934 VETEEINAEY HYGIENE 



husband the strength and maintain the vigour of the 

 animals, and especially does this apply to horses, for they 

 must not be found wanting when the supreme moment 

 arrives which may necessitate their sacrifice. 



The conservation of energy which we so strongly urge 

 can only be brought about by officers, non-commissioned 

 officers, and men knowing what to do, and possessing the 

 needful resourcefulness. Eesourcefulness can never be 

 taught in any school ; in the hard school of experience 

 some facts may be accumulated even by men entirely 

 wanting in resource, but they do not take the place of 

 natural aptitude for adaptation to circumstances, and 

 making the most of the conditions to hand. 



The resourceful man knows no difficulties, they melt 

 before him as they present themselves, while the man 

 without resource stands paralyzed at nothing being to hand 

 to meet his requirements. 



Want of resourcefulness is the penalty paid for civiliza- 

 tion ; this thin veneer has to be cast aside entirely during 

 war, and beneath it one finds either a better man or a 

 worse ; it finds the man who knows no difficulties, or 

 the one who is incapable of overcoming the slightest 

 obstruction.* 



The ordinary soldier cannot without supervision be 

 trusted to look after his horse, and he is quite as in- 

 competent to look after himself. Shifts and expedients are 

 an unknown quantity to most men who have lived under 

 civilized conditions, and who have seldom known what it is 

 to even cook their own food. 



If with a willingness to look after himself he fails, we 

 cannot be surprised at the indifferent results when applied 

 to the horse, an animal for which he has neither liking nor 

 regard. 



This dislike or indifference to horses is not characteristic 



* A volume might be filled with examples of want of resourcefiilness 

 in horse management during war. "We shall be compelled, out of con- 

 sideration of space and the limited interest of the subject to the general 

 reader, to allow this matter to stand over for the present. 



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