6 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



is a man's game. Thousands of men over fifty years of age 

 are hunting to-day in England; hundreds over sixty years 

 of age, men and women, too, with grey hair, are riding to 

 hounds over some of the roughest country ; and scores of 

 them seventy or even eighty years old are at their favourite 

 pastime, the chase of the wild fox or deer. In America, 

 men are too apt to be old at fifty, too likely not to have 

 any time for play, or no time for anything but money-mak- 

 ing. It is greatly to be hoped that hunting may become 

 more general, for there are yet too few games and dis- 

 tractions out of doors for men. Athletics is the reigning 

 fad in America. Let one hope American children will 

 develope a permanent love of all manly sport for sport's sake, 

 that they may transmit to their descendants not only clever- 

 ness and ability, but robust and healthy bodies. 



Next to health, the most desirable quality to cultivate in 

 a boy is courage and strength of nerve, and for this there is 

 no schooling he can possibly have like rough-and-tumble 

 field-sports. Health, courage, nerve, energy, come not 

 from learning how to parse or figure, but from learning 

 how to play ; and next to health, strength, courage, energy, 

 nerve, the most desirable quality to be developed in a child 

 is fair dealing. Where or in what form is it possible to 

 imagine a system of schooling that will develope this most 

 estimable trait of character like field-sports ? Do I place 

 too high an estimate on the value of play ? I hardly think 

 so. What has all this to do with hunting ? It is the very 

 foundation of it. The field-sports of the boys at school 

 and college are but the primary tutoring to cross-country 

 riding for the man. 



