IN THE RIDING-SCHOOL. 199 



of one of those modern silver-tongued American 

 pedagogues, who make gentle requests lest they 

 should elicit antagonism by commands, the mili- 

 tary school would soon completely alter the com- 

 plexion of his ideas, for he would find his failures 

 in the execution of orders treated as disobedi- 

 ence. He would not be punished at first, it is 

 true, but pretty theories that he was nervous, 

 or ill, or the victim of hereditary disability, or 

 of fibre too delicately attenuated to perform any 

 required act, would not be admitted except, in- 

 deed, as a reason for expulsion. Moreover, the 

 tests to which he would be compelled to submit 

 before this escape from discipline lay open to 

 him, would be neither slight nor easily borne, for 

 the European military teacher has yet to learn 

 the existence of that exquisite personal dignity 

 which is hopelessly blighted by corporal pun- 

 ishment for infractions of discipline. 



"Will you teach me to ride, sir?" asked a 

 Boston man of an Hungarian soldier, one of the 

 pioneers among Boston instructors. 



"Will I teach you ! Eh ! I don't know," said 

 the exile dolefully, for during his few weeks in 

 the city, he had seen something of -the ways of 



