CHAPTER XXII 

 THE DIAGONAL EFFECT 



THE name, "High School/' has long been used and 

 is still employed to designate a system of education 

 which trains a horse to execute in the ring of a 

 circus the low and high airs and the various figures 

 of manege. It is a special kind of equitation, for 

 which the state of equilibrium is not important. 

 Baucher, Fillis, Franconi, and other civilian mas- 

 ters of the art have exhibited their horses in the 

 circus, not alone for the immediate financial profit, 

 but still more to make their systems known and 

 appreciated. It was, in fact, from the circus that 

 Baucher and Fillis were called by various Euro- 

 pean governments to teach their systems to army 

 officers. 



These masters, however, had already accepted 

 the anatomical principles of Benton, Borelli, and 

 Bishop, who, in their discussion of animal motion, 

 emphasize the fact that, at walk and trot, the 

 horse advances by the diagonal movement of its 

 limbs. But in accepting this doctrine of locomo- 

 tion, these masters at once comprehended that the 

 lateral or direct effects of the two older schools are 

 in flat contradiction to the newer ideas of horse 

 anatomy. They found it necessary, therefore, to 



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