The theory and practice of archery

by Horace A. Ford; W. Butt

Unless the archer acquires a perfect understanding of the science of aiming, an almost impassable barrier is presented to his progressing a single step beyond the commonest mediocrity, whilst his interest in his practice is increased tenfold as soon as he has discovered that hitting or missing the object he aims at may be removed from the mysterious condition of an unaccountable sympathy between the hand and eye to the safer ground of positive knowledge.

It is perhaps quite natural that most beginners should assume that at any rate as regards the application of their eyes to the shooting of arrows they can have nothing to learn. Have they not had the full and constant use of their eyes from their earliest infancy? and have not these been with sufficient frequency applied in such a manner as must secure the necessary qualifications for such a simple task as aiming with bows and arrows? There cannot, surely, be any science wanted in the use of weapons that any child can not only use but even make? Was it ever necessary to take lessons in order to secure accuracy in throwing stones? or can any amount of abstract study of optics contribute the smallest improvement or finish to a bowler? So it is in this matter of aiming that beginners, and still more those who are more advanced in practice, seem most to resent interference and advice; partly because they object to being told that they are making a wrong or incomplete use of their own eyes—looking upon it as a direct accusation of folly—when they feel that they must surely know better than their adviser all about those useful members, which, though almost constantly in employ, have never given any trouble, and have never even seemed to require any training or education; and partly with the more advanced, who have met with considerable success in hitting with their purblind (as it may be called) method of aiming, because they fear to weaken their not wholly complete faith[4] in their own system by admitting even the possibility of a better. Thus in this matter of aiming it will be better that the inexperienced archer should be referred to written instruction; and whilst on the subject of instruction it should be thoroughly well enforced that nothing is more unpleasant than the unsolicited interference and advice of the officious busybody, and—particularly at an archery meeting—no unasked advice or instruction should ever be offered.

It need now be no matter of surprise that before the first appearance of this work, in 1855, no writer on archery had been able to grapple intelligently with the subject of aiming. When firearms first took the place of bows and arrows as weapons of war and the chase, the firearms themselves were so inaccurate that chance went almost, if not quite, as far as science in the use of them. Their improvement was but slow and gradual; and for the firing of them the invention of percussion instead of flint and steel, which in its turn had displaced the original fuse, belongs to quite modern times. The neglected bows and arrows naturally gained no improvement; yet, until the invention of rifling firearms, bows and arrows, except for the greater inherent difficulty in the use of them, might have had a better chance to hold their own against Brown Bess and the bullet (it was commonly believed that it cost the expenditure of about a ton of lead to kill a single enemy in battle) had aiming with them been well understood. It cannot be doubted that many an archer (besides those who converted their knuckles into pincushions, and resorted to other dodges) must have hit upon an intelligent method of aiming for himself in early times; but such early experts must have resorted to the expedient of getting the arrow under the eye by pulling low, and would have to bear the withering scorn of all their brethren, who blindly upheld that the grand old English style of aiming from the ear was alone worthy of a man; and such despised experts would be most likely to keep their better knowledge to themselves for the same selfish but valid reason that Kentfield the inventor of the side-stroke in billiards, kept his own counsel as long as he could; and also because any crusade having as its object the deposition of the pull to the ear in favour of the pull to the breast must always have proved quixotic. So it came about that Mr. H. A. Ford was the first who, after five or six years of successful practice and many diligent and careful experiments conducted in combination with Mr. J. Bramhall, braved the danger of being anathematised as a heretic for daring to impugn the dear old legend of the 'pull to the ear,' and preached in favour of a style of shooting that brought the arrow as directly under the archer's eye as is the barrel of a rifle in the hands of a marksman, without resorting to the justly condemned style of pulling as low as the breast.

Much about the same time great improvements were effected in firearms, which brought the accuracy of rifles much closer to perfection. The Volunteer movement, followed by the establishment of the annual Wimbledon rifle meeting, at which a Ross (then an illustrious name) was the first Queen's Prizeman in 1860, brought the scientific practice of aiming to a pitch of perfection that had never previously been dreamed of. Thus it will be seen that archery was not behind firearms in scientific advancement.

It is stated in 'Scloppetaria'—a scarce book on the rifle, published by Colonel Beaufoy in 1812—that 'as the deflection from the original line of flight was an inconvenience from which arrows were not found so liable as bodies projected from firearms, it naturally led to an inquiry how that could arise. The prominent feature of an arrow's flight is to spin with considerable velocity all the time of its flight, and therefore attention was directed towards attaining the same advantage for firearms'; and it is not without interest to notice that the modern rifle is thus directly derived from the clothyard shaft.

The improvement of the conical bullet is a later offspring of the same ancient missile.

An archer holds an intermediate position between a sportsman, who, in his attacks upon moving game, must waste no time in taking aim, and a rifleman, who, even in a standing position, can use the utmost deliberation. If he be as quick as the sportsman he will increase the difficulty of reproducing with each discharge exactly the same accuracy of pull and position. He must not be too hesitatingly slow, or he will spoil his bows and involve himself in unnecessary toil. Further, the rifleman has plenty of leisure to close the eye with which he does not aim; and such closing assists, and in no way hinders, his taking his aim, by bringing the bead at the end of his weapon and the mechanical sight by which the 'length' (distance from the target) is compassed to bear upon the centre of the target, or such other point at some trifling distance from it as the conditions of wind or weather may command; whilst the sportsman, whose weapon cannot be sighted for all the different distances at which the game he fires at may be from himself, must keep both eyes open, so that he may be better able to calculate distances and attend to such other surrounding circumstances as with the then more perfect indirect vision [he] will be able to do, taking in a much wider field than can be obtained when one eye only is open.

In the cases of the comparatively few archers who have but one eye, or where, from the natural but not unfrequent difference in the two eyes, one only is habitually used in aiming, the following considerations of binocular vision can have but an abstract interest. The binocular difficulties, moreover, will not occur to those archers who have acquired the habit of closing one eye whilst aiming. But the habitual closing of the non-aiming eye is not recommended, for the reason that any archer in full use of both eyes can much more readily and clearly watch the flight of his arrow towards the mark with both eyes open. There is as much enjoyment to be obtained by following the course of a well-shot arrow as there is necessity for watching the errors of those that fly amiss that the causes of such errors may if possible be avoided.

But before the demonstration of the true and only scientific mode of aiming can be proceeded with, a few words must be said on the subject of direct and indirect vision.

When both eyes are directed upon the observation of any single object—say the centre of the gold of the target at 100 yards—the axes of the eyes meet at that point, and all parts of the eyes having perfect correspondence as regards that point, the sensation of perfect vision is given, i.e. the best and most accurate image that can be obtained on the retinæ of the point to which the entire attention of both eyes is directed. But at the same time there are images formed on the retinæ, of other objects nearer (those more distant need not be considered) than this point, and to the right and left of it, as well as above and below it; and all such objects are included within the attention of indirect vision. The exact correspondence of the images formed on the two retinæ applies only to the point of direct vision, and the images of all other objects—i.e. the objects of indirect vision—are differently portrayed on each retina. Any object embraced in this indirect vision will be seen less or more distinctly according to its remoteness or otherwise from one or other of the axes in any part of its length; and it will be, or at any rate naturally should be, clearest to the indirect vision of that eye to the axis of which it most approximates.