Eighteenth-century drill prescribed marching steps to the second and inch

Evidence

In the mid-eighteenth century, there are four sorts of steps: ‘The length of the the short step will be a foot, that of the ordinary step, the double step and the marching step will be two feet, the whole measured from one heel to the next; as for the duration, that of the small step and the ordinary step will last one second, during which two double steps would be performed; the duration of the marching step will be a little longer than one second. The oblique step will take one second; it will be at most eighteen inches from one heel to the next.… The ordinary step will be executed forwards, holding the head up high and the body erect, holding oneself in balance successively on a single leg, and bringing the other forwards, the ham taut, the point of the foot a little turned outwards and low, so that one may without affectation brush the ground on which one must walk and place one’s foot, in such a way that each part may come to rest there at the same time without striking the ground’ — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 231

Categorization

• CANDY: The absurd precision of the 1766 marching ordinance — steps measured in feet, seconds, and eighteen-inch obliques — is a delightful concrete detail.
• SEED: The contrast between vague ‘march to the drum’ discipline and the 1766 ordinance’s quantification is a ready-made essay hook about how precise measurement itself becomes a form of control.