A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country

by George Wood Wingate; Ammon B. Critchfield; National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice

The schools of the different States are organized upon many different methods. The educational authorities not unnaturally are jealous of their prerogatives. No outside organization could well introduce a new subject of instruction in the schools without seriously interfering with the educational routine. Consequently, however desirable it may be that the pupils attending these schools should be taught to shoot, such instruction can only be secured by the voluntary action of the school authorities and with their hearty cooperation.

The result which has been attained by the Public Schools Athletic League in introducing shooting in the high schools of the city of New York has been so thoroughly tested that the committee are of the opinion that that system should be recommended for adoption.

Few appreciate the magnitude of the New York public schools. There are 3 training schools, 19 high schools, 490 elementary schools, 2 truant schools, and 1 nautical school; total, 515, with 14,500 teachers.

These schools are scattered all over the 326 square miles which the city covers.

The registered number of pupils enrolled in these schools is about 600,000, which is more than the entire population of St. Louis, the fourth city in the Union. Half of them are boys. The number attending the high schools is about 20,000, a little more than half of whom are boys. The College of the City of New York has about 4,000 male students.

The vast territory over which the city has spread, and its congested streets have made it impossible for the children (particularly in the poorer districts), to get any physical exercise, and the physical condition of many of them has in consequence not only become below normal, but instead of spending their energies in play, as they do in the country, the boys are led to join "gangs" and to become criminals.

This lamentable condition of affairs led to the formation of the Public Schools Athletic League for the purpose of promoting wholesome athletic exercises among the children attending the public schools of that city. The league is made up from officers and directors of the board of education, superintendents, principals and teachers, prominent athletes, gentlemen interested in philanthropic work, and leading business men. It was organized December 4, 1903, and its progress has been so great that during the year 1906 there were over 150,000 entries in the games which it carried on, which numbered over 600.

In the early part of 1905 it decided to institute rifle practice among the boys of the high schools of the city, which schools are attended by boys from fourteen to nineteen years of age, by installing in as many of the high schools as possible a "subtarget gun machine." This is an ingenious apparatus, by which an ordinary Krag army rifle is attached to a rod upon an upright standard, placed to the right of the firer, in such a way that while the gun is movable, the rod follows the movements of the barrel of the rifle, and is at all times parallel with the line of the sights.

The shooter cocks the rifle and aims at a target a foot high on the other side of the room, and when his aim is satisfactory, pulls the trigger. When this is done an electrical connection is made which shoots forward the rod which is on the standard, so that its point punches a hole in a miniature target like a visiting card, which is placed in front of it, which hole is mathematically on the same relative place on the card target as would have been made in the target at which the shooter was aiming if he had a bullet in his rifle. It consequently gives the same experience in holding and "pull off" as is had in actual shooting.

The machine possesses the additional advantage that the instructor standing on one side of the shooter can see by the movements of the point of the rod on the miniature target exactly how the aim is being taken on the large target and is able to correct all errors in holding and pulling off as they are made, something which has hitherto been supposed to be impossible. The apparatus makes no noise. There is no danger of its hurting anybody. It can be used very rapidly, and there is no expense involved in its operation. The results obtained from its use are so valuable that several of the New York National Guard regiments consider the machine equal in value to their rifle galleries.