A schedule of training and instruction covering a given period and suitable to the local conditions that obtain in any given school or command, can be readily arranged by looking over the TABLE OF CONTENTS, and selecting therefrom such subjects as it is desired to use, the number and kind, and the time to be devoted to each, depending upon the time available, and climatic and other conditions.
It is suggested that, for the sake of variety, in drawing up a program of instruction and training, when practicable a part of each day or a part of each drill time, be devoted to theoretical work and a part to practical work, theoretical work, when possible, being followed by corresponding practical work, the practice (the doing of a thing) thus putting a clincher, as it were, on the theory (the explaining of a thing). The theoretical work, for example, could be carried on in the forenoon and the practical work in the afternoon, or the theoretical work could be carried on from, say, 8 to 9:30 a. m., and the practical work from 9:30 to 10:30 or 11 a. m.
Attention is invited to the completeness of the Index, whereby one is enabled to locate at once any point covered in the book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance received in the revision of this Manual in the form of suggestions from a large number of officers on duty at our military schools and colleges, suggestions that enabled him not only to improve the Manual in subject-matter as well as in arrangement, but that have also enabled him to give our military schools and colleges a textbook which, in a way, may be said to represent the consensus of opinion of our Professors of Military Science and Tactics as to what such a book should embody in both subject-matter and arrangement.
Suggestions received from a number of Professors of Military Science and Tactics show conclusively that local conditions as to average age and aptitude of students, interest taken in military training by the student body, support given by the school authorities, etc., are so different in different schools that it would be impossible to write a book for general use that would, in amount of material, arrangement and otherwise, just exactly fit, in toto, the conditions, and meet the requirements of each particular school.
Therefore, the only practical, satisfactory solution of the problem is to produce a book that meets all the requirements of the strictly military schools, where the conditions for military training and instruction are the most favorable, and the requirements the greatest, and then let other schools take only such parts of the book as are necessary to meet their own particular local needs and requirements.
"MANUAL OF MILITARY TRAINING" is such a book.
Camp Gaillard, C. Z.,
March 4, 1917.