AGKICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 395 



nate and enervating intimacy. The boy may be softened 

 into abject reliance upon those who should inspire and 

 encourage his most manly self-reliance. That apron- 

 string business — how many a brave fellow has it sent 

 mewling through life like a milksop ! His father has 

 made a good boy of him, but not the boy he was in- 

 tended to be. The problem has been solved, but not 

 in the right way. And, in the trials which follow, he 

 wonders where those qualities are which he felt moving 

 within him in his youth ; and the father wonders Avhy he 

 is so little satisfied Avith the work of his own hands. 

 No, sir : do not bother the boys. Do not meddle with 

 them too much. Make them way-wise early. Don't 

 pat them into weakness, or check them into madness. 

 And, when they go forth in life, let them have manliness 

 enough to meet their fellow-men in a manly way, gen- 

 erosity enough to warm a generous feeling in the breasts 

 of their associates, charity enough to forgive the faults 

 of their fellow-men, and humanity enough to know that 

 it is better and more useful to encourage the virtues 

 than to expose the vices of society, and more honorable 

 to set a good example than to pronounce a good 

 precept. 



But, sir, to the colts. They, like ' the boys, may be 

 spoiled by meddling with them. Not that I would leave 

 them to run wild, — a rough and shaggy and half-savage 

 drove. But I would not so thoroughly domesticate 

 them as to obliterate every trace of that headlong and 

 impulsive temperament which makes a colt a colt. I 



