Drill

Drill, the training of soldiers or other persons to perform certain sets of actions smartly and spontaneously at the word of command or other signal (e.g. a musical sound). The process may be said to consist (1) of analysing the actions into their component parts and teaching the persons drilled to distinguish them, (2) in training the persons to perform the separate parts of the action in rapid succession, automatically at a given signal. It. is tolerably certain that connections corresponding to the mental association of the signals with the series of actions become organised in the nervous system, so that the motions come to be a case of reflex action (q.v.). In the army drill may be classed roughly as either gymnastic drill, marching drill, "or gun drill. The two former are coming to have a very important place in physical education.