22 Modern Riding and Horse Education 



who can explain to me such principles as an age of 

 constant practice only could never put me into a way 

 of acquiring? Equitation does, to be sure, require 

 also a constant, and an assiduous exercise. Habit, 

 and a continual practice will go a great way in all 

 exercises, which depend on the mechanics of the 

 body, but, unless this mechanism is properly fixed, 

 and supported on the solid basis of theory, errors 

 will be the inevitable consequence. The knowledge 

 of a horse is vulgarly thought so familiar, and the 

 means of dressing him so general and so common, 

 that you can hardly meet with a man who does not 

 flatter himself that he has succeeded in both points, 

 and while masters, who sacrifice every hour of their 

 life to attain knowledge, still find themselves im- 

 merged in darkness and obscurity, men the most un- 

 informed imagine that they have attained the sum- 

 mit of perfection, and in consequence thereof sup- 

 press the least inclination of learning even the first 

 elements, a blind, and a boundless presumption is the 

 characteristic of ignorance ; the fruits of long study, 

 and application amount to a discovery of fresh 

 difficulties, at the sight of which a diligent man, 

 very far from over-rating his own merit, redoubles 

 his efforts in pursuit of fresh knowledge.'^ 



