BLINDERS- USE AND ABUSE 287 



erect and keep their heads perpendicular to their 

 spinal column. Perhaps the high, stiff collars have 

 had something to do with this improvement. 



Shall, or shall not, blinders be used? Again we 

 have a wide diversity of opinion. Here, too, as with 

 the check -rein, extremes should be avoided. A horse 

 should be directed by contact with his nerves of sen- 

 sation and by spoken words. He has no business to 

 be looking backwards for orders. If he does, he soon 

 imagines that he is "bossing" the job himself. Strict 

 and prompt obedience is best secured when the highest 

 intelligence directs. A small projection, not a blind, 

 attached to the headstall of the bridle, does not keep 

 the eye hot nor obstruct the side or front vision, while 

 it does prevent the horse from looking backward, 

 thereby conserving his vision and attention for the 

 objects in his pathway. The breast collar is admissable 

 when the load is light. 



DRIVING 



The art of driving a horse or a locomotive must be 

 learned largely by practice, as both are complex 

 machines. The former differs from the latter in that 

 he is a highly organized living thing and therefore 

 may attempt at any time to act on volition, while the 

 locomotive must be acted upon. While* the horse may 

 and should, within narrow limitations, act without 

 directions, he is largely like a machine under the hand 

 of a master. His mental powers should be trained to 

 willing obedience rather than toward originality. Since 



