54 RIDING 



the rein, while Patroclus wanders at his own sweet will. I often 

 trot or gallop at my nag's quite unrestrained gait. But if I 

 want to collect him, if I want that obedience which the school 

 teaches him to yield, he must, to be to me a perfect horse, at 

 my slightest inclination give himself absolutely to my control 

 and take all the rest from me. I feel that I am a good judge 

 of either habit of riding, as I have well tried both and absolutely 

 adhere to neither.' 



The argument so far as it is based upon newspaper para- 

 graphs about accidents has no value. A school horse is sus- 

 ceptible of sudden fright and might get beyond control, and 

 the best rider may be momentarily off his guard ; but other- 

 wise this evidence has value. The truth about school-riding 

 doubtless is that it is an acquired taste. Some men find 

 peculiar delight in it, to others it is tedious and meaningless as 

 an exercise, and, with regard to utility, though it may be ad- 

 mitted that there are possibilities of occasions arising when the 

 school-rider's special command over his horse may prove of 

 great importance, as a rule the Englishman finds that he has 

 no necessity for the practice of school arts. He derives all 

 imaginable enjoyment from riding in the manner in which he 

 is accustomed to ride, and has no inclination to do more, though 

 it is doubtless true that no man can open a gate properly who 

 has not been taught to ' use his legs,' and a more undesirable 

 companion than a man who constantly rides up against you 

 and takes the buttons off your breeches it is difficult to imagine. 

 The school rider tells the horseman who passes muster as well 

 accomplished in the hunting field that he is wilfully ignoring 

 an untried source of pleasure. It might be so. 



Quam scit uterque, libens, censebo, exerceat artem. 



There is this to be said, moreover, that to teach man or 

 horse these * airs,' as they are called, is a very prolonged under- 

 taking, as an anecdote related in the book just mentioned 

 shows. 'One of my friends in Touraine,' the author says ? 

 1 used in his youth to be a pupil of the famous Baucher. He 



