loS HORSEMANSHIP. 



One man can lead a horse to the well, but twenty cannot 

 make him drink. Those children whose bias does not lie 

 in the direction of ponies — mighty few by the way— should 

 be encouraged to learn not as a task "the daily round," 

 but as a pastime. The ride on the paddock-pet should 

 be considered the treat, the blue riband of the day's amuse- 

 ment, something to be looked forward to, and to be with- 

 held only as a punishment. Our role is to convey the 

 lesson so that it be no more irksome than practice at lawn- 

 tennis j that it is playing at riding and not studying it. 

 All little ones live in a sort of dreamland in which they 

 picture to themselves what they will do when grown up. 

 The boy has his hero, the girl her heroine, and, as often as 

 not, the sexes are reversed. We must, ''unbeknowed" to 

 them, educate them up to their riding standard of perfection. 

 The spirit of emulation takes the boy right up to the 

 cannon's mouth, and the same power converts the delicately 

 nurtured girl into a Grace Darling. We may have to give 

 confidence and courage where nervousness and timidity 

 reign, to implant a feeling of safety and contempt for a fall, 

 and to create a zest for what appeared a bore. 



Children should never be allowed to tire themselves in 

 the saddle, and when the colour quits the girl's cheek, 

 especially if she be delicate and growing, that must be at 

 once taken as a sign that her energies are being exhausted 

 — she must dismount. It is impossible to lay down any 

 hard and fast nile as to the age at which children may 

 commence learning to ride, so much depending on the 

 individual strength. The preparatory essays may, as I 

 have said, date from earliest childhood — from the ride-a- 

 cock-horse period — and boys, if strong, will take no harm 

 at any age, but the girls' teaching had better be deferred 

 till the sixth or seventh year. Many of them, however, from 



