284 KESTIVENESS: ITS PREVENTION AND CUIiE. 



tance — the proper objects of the school are : first, to fix 

 on standards of speed and work attainable by the ave- 

 rages of various classes of horses; secondly, to enable 

 them to move with ease to themselves, and with the aid of 

 the rider's one hand alone, on curved lines in various 

 paces — that is to say, to make them handy; and, thirdly, 

 to do all this in perfect obedience, and in such a manner 

 that the inevitable wear and tear should be equally 

 divided over all four legs, by which means the total 

 period of service may be considerably prolonged. In a 

 word, the English system is based on the competition 

 of individual horses on the race-course and in the hunt- 

 ing-field, and therefore employs the fore legs exclusively 

 as bearers, and the hind ones equally so as propellers, 

 speed alone being the object; whereas, the school system 

 contemplating the simultaneous action of bodies of 

 horses in varied forms, excluding altogether the idea 

 of competition, and not aiming at the highest degree of 

 speed, transfers a portion of the weight to be earned 

 from the fore to the hind legs, establishing thereby a 

 more equable balance of labour. It is scarcely neces- 

 sary to add, that the school is the nursery for military 

 riding, which the hunting-field does not, and cannot 

 profess to be. 



The majority of English riders hold the school in the 

 greatest contempt, simply because they are altogether 

 preoccupied with their own ideas of the turf and the 

 field, to which this is quite inapplicable ; and merely 

 mechanical school-riders return the compliment with 

 equal unfairness when they point to our broken knees, 

 stiff fore legs, frequently exceptionally restive horses, 

 &c. It would be much more rational for both parties 

 to endeavour to learn something useful from each other, 



