Excerpt from The Theory and Practice of Archery In writing his book, Mr. Ford committed to paper the principles by means of which he secured his unrivalled posi tion as an archer. After displaying a clever trick, it is the practice of some conjurers to pretend to take the spectators into their confidence, and to show them how it is done.' In such cases the audience, as a rule, is not much the wiser; but a more satisfactory result has followed from Mr. Ford's instructions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In writing his book, Mr. Ford committed to paper the principles by means of which he secured his unrivalled position as an archer. After displaying a clever trick, it is the practice of some conjurers to pretend to take the spectators into their confidence, and to show them 'how it is done.' In such cases the audience, as a rule, is not much the wiser; but a more satisfactory result has followed from Mr. Ford's instructions. Mr. Ford was the founder of modern scientific archery. First by example, and then by precept, he changed what before was 'playing at bows and arrows' into a scientific pastime. He held the Champion's medal for eleven years in succession-from 1849 to 1859. He also won it again in 1867. After this time, although he was seen occasionally in the archery field, his powers began to wane. He died in the year 1880. His best scores, whether at public matches or in private practice, have never been surpassed

The "aim" is undoubtedly the most abstruse and scientific point connected with the practice of Archery; the most difficult to teach, yet the most necessary to be taught; upon which all successful practice depends, yet respecting which the most sublime ignorance generally prevails; the want of a due understanding of which is all but universal, yet without which understanding an impassable barrier is presented to the progressing a single step beyond the commonest mediocrity. Ignorance of this fundamental principle it is that causes so many Archers endowed with every quality required to make great and accurate shots - health, strength, correctness of eye, &c. - to stand still, as it were, at a certain point, immoveable, and, if I may coin a word, unimproveable - year after year hammering away in the despairing pursuit of bulls' eyes, without any perceptible improvement or increase of skill, until at last, ... the whole matter has been given up in sheer hopelessness and disgust at continued ill-success.

Excerpt from Archery The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful to this and future generations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

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This is a facsimile reprint of the original book by Horace Alfred Ford, rebuilt using the latest technology. There are no poor, missing or blurred pages and all photographic images have been professionally restored. At Yokai Publishing we believe that by restoring this title to print it will live on for generations to come.