280 EESTIVENESS I ITS PEEVENTION AND CUKE. 



of various classes of horses ; secondly, to enable them 

 to move with ease to themselves, and with the aid of 

 the rider's one hand alone, on curved lines in various 

 paces that is to say, to make them handy; and, 

 thirdly, to do all this in perfect obedience, and in such 

 a mariner that the inevitable wear and tear should be 

 equally divided over all four legs, by which means the 

 total period of service may be considerably prolonged. 

 In a word, the English system is based on the com- 

 petition of individual horses on the race-course and in 

 the hunting-field, and therefore employs the fore legs 

 exclusively as bearers, and the hind ones equally so as 

 propellers, speed alone being the object ; whereas, the 

 school system contemplating the simultaneous action 

 of bodies of horses in varied forms, excluding altogether 

 the idea of competition, and not aiming at the highest 

 degree of speed transfers a portion of the weight to be 

 carried from the fore to the hind legs, establishing 

 thereby a more equable balance of labour. It is scarcely 

 necessary to add, that the school is the nursery for 

 military riding, which the hunting-field does not, and 

 cannot profess to be. 



The majority of English riders hold the school in the 

 greatest contempt, simply because they are altogether 

 preoccupied with their own ideas of the turf and the 

 field, to which this is quite inapplicable ; and merely 

 mechanical school-riders return the compliment with 

 equal unfairness when they point to our broken knees, 

 stiff fore legs, frequently exceptionally restive horses, &c. 

 It would be much more rational for both parties to en- 

 deavour to learn something useful from each other, for 

 both systems contain much that is good and useful for all. 



It is seldom possible for the school-rider to adopt the 



