As to tactical principles, it is recognized that the function of artillery is to assist the other arms, that it cannot by itself win a battle, and that its true métier is to prepare the way for and assist the infantry. During 1914-18 some 700,000 officers and men served with the Royal Regiment.
Artillery Company, The Honourable, the oldest existing body of volunteers in Great Britain, instituted in 1537, revived in 1610. It comprises six companies of infantry, besides artillery, and furnishes a guard of honour to the sovereign when visiting the city of London. Previous to 1842 the Company elected their own officers, but since that date they have been appointed by the Crown.
Artillery Schools, institutions established for the purpose of giving a special training to the officers, and in some cases the men, belonging to the artillery service. In Great Britain the artillery schools are at Woolwich and Shoeburyness. The Department of Artillery studies at Woolwich give artillery officers the means of continuing their studies after they have completed the usual course at the Royal Military College, and of qualifying for appointments requiring exceptional scientific attainments. The School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness gives instruction in gunnery to officers and men, and conducts all experiments connected with artillery and stores. The sands at the mouth of the Thames afford ample opportunity for artillery practice and firing at long ranges. The Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich contains a museum, lecture-room, and printing-press, from which professional and scientific papers are periodically issued.
Artiodac´tyla (Gr. artios, even numbered, daktўlos, a finger or toe), a section of the Ungulata or hoofed mammals, comprising all those in which the number of the toes is even (two or four), including the ruminants, such as the ox, sheep, deer, &c., and also a number of non-ruminating animals, as the hippopotamus and the pig.
Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act, an English Act of Parliament passed in 1868 to empower town councils and other local authorities to demolish or improve dwellings unfit for human habitation, and to build and maintain better dwellings in lieu thereof. Other Acts for the same object were passed in 1875, 1879, and 1882. See Housing.
Artocarpa´ceæ, a nat. ord. of plants, the bread-fruit order, by some botanists ranked as a sub-order of the Urticaceæ or nettles. They are trees or shrubs, with a milky juice, which in some species hardens into caoutchouc, and in the cow-tree (Brosĭmum Galactodendron) is a milk as good as that obtained from the cow. Many of the plants produce an edible fruit, of which the best known is the bread-fruit (Artocarpus).
Artois (a˙r-twä), a former province of France, anciently one of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, now almost completely included in the department of Pas-de-Calais.
Artois, The Battle of. See European War.
Arts, the name given to certain branches of study in the Middle Ages, originally called the 'liberal arts' to distinguish them from the 'servile arts' or mechanical occupations. These arts were usually given as grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Hence originated the terms 'art classes', 'degrees in arts', 'Master of Arts', &c., still in common use in universities, the faculty of arts being distinguished from those of divinity, law, medicine, or science. See University.