The Ideal Campine of Today 



Writing theFirst Campine Standard-Obeying the Wishes and Opinions of Campine BreederB-An Explanation 

 o£ the Campine Clnb Standard and the Steps That lead Lead to It. 



By F. I.. Piatt 



jT 



WE WILL take up those questions of body-type 

 and color-type that are of interest and import- 

 ance to Campine breeders of today. Some will 

 read this article with a view to getting the opinions of 

 the writer; some have studied his awards at the New 

 York Show with a view to getting his opinions. But, 

 let us go back farther than this, let us look at those 

 conditions from which opinions took their form; they 

 are hardly perceivable now to the unguided eye, but 

 by them alone the course of the Campine Standard was 

 governed. 



The first Campine Standard was written in our room 

 in the old Union Square Hotel in New York. M. R. 



1st prize Silver Campine pullet, Crystal Palace 

 Show, London, 1913. Rev. Jones judged the class. 

 Here is the modern tj'pe Campine female, showing 

 correct stations, length of body, and spread and car- 

 riage of tail. As the judge at the Madison Square 

 Garden Show, New York, 1911, 1912 and 1913, this has 

 been the type that we have persistently favored. 



Jacobus had made an appointment to meet us and there 

 on a cold marble topped table a standard was written. 

 He put it in his pocket to have it typewritten next day, 

 then printed. He and other breeders were selling eggs 

 for hatching, also stock. Customers wanted to cull, 

 wanted to exhibit, judges wanted to judge, so of nec- 

 essity a Standard was born, a law by which to judge 

 and breed. 



"What an opportunity to impress your own opinions 

 on the destiny of a breed." Ah, you lose the philosophy 

 of law making. It is one thing to write a law but, that 



is not all. The National Assembly at the time of the 

 French revolution learned and illustrated this lesson. 

 They could build a constitution, "Constitutions enough, 

 but the frightful diflficulty is of getting men to come and 

 live in them * * * The constitution, the laws, 

 or the prescribed Habits of Acting, that men will live 

 under, is one which images their convictions — their faith 

 as to this wondrous universe and what rights, duties, 

 capabilities they have there * * * Other laws 

 * * * are usurpations' which men do not obey, 



but rebel against and abolish by their earliest conveni- 

 ence." Thus writes Carlyle in his history of the revolu- 

 tion. There is waste of energy in struggling against 

 the tendencies of the times. The successful law maker 

 is the keen interpreter of the times; he "images the con- 

 victions" of the people as Carlyle says — he reflects the 

 temper of the age. So it is that the general opinion, 

 the general spirit, the ideals of those breeders who are 

 in the ascendant — these are to be garnered and system- 

 atized — these are the rudiments of a Standard. 



The judges, they will do their turn with a certain 

 individualism, but do not look too much at their peculi- 

 arities of preference and too little at the spirit of the 

 times. Do they regulate the course of fashion? They' 

 are but the interpreters. All about them opinions are 

 forming, preferences are becoming established by which 

 alone the course is ultimately governed. The judge must 

 have a just appreciation of the spirit of the times or he 

 will exhaust his resources struggling against it. 



That is true of the standard maker. Here nothing 

 could be more shallow than obstinacy, of pretending to 

 be guided by principals when in reality the mind is sub- 

 jugated by prejudice. The standard maker should shape 

 his work, not according to a hasty deduction from a 

 general knowledge of breeds, but according to the wishes 

 and experience of the breeders of the breed, whom he 

 represents and whom he is bound to obey. 



This thought, Edmund Burke expressed in his letter 

 to the sheriffs of Bristol, saying: "In effect, to follow, 

 not to force, the public inclination; to give a direction, 

 a form, a technical dress and a specific sanction to the 

 general sense of the community — is the true end of 

 legislature." Did the writers of the Campine Standard 

 follow "the public inclination," did they sanction "the 

 general sense" of the breeders; does the standard give 

 to the shifting agency which we call the "Improved Cam- 

 pine," that form and phrase of perfection which is in 

 the eye of the breeders? If so, the standard was well 

 made, it will last; breeders will breed to it and it will 

 outlive the petty talk of an "Eastern" and "Western" 

 type of Campines. For the fundamentals of the Cam- 

 pine Standard are then true, the original analysis did 

 indeed disclose the rudiments and the foundation is 

 sound on which breeders may build the superstructure. 

 Let us see. 



If we would understand how opinions are formed, 

 we should understand the nature of our subject and 

 observe the force of circumstances. Thus our inquiry 

 into what is the correct type of body and character of 



