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Methodists, as a whole, are too sure of their general principles. They want to have every horse put through the hard-and-fast progression of their particular method. But my experience is that each individual horse has its own physical and moral disposition, and that each needs its own special treatment and training.

This much, at any rate, is certain: no matter how the horse's education commences or proceeds, the earlier portions of it will need more care, more ability, and more experience on the part of the trainer than the later ones. I am, then, fully agreed with Baucher in his criticism of owners who give young horses to their stable grooms to train. And yet, in Baucher's time, equitation was in high esteem. Whereas now horsemanship is almost a lost art, and riding is thought of merely as a wholesome exercise.