42 THE TEST OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



had the nerve and experience necessary to excel 

 in a sport would be any the worse for a better 

 acquaintance with one of its conditions. 



The vulgar idea of a school-rider is that of a 

 public performer in the circus-ring, or of one who 

 limits his equestrian exercises to the covered 

 manage. The true meaning of the phrase is, one 

 that controls his horse by a certain method, in which 

 nothing is done without reason. The trouble that 

 it takes to acquire any art has deterred the many 

 from practising riding according to the best 

 methods, and they have formed the prevalent 

 opinion that such methods are useless. The fact 

 is that all soldiers are schooled riders, and all 

 cavalry horses are schooled horses, and there is 

 no class in England who manage horses so well as 

 the military, even tested by the hunting-field. 



A man might be a school-rider, and yet not 

 ride so well or so strongly as one who has never 

 received instruction in the art, for if the former had 

 no aptitude for the exercise, all his theory would 

 not make him a practical horseman. But of two 

 men with equal aptitude and equal practice, there 

 can be no doubt that the one who received proper 

 instruction in any art must be superior to the other. 

 And yet this is what those who disparage schooling 

 really deny. 



