104 



Lecture JC. 



POSITION OF A RIDING MASTER. 



The position of a riding- master, the art of riding as a profession, out- 

 side of the cavalry service, is an institution, which has come to this 

 country from Europe. 



The European courts, great and small, maintain large or small 

 equerries, for the use of the members of the household and for the edu- 

 cation in horsemanship of that leisure class, which is more or less closely 

 in contact with the former, and which makes up the aristocracy. 



The equerries are officers of the Royal household in the department 

 of the Master of the Horse. They are men of breeding and culture, se- 

 lected from among the officers of the army, whose great talent and 

 ability in equestrianism fits them for their position and who make the 

 art of riding scientifically and practically the study of their lives. 



The best of material in the way of horses and pupils, unlimited time 

 and exclusive devotion to the one subject, has enabled such men to pro- 

 duce phenomenal results. 



Many of the smaller Courts have been reduced to all but a title, and 

 the maintenance of extensive studs and schools of equitation has be- 

 come beyond their means. 



Public establishments have taken their places in many instances, 

 and are conducted as business enterprises. 



Competition, which is considered the life of trade, has had upon 

 such institutions a destructive influence. The professional horseman 

 is compelled to yield to business principles and must sacrifice much of 

 his individuality. 



Men, who, true to their aim of life and the chosen profession con- 

 tinued in the old school, are outranked by those who owe their success 

 to the flexibility of their character and who understand how to cater to 

 the weakness and vanity of human nature. 



The criticism of such men, who build their prosperity upon the 

 ruins of the beautiful art which they aid in destroying, was never bet- 

 ter commented upon than by George Du Maurier, -who says : "Up rises 

 the printed howl of the duffer, the disappointed one, the wounded thing 

 with an angry cry the prosperous and happy bagman that should have 

 been, -who, has given up all for art and can't paint and make himself a 

 name, after all and never will, so falls to -writing about those who can — 

 and what -writing ! To write in hissing dispraise of our more success- 

 ful fellow craftsman and of those who admire him ! That is not a clean 

 or pretty trade. It seems, alas! an easy one, and it gives pleasure to so 

 many. It does not even want good grammar. But it pays, well enough 

 even to start and run a magazine with, instead of scholarship, taste and 

 talent! humor, sense, wit and -wisdom! it is something like the purvey- 

 ing of pornographic pictures; some of us look at them and laugh ard 

 even buy. To be a purchaser is bad enough ; but to be purveyor there- 

 of — ugh! 



