COAST ARTILLERY, JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

EDITORIAL
Correspondence Courses in Troop Schools
SINCE its organization the Department of Correspondence Courses
at the Coast Artillery School has been engaged in the preparation
of text material, assignment sheets, and other matter required in the
conduct of the courses of instruction offered by that department. The
work now nears completion and the department is in a position to offer
to the officers eligible for enrollment a series of thoroughly digested
and well prepared subcourses, each complete in itself and each requiring
thirty-five hours or less of the student's time.
According to Army Regulations, the correspondence courses are
intended primarily to provide instruction for members of the Organized
Reserves and the National Guard but are open to officers of the Regular
Army on detached duty of a nature such as to preclude their receiving
instruction through other agencies. To such officersthese courses will be
of immense value, but their use should be extended to make them available
to other officers of the Regular services, particularly those pursuing
courses of instruction in troop schools.
Troop schools are established by corps area, post, camp, and unit
commanders for the purpose, so far as the officers are concerned, of
insuring uniformity and coordination of training throughout the command,
of providing the basic course for commissioned officers, and of
providing general military educational courses for officerson duty with
troops. These purposes can be accomplished to better effect, with less
local overhead and with a greater degree of standardization, through
the use of the material furnished with the correspondence courses in
all cases where the subject matter of these courses coincides with that of
the troop schools. For example, in the case of materiel not available
at a post, the correspondence course, being complete in itself, will provide
a suitable minimum of instruction with a maximum of facility.
On the other hand, if the materiel be available, the correspondence
course will be simplified and may easily be expanded to the extent
permitted hy local facilties.
It is not necessary, nor is it desirable, that such courses be conducted
as correspondence courses. It would be sufficient to make the
text and other matter available to the officers now charged with the
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