PREFACE. 



* 



There are eleven million horses in the United States, and not 

 one man in a million who knows how to educate them to the highest 

 degree of usefulness. We say educate; for the horse is an animal 

 of high and spirited organization, endowed by his Creator with 

 capabilities and faculties which sufficiently resemble man's to come 

 under the same general law of education and government. Prima- 

 rily, the word educate means to lead out or lead up; and it is by 

 this process of leading out and leading up a child's faculties that 

 the child becomes a useful man, and it is by a like process that a 

 colt becomes a useful horse. Now teachers, like poets, are born, 

 not made. Only a few are gifted to see into and see through any 

 form of highly organized life, discern its capacities, note the interior 

 tendencies which produce habits, and discover the method of 

 developing the innate forces until they reach their noblest expres- 

 sion, and then apply the true and sufficient guidance and govern- 

 ment. The few who have this gift are teachers indeed, and, next to 

 the mothers of the world, deserve the world's applause as foremost 

 among its benefactors. 



Next to child training and government comes horse training and 

 government ; and which is the least understood, it were hard to say. 

 Boys and colts, so much alike in friskiness and stubbornness, both 

 are misunderstood and abused in equal ratio. The boys are shaken 

 and whipped, and colts are yanked, kicked, and pounded. That 

 high-spirited or slow-witted boys become good men, and high- 



* This preface was written l)y a gentleman well known in the world of letters, 



anrl especially famous, not only as a lover of fine horses, but as a high authority on 



all matters concerning them. Learning that I had in preparation a new work, he 



volunteered to write the preface, which is here given as a concise introduction to the 



author's own labors, with a high appreciation of the compliment paid him by the 



distinguished writer, in the personal allusion, the jiublication of which demands no 



apology when its high source is considered. 



(vii) 



