The course of training, which is with a few exceptions, common to both officers and men, is very comprehensive; it includes—
1. The usual infantry drills and musketry instruction.
2. The exercise of field guns and rockets, with such field battery movements as are of real practical importance.
3. The service of heavy ordnance, including guns, howitzers, and sea and land service mortars.
4. The naval great gun exercise.
5. Mounting and dismounting ordnance, with or without machines.
6. The various methods of slinging and transporting ordnance.
7. Knotting, splicing, and fitting gun gear, use of pulleys, &c.
8. A laboratory course, including:—use and preparation of tubes, rockets, and fuzes; making up cartridges; manufacture of port fires, Valenciennes stars, signal rockets, blue lights, &c., with instruction in the manufacture and effects of gunpowder and other explosive compounds.
9. A course of practical gunnery, comprising—instruction in the nature and uses of the various kinds of guns, howitzers, and mortars; in the natures, employment, and effects of the various projectiles; disparting and sighting ordnance; heating and firing red-hot shot; and such matters connected with the theory of projectiles as may have a practical application.