548 
SKILL-AT-AEMS. 
to come into action with regard to the position, or the line of advance, 
of other troops, and with especial regard to the close support of their 
own infantry and cavalry, and not with regard to cover: therefore, 
nothing can be worse than to teach artillery to come into action with 
muzzles just over the top of a hill. Officers ought to be exercised in 
showing artillery positions, always with regard to other troops. It 
would be better to incite some audacity of conception in attack than 
to inculcate caution. 
In standing gun-drill, it is wrong to say that No. 1, ceasing to lay, 
may take the place of No. 3, fit fuzes, and continue to command; dis¬ 
cipline is made inferior to gunnery. No. 1 must lay. It is difficult to say 
who ought to fit the fuze. A paper lately contributed by an officer of 
the Regiment to these “ Proceedings 33 is perhaps the only trustworthy 
account of good practice made with time fuzes under fire. The story is 
that good shooting was made with two guns, somewhere in the south¬ 
east of Europe, by a lawyer who fitted his fuzes himself. We might 
make good shooting if we could afford to let the subaltern officers fit 
fuzes; but with us it is better for the officers to command their 
sections ; so, unless No. 1 can do the duty, fitting fuzes to order must 
be left to the discretion of No. 3 and the chance of No. 1 correcting 
error. Silent drill is a dismal conception and a vain imagining. We 
may have silent drill; but in battle an officer will surely revert to the 
use of his voice, before or after he has tried futile signs. 
Chap. V., Yol. II. of our drill-book, and the drill at our practice camp, 
have brought on us a partial paralysis. This affects us now at home. 
In war, we should throw away the bad things we have been learning, 
and then do our duty very well : that is most devoutly to be wished 
for. We may have learned to try more to find out by observation of 
our fire whether we have the right range. On the other hand, we 
should have to throw away all we have been taught about reconnais¬ 
sance, range-finding by a non-commissioned officer with an instrument, 
preparatory position, and hiding and creeping. As there is danger of 
some of our officers, on their entering upon a campaign, being unable 
at once to free themselves from the effects of the bad teaching of years, 
it is advisable to proceed now to correct our drill, and to make our 
instructions not detrimental. 
Our error seems to have begun when some clever officers with no 
practical knowledge took up the study of foreign military literature. 
But those officers could not have led us astray had it not been that the 
officers of Horse and Field Artillery who had practical knowledge were 
without reading, and, moreover, had left gunnery and the gun to be 
looked after by Shoeburyness. The source of much of our error is in 
foreign military literature; but the idea of drilling to take cover came 
to us from our infantry. It may have been evolved out of the inner 
consciousness of one of our officers who had not seen fire; or it may 
have been inspired by something he read. The artillery drill-book was 
evidently not a mine of learning and our officers who had practical 
knowledge did not seem inclined to see what might be learned from 
the study of the great events which had passed on the continent, when 
that study was taken up by clever officers who had ambition to distin- 
