" EYESAND NO EYES" IN THE ARMY. G ENERAL SIR FREDERICK
MAURICE, command- ing at Woolwich, has issued a General Order to the officers of his district urging them to teach their men to use their eyes. Though not too long for the subject, it is too long to quote in full, but the following are the main points in this sensible warning :— "The attention of the General Officer Commanding is almost daily directed to cases in which men of all branches of the service have failed to use their eyes. Buckets are hanging up all round a room, and the non-commissioned officer in charge, at the moment when they are required, has never observed that they were there. A policeman is asked why he is allowing some irregularity, and replies, with evident candour, 'I beg your pardon, Sir, I did not see.' The variety of similar incidents that occur constantly is so great, and represents a blindness so universal and alarming, that the G.O.C. feels it necessary to impress upon every officer in the garrison the fact that, by the wording of his commission and by the custom of the Service, it is his duty to train men under him in whatsoever is necessary to their efficiency in war. Subaltern officers in their lectures to the men will select illustra- tions from war showing its importance. They will find plenty in the last war, even if they are not as familiar as they ought to make themselves with the past history of war, which is full of them. 'I did not see it' is habitually to be regarded as a con- fession of incapacity for soldiering, no matter how commonplace and trivial the incident to which it applies."
The pessimism is quite misplaced which says : "Oh, it is hopeless to teach this kind of thing. It is no good going in for abstract training with no object in sight, and quite use- less to think that our Tommies ' can learn to see like the Boers, who are always out shooting game, or like the bush- men, who spend their lives tracking cattle and finding their way through pathless scrub." To learn to see and observe naturally, and with the pleasant inducement of sport, is one way, and perhaps as good as any other. But it is not the only way. In this country it nearly always begins by a taste for field sports, even of the humblest kind. The late Sir W. Plower once told the writer that he considered that "bird- nesting was just as good a form of sport as any other," mean- ing that it needed the same quick eye and ready inference. Lord Willoughby D'Eresby's "Advice to Whippers-in" in the February number of the Badminton Magazine is a good example of the training. learnt and required by those who amuse themselves with field sports seriously enough to make them a business. But in the best of surroundings it is not a habit which "comes of itself." It is always the result of practice, whether the object for which it is employed be plea- sure or profit, or, as in the case of animals, the avoidance of danger. Like virtue as defined by Aristotle, it is a state of mind in which the body acts as a servant, ruled by a perma- nent disposition to make the best use of the faculties. As in the virtue of industry there comes a period when it is harder to be idle than to work, so in the virtue of habitual vigilance there comes a state when it is harder not to see than to see. A man who has acquired this kind of vigilance never loses it, neither in suitable surroundings does anything induce him to forego it. He sees, with effort- less precision, the inanimate objects around him ; he knows by quick analogy their nature, their distance, the probable course of streams where partly hidden from sight, the heights of hills, the hardness or softness of the ground, and the like. Reason aids sight, doubtless. But it is the actual use of the eye which presents the essential factors. If the whole list of tribes or classes famous for quick and long sight be tabled, it will be found that in nearly every case the training has come in the pursuit either of sport, or of wild animals hunted for food or profit. The practical inference is that if our soldiers are to be trained to see, and to use their common-sense as to what the objects seen may mean, the pro- cess by which these hunting races or hunters have learnt the art must be reproduced in some way, with the sport and its interest left out. This does not sound attractive, or very promising. General Ian Hamilton lately wrote that Lord Lovat's Scouts, almost entirely recruited from the Highland stalkers and gillies, were a match for the Boers at their own business, both in scouting and shooting. That is evidence that the people of these islands, when brought up in suitable surroundings, are the equals of any other race in the natural faculty of sight. No sensible person could doubt it. They are, on the whole, the strongest, best fed, and healthiest race in the world. But their usual surroundings, which often do develop their other bodily faculties, are, it must be admitted, very much against the development of eyes. It is difficult to name many trades or crafts in which quickness of vision is needed or distant objects are habitually watched. The men who judge distance most constantly and narrowly all day long are the cabmen and carmen in the large towns. Their sight and judgment are astonishing, and quick inferences as to which way another vehicle is going to turn, or where it will draw up, are made by them all day. Men who enlist from such employments are said often to make the best gunners in the Artillery. But what chance has an artisan working indoors, or a mill hand, or a mason, or a plumber, of learning to use his eyes ? Very little, it must be admitted. In the rural districts there is one great advantage for the natural training of eyesight. The distances are far greater than in towns, and the eye can be, and sometimes is, focussed on distant points during great part of the day. People living among mountains, as in Wales, Scotland, and even on Dartmoor, habitually carry the head at a slightly different angle from townsmen. See, for instance, how Scotch Highland girls or Albanian Arnauts carry their heads. But nothing ever gets the urban person's head up. Quickness of sight, even for what is around him, may be a positive drawback to urban success. The objects around are alike too numerous and too insignifi- cant to the seer. If he takes in the bearings, actions, approach, and departure of the utterly detached crowds of people and horses in the streets, he is actually wasting energy, and distracting his brain from his work. It is waste of the senses, unless he means to write on what he has seen, because all these objects are absolutely out of relation to himself and each other, neither friends nor foes, playing no part in his life. In war time or in the wilderness each living being is of supreme interest. There is scarcely a creature but can tell something which it is important to know. In the cities any personal interest is centred indoors. Out of doors the citizen moves resolutely, and perhaps properly, abutting the eyes of his mind to outside impressions. His business is thinking, not seeing.
Is it then impossible to educate soldiers to use their eyes after they have joined the Army, with no previous special training of the faculty of sight and seeing, but rather the reverse ? There is the hest reason for believing the con-
trary, and on analogous evidence. Our sailors, men in the sister-Service, and drawn from all classes (Mr. Arnold-Forster says that the ploughboy is as eager to go to sea as the fisher
man's son, and makes an equally good seaman), have, as a class, the best " professional " sight of any of our countrymen. For the purposes of their calling they can see for distances, and through screens of fog, darkness, rain, and cloud, in the same way as the envied possessor of a "duck eye" can see wildfowl in thick weather or by moonlight. The training of a seaman's sight is peculiar. As the surface on which he sees objects is a dead flat, the first requisite is long-distance sight, and the recognition of minute differences in the rig or shape of ships long before they are clear of the horizon. He has, in fact, to be able to see things which are "over the world's edge" from his standpoint, and only show up little by little over the bend of the circle. In order to do this he uses, by a habit which has become a second nature, not only his own eyes, but every means which science has invented to aid them. It was quoted as something quite astonishing that the Boer officers and men were equipped with glasses to make the best use of their eyes across their sea—the veldt. Why, there is not an English A.B. who would not expect to be able to do the same when keeping watch, and even a pensioner or Coastguardsman would no more think of leaving his glasses behind him when be went to take his turn on the beach than a fisherman would of leaving his landing - net behind when he expected to catch heavy trout. Again, it is as obligatory for a naval officer on duty to carry his telescope as his sword. Our seamen, and we have over one hundred thousand of them, have learned to use their faculty of eight to the utmost, and to avail themselves as a habit of every artificial aid. In addition they acquire, besides general handiness, all the specialised knowledge and " tips " to draw conclusions from what they see. The correctness with which they infer what some distant scarcely distinguishable vessel is, what coal she is burning, how fast she is going, where she hails from, what her business is, and the like is past under- standing by a landsman. But the secret is simple enough. The sailor has learnt to use his eyes and to think over the reports they make to him.
This is an instance of the professional learning of the art of seeing which is exactly what is required of our soldiers. It shows that observation, vigilance, quickness of vision, and its proper uses for the purposes of warlike efficiency can be and are learnt by the same class from which our Army is drawn, and learnt in the ordinary way of business. That the faculty of keen sight exists, while the capacity for its use can be developed, will be an encouragement to those responsible for teaching the Army. But it must be admitted that the difficulties in the way of giving the requisite practice are great. You can no more teach men to use their eyes by barrack-square drill than you can train foxhounds to kill a fox in the kennel yard. The first move must be to take the men into the open. As in nine cases out of ten the "hostile objects" they need training to see are other men, it should not be difficult to make seeing, scouting, and lying hidden an interesting and intelligent form of drill. The territorial system, by scattering depots throughout the country, makes such outdoor training more possible than formerly. The Rifle Brigade, for instance, have their depot at Winchester. Miles of downs, with their valleys, farmsteads, and rough hillsides, are available for this kind of training. Near Oxford, Shotover Hill, Cowley, and the countryside generally offer chances of the same kind. Baden-Powell's book on scouting supplies enough ideas to carry beginners some way on the road to success. But train- ing in sight is a field in which much should be left to indi. vidual officers. As a class Englishmen excel in teaching their keepers and whips how to use their eyes and judgment. Doubtless, if they give their minds to it, they can train soldiers too.
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