Down hill he should progress carefully, especially when on two wheels, for then the extra weight of the cart hangs on the pad or saddle on the horse’s back. A stumble and fall will probably break the shafts, certainly cut the horse’s knees, and may pitch the occupant over the splash-board. Let him hold well in, sit well back, play firmly and lightly with his hand, ready to hold up sharply in event of a stumble. Even a sure-footed horse may make a false step from the pain of a loose, sharp-pointed bit of stone cutting his frog. A judicious and timely support from the rein may save the horse and preserve his balance, by thus suddenly shifting part of the weight of his head and neck on to the carriage itself.
Next to a powerful seat, the mouth of the horse and the lightness of the hand upon it are the requisites. “Half the value of a horse is in his mouth” is an old maxim. Few owners are aware how much “manners” depend upon the bitting and handling of a horse. Shifting the rein from one bar to another makes all the difference in the going of the horse. The mouth is the link of communication between him and his driver; the bit must control him without fretting him, and the touch of the hand, unless light, deadens its own injunctions.
As the whip progresses in his craft, he will note many other minor details, apart from mere safety, which conduce to the welfare of his horse and carriage also. Though he is bound by rules of road at rencontre, he may choose his own path when all is clear; he need not take his share of rolling into shape newly-laid stones, if a smoother passage presents itself. Even if he can not altogether avoid stones, he may yet ease the draught if he can manœuvre only one wheel on to a smooth surface.—Cassell’s Sports and Pastimes.
[EDUCATION FOR AND AGAINST CASTE.]
By W. T. HARRIS.
We often hear in our time the fear expressed that there is a danger in too much education, and especially in a too great extension of free education at the expense of tax-payers. “Where shall society obtain its hewers of wood and its drawers of water?” is asked in an anxious tone. “Education renders people unwilling to earn their living by hand labor alone, and they resort to crime rather than work at an honest trade.” Investigation, however, does not confirm these fears. We find, upon studying social science, that those states of the world that enforce universal education are by far the greatest wealth producers and accumulators of wealth.
The statistics of the seventeen states in our nation (the seventeen that kept statistics of illiteracy in jails and prisons in 1870), show that out of a total of 110,538 prisoners, 27,581, or 25 per cent. could not write, while only 3½ per cent. of the adults of those seventeen states were illiterate—that 3½ per cent. of the population, if illiterate, furnish as many criminals as 32 per cent. of the people, if able to read and write—or that the one who can not read and write is nine times as liable to get to prison as the one who can read and write. Of course we must remember that the education of the school is powerfully reinforced by the education of the family, the community, the State, and the Church, and that the school is not the only educational influence, nor the most potent one. We must not place a too high estimate on the phase of civilization that merely keeps men out of prison. Chinese education does that, although it does not produce scientific thinkers, a literature of freedom, or a people that worship the true God, or any god that allows man to participate in his being.
We shall learn this lesson again in studying the caste education of India. The duties of each person to members of his own caste and then to the members of the other castes form the chief staple of Hindoo education. There the hewers of wood and the drawers of water are effectually provided for, first by birth and then by education.
If we desire to behold the effects of caste-education made supreme over all others, we must look carefully into East Indian life, and interpret it by its laws, religion, and philosophy. The division of labor is necessary in order that men may gain the requisite skill to conquer nature. Food, clothing, and shelter are rendered necessary by nature—that is to say, by our bodies—and can be supplied only by nature—the mineral, vegetable, and animal realms. Besides food, clothing, and shelter, there is the fourth want, that of culture or spiritual direction, and the fifth want, or that of protection,—the realm of religious and scientific education, and the realm of the political government.