THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 373 
or at most three, instances had occurred, in which the same 
person had proved victor in youth and manhood. 
We have elsewhere alluded to the subject of early breaking, 
and attempted then to shew the pernicious consequences pro¬ 
duced by the present fashionable method of bringing two-years 
old colts to the starting-post. 
It is a remark of some one (we forget who), that to avoid 
and to correct error, it is only necessary to be acquainted with 
the pernicious tendency and to break the slavish fetters of pre¬ 
judice and custom. Alas! the consequences are daily seen in 
the degeneracy of our stock of racers : but the supporters of the 
turf are still bound by the fetters of custom; and while Nature 
is tortured by their ambition and their avarice, while to supply 
the demands of their perverse appetites she becomes crippled 
and disabled, these imperial animals exclaim, “ Ye servile 
creatures! why do ye lament ? why vainly try, by cries akin 
to the voice of human woe, to excite our compassion ? Created 
solely for our use, submit without a murmur to the decrees of 
heaven, and to our mandates; of us, the heaven-deputed 
despots of every creature that walks, or creeps, or swims, or 
flies in air, on earth, or in the waters.” 
Before w r e enter into the immediate subject of this paper, it 
will be necessary to make a few preliminary observations, which 
may serve as a foundation on which to raise our edifice. To do 
this, it was our intention briefly to inquire into the nature of the 
faculties possessed by horses, and then investigate the nature and 
influence of those means by which it can be actuated, and how 
they may be best employed for the better perfecting their educa¬ 
tion ; but, fortunately for us, we have been anticipated in the 
first part of our subject by a writer in The Veterinarian 
for May last, “ On the intellectual and moral qualities of the 
inferior animals” And as it would be both useless and ridiculous 
to go over the same ground, we cannot do better than refer the 
readers of Tiie Veterinarian to the article itself. 
It too frequently happens, that on such a subject, which affords 
a fine field for the display of invention and the activity of the 
imagination, the mind is apt to wander from the real truth, and 
fall into the specious path that leads to scepticism and error: 
but the author of this paper is not one of these; he has shewn 
himself to be a perfect master of his subject; as one who traces 
surrounding phenomena up to their great first cause; as one 
who, in looking through the range of Nature’s works, 
“ Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thii)g. ,> 
[To be continued.] 
