OUGHT CHILDREN TO RIDE ? 



in riding the animal who has been her conqueror. He will 

 always remember his victory, and presume upon it. 



Horses are not simpletons ; their wisdom, on the con- 

 trary, is astonishing. Allow them to vanquish you once, 

 and they will pursue their advantage to their lives' end. 



There are other reasons, also, on which I ground my 

 objections to children riding. Little girls are exceedingly 

 apt to grow crooked. It is all sheer nonsense to say 

 "they will not if they sit straight!' inasmuch as young 

 riders never do, as a rule, fall into the desired method ; or, 

 if for awhile it is a thing accomplished, they very speedily 

 fall out of it again, when fatigue overpowers them, or the 

 groom has shortened their stirrup-leather too much, or when 

 a large amount of pressure upon it during a long ride has 

 stretched it to an uncomfortable length. It is the merest 

 sophistry to argue that such things ought not to occur, 

 seeing that they do, and are in fact happening every day 

 around us. One child out of five hundred may, perhaps, 

 be an habitual straight-sitter, but to counterbalance her 

 perfection in this particular, the remaining 499 will 

 be either hanging to one side or the other (usually the 

 near, or left side), or sitting square enough, it may be, 

 yet with the right shoulder thrust forward and upward, 

 thus sowing the seeds of a deformity which in ten years' 

 time, when the little one of eight shall have grown into a 

 belle of eighteen, will have become an incurable disfigure- 

 ment, one which all the arts of the most skilful modiste 

 cannot by any possibility cover, or the most seraphic 

 charms of face and manner serve to put out of sight. 



