Manual of Military Training / Second, Revised Edition

by James A. Moss

[916]. In the administration of discipline the following principles should be observed.

1. Everyone, officers and soldiers, should be required and made to perform their full duty. If the post commander, for instance, requires the company commanders to do their full duty, they will require their noncommissioned officers to do their full duty, and the noncommissioned officers will in turn require the men to do the same.

2. Subordinates should be held strictly responsible for the proper government and administration of their respective commands, and all changes or corrections should be made through them.

3. Subordinates should have exclusive control of their respective commands, and all orders, instructions and directions affecting their commands should be given through them.

4. If, in case of emergency, it be not practicable to make certain changes or corrections, or to give certain orders, instructions or directions, through the subordinates, they should be notified at once of what has been done.

5. After a subordinate has been placed in charge of a certain duty, all instructions pertaining thereto should be given through him, and all meddling and interfering should be avoided. Interference by superiors relieves the subordinate of responsibility, and causes him to lose interest, become indifferent, and do no more than he is obliged to do.

6. The certainty of reward for, and appreciation of, meritorious conduct, should equal the certainty of punishment for dereliction of duty.

7. It is the duty of an officer or noncommissioned officer who gives an order to see that it is obeyed; carrying out orders received by him does not end with their perfunctory transmission to subordinates—this is only a small part of his duty. He must personally see that the orders so transmitted are made effective.

8. The treatment of soldiers should be uniform and just, and under no circumstances should a man be humiliated unnecessarily or abused. Reproof and punishment must be administered with discretion and judgment, and without passion; for an officer or noncommissioned officer who loses his temper and flies into a tantrum has failed to obtain his first triumph in discipline. He who can not control himself can not control others.

9. Punishment should invariably follow dereliction of duty, for the frequency of offenses depends, as a general rule, on the degree of certainty with which their commission is attended with punishment. When men know that their derelictions and neglects will be observed and reproved, they will be much more careful than they would be otherwise—that's human nature.