DEFECTS OF THE MILITARY SCHOOL. 129 



horses over easy low fences and little ditches, slowly 

 without fuss, and, as part of the ride, not backwards 

 and forwards always leap on the snaffle. Our cavalry 

 officers learn to leap, not in the school, but "across 

 country." Nolan tells a story that, during some ma- 

 noeuvres in Italy, an Austrian general, with his staff, 

 gotamongst some enclosures and sent some of his aid- 

 de-camps to find an outlet. They peered over the stone 

 walls, rode about, but could find no gap. The general 

 turned to one of his staff, a Yorkshireman, and said, 

 " See if you can find a way out of this place." Mr. 



\V k, mounted on a good English horse, went 



straight at the wall, cleared it, and, while doing so, 

 turned in his saddle and touched his cap and said, 

 " This way, general;" but his way did not suit the rest 

 of the party. 



There is a good deal taught hi the best military 

 schools, well worth time and study, which, with practice 

 in horse-taming, would fill up the idle time of that 

 numerous class who never read, and find time heavy on 

 their hands, when out of town life. 



"But a military riding-school," says Colonel Green- 

 wood, " is too apt to teach you to sit on your horse as 

 stiff as a statue, to let your right hand hang down as 

 useless as if God had never gifted you with one, to 

 stick your left hand out, with a stiff straight wrist like a 

 boltsprit, and to turn your horse invariably on the 

 wrong rein." I should not venture to say so much on 

 my own authority, but Captain Nolan says further, speak- 

 ing of the effect of the foreign school (not Baucher's), 

 on horses and men, "The result of this long monotonous 

 course of study is, that on the uninitiated the school 

 rider makes a pleasing impression, his horse turns, 

 prances, and caracoles without any visible aid, or with- 



K 



