100 HORSES AND CHILDREN WORKING IN CLASSES. 



school complaints, and that, however weak or debi- 

 litated a pupil may be, a couple of glasses of Port 

 wine or good strong soup should never be necessary : 

 at least I conclude they are not, for I never hear of 

 such things being offered by these trainers. 



In these particulars we must fairly allow horses 

 are very well off in public training stables, indeed, 

 much better than pupils in the training schools ; 

 ^v\\\\Q, at the same time these schools give a hint that 

 it would be wise in trainers of race-horses to act more 

 upon than I think they generally do — that is, to 

 work their pupils in classes according to their qualifi- 

 cations as well as their age ; for two-year-olds and 

 three-year-olds in horses, like eight and ten years old 

 in boys or girls, are not all to be worked according 

 to age, but to ability to work. In both cases, I am 

 quite satisfied the weak are often made worse from 

 being put to what they are incompetent to perform, 

 while the able are often kept back from the want of 

 their energies being properly called into action. Now 

 the race-horse is not bodily punished by his trainer 

 for not doing what it is out of his power to accom- 

 plish : here is shoAvn more sense and more humanity 

 than the school trainer evinces, who with an inert 

 pupil, instead of stimulating him to increased exertion 

 by persuasion and encouragement, sets about stimu- 

 lating a part that I conceive can have very little to 

 do with learning. This may show the pedagogue lo 

 be at bottom a painstaking man, but his fundamental 

 2:>rinciple is bad ; so are many other principles in such 

 establishments, in most public establishments, and 

 consequently in public racing establishments. If, 

 therefore, children when unwatched by the parent's 

 eye, suffer much, which they lui questionably do, from 



