is obviously the precursor of all teaching as regards 
artillery fire. 
For many reasons the winter is the most suitable period for gunnery 
instruction. The weather often necessitates the use of gun-shed and 
lecture-room, the paucity in numbers of men available makes indi¬ 
vidual instruction and attention easier, and the wide range of the 
subjects makes it desirable to spread them over a more or less 
extended period instead of crowding them into a fortnight. The regu¬ 
lation sixty-hours' course may thus well come in the leave and furlough 
