MY OWN SYSTEM 



memory stamps the lesson on its temper. It be- 

 comes restive, vicious, dangerous. 



My long observation and study convince me, 

 moreover, that not only does the physical strength 

 of the horse affect its temper; the very temper itself 

 is created by the treatment which the animal re- 

 ceives. This treatment, more or less practical, more 

 or less reasoned, is the horse's education. The mem- 

 ory of wrong treatment is what fixes the instinctive 

 reactions which we term defense, restiveness, and 

 vice. Is it not, after all, precisely on this basis that 

 we direct the child's development to manhood? 



Or to take yet another example illustrative of 

 my principles, every horse, like every man, though 

 on the whole well conformed, is virtually never 

 exactly the same on the two sides of the body. We 

 ourselves are either right- or left-handed, and usu- 

 ally right- or left-legged. We seldom have quite the 

 same power or freedom in one set of members as in 

 the other. 



This asymmetry of the two halves of the body is, 

 in the horse, known as "side." All methodists, 

 from Xenophon to the present day, have recognized 

 the defect. I shall not dwell on the various causes 

 which various writers have assigned for the trouble. 

 It is sufficient to point out that it exists, undeniably; 

 and that it appears at birth. The young creature, 

 therefore, its "side" being uncorrected, forms the 

 habit of moving unsymmetrically. Certain of its 

 members, thereupon, being slightly less energet- 



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