In the Riding School; Chats With Esmeralda - Theo. Stephenson Browne
XIII.
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools.
_Swift_.
If American children and American girls were the angels which
their mothers and their lovers tell them that they are, the best
possible riding master for them would be an American soldier who
had learned and taught riding at West Point. Being of the same
race, pupil and teacher would have that vast fund of common
memories, hopes and feelings; that common knowledge of character,
of good qualities and of defects, and that ability to divine
motives and to predict action which constitute perfect sympathy,
and their relations to one another would be mutually agreeable
and profitable. Unfortunately, Esmeralda, you, like possibly some
other American girls, are not an angel, and if you were, you
could not have such a riding master, because the very few men who
have the specified qualifications are too well acquainted with
the characteristics of their countrywomen to instruct them in the
equestrian art. Who, then, shall be his substitute? Clearly,
either a person sufficiently patient and clever to neutralize the
faults of American women, or one capable of adapting himself to
them, of eluding them, and of forcing a certain quantity of
knowledge upon his pupils, almost in spite of themselves. The
former is hardly to be found among natives of the United States;
the latter can be found nowhere else, except, possibly, in
certain English shires in which the inhabitants so closely
resemble the average American that when they immigrate hither
they are scarcely distinguishable from men whose ancestors came
two or three centuries ago.
A foreign teacher, whether French, German, or Hungarian, always
regards himself in the just and proper European manner as the
superior of his pupil. The traditions in which he has been
reared, in which he has been instructed, not only in riding, but
in all other matters, survive from the time when all learning was
received from men whose title to respect rested not only on their
wisdom but on their ecclesiastical office, and who expected and
received as much deference from their pupils as from their
congregations. Undeniably, there are unruly children in European
schools, but their rebelliousness is never encouraged, and their
teachers are expected to quell it, not to submit to it, much less
to endeavour to avoid it by giving no commands which are
distasteful. Even in the worst conducted private schools on the
continent, there is always at least one master who must be
obeyed, whose authority is held as beyond appeal, and in the
school conducted either by the church or by civil authority, the
duty of enforcing perfect discipline is regarded as quite as
imperative as that of demanding well-learned lessons.
Passing through these institutions, the young European enters the
military school with as little thought of disputing any order
which may be given him as of arguing with the priest who states a
theological truth from the pulpit. And, indeed, had he been
reared under the tutelage of one of those modern silver-tongued
American pedagogues, who make gentle requests lest they should
elicit antagonism by commands, the military school should soon
completely alter the complexion of his ideas, for he would find
his failures in the execution of orders treated as disobedience.
He would not be punished at first, it is true, but pretty
theories that he was nervous, or ill, or the victim of hereditary
disability, or of fibre too delicately attenuated to perform any
required act, would not be admitted except, indeed, as a reason
for expulsion. Moreover, the tests to which he would be compelled
to submit before this escape from discipline lay open to him,
would be neither slight nor easily borne, for the European
military teacher has yet to learn the existence of that exquisite
personal dignity which is hopelessly blighted by corporal
punishment or infractions of discipline.
"Will you teach me how to ride, sir?" asked a Boston man of a
Hungarian soldier, one of the pioneers among Boston instructors.
"Will I teach you! Eh! I don't know," said the exile dolefully,
for during his few weeks in the city, he had seen something of
the ways of the American who fancies himself desirous of being
taught. "Perhaps you will learn, but will--I--teach--you?
You can ride?"
"A little."
"Very well! Mount that horse, and ride around the ring."
Away went the pupil, doing his best, but before he had traversed
two sides of the school, the master shouted to the horse, and the
pupil was sitting in the tan. He picked himself up, and returned
to the mounting-stand, saying: "Will you tell me how to stay on
next time?"
"I will," cried the Hungarian in a small ecstasy; "and I will
make a rider of you!" And he did, too, and certainly took as much
pleasure in his pupil in the long course of instruction which
followed, and in the resultant proficiency.
In European riding-schools for ladies, there is, of course, no
resort to corporal punishment, but there is none of that careful
abstention from telling disagreeable truths which popular
ignorance extracts from American teachers in all schools, except
in the military and naval academies. Indeed, the need of it is
hardly felt, for that peculiar self-consciousness which makes an
American awkward under observation and restive under reproof is
scarcely found in countries not democratic, and the "I'm ez good ez
you be" feeling that is at the bottom of American intractability,
has no chance to flourish in lands where position is a matter of
birth and not of self-assertion.
A French woman, compelled to make part of her toilet in a railway
waiting-room under the eyes of half a score of enemies, that is
to say, of ten other women, arranges her tresses, purchased or
natural, uses powder-puff and hare's foot if she choose, and turns
away from the mirror armed for conquest; but an American similarly
situated, forgets half her hair-pins, does not dare to wash her
face carefully lest some one should sniff condemnation of her
fussiness, and looks worse after her efforts at beautifying. A
French girl, told that her English accent is bad, corrects it
carefully; an American, gently reminded that a French "u" is not
pronounced like "you," changes it to "oo," and stares defiance
at Bocher and all his works. And even that commendable reserve
which hinders well-bred Americans from frank self-discussion,
stands in the way of perfect sympathy between him and the
European master, representative of races in which everybody,
from an emperor in his proclamations to the peasant chatting over
his beer or _petit vin_, may discourse upon his most recondite
peculiarities.
For all these reasons, the European riding master is often
misunderstood, even by his older pupils, and young girls almost
invariably mistake his patient reiteration and his methodical
vivacity for anger, so that his classes seldom contain any pupils
not really anxious to learn, or whose parents are not determined
that they shall learn in his school and no other. Teaching is a
matter of strict conscience with him, and even after years of
experience, and in spite of more than one severe lesson as to
American sensitiveness, he continues to speak the truth. Even
when his pupils have become what the ordinary observer calls
perfect riders, he allows no fault to go unreproved, although
nobody can more thoroughly enjoy the evening classes, organized
by fairly good riders rather for amusement than for instruction.
If you think you can endure perfect discipline and incessant
plain speaking go to him, Esmeralda.
If you cannot, take the other alternative, the American or the
English master, but remember that it is only by absolute
submission that you will obtain the best instruction which he is
capable of giving. If you do not compel him to tax his mind with
remembering all your foibles and weaknesses, you may, thanks to
race sympathy, learn more rapidly at first from him than from a
foreigner, and, unless you are rude and insubordinate to the
point of insolence, you may depend upon receiving no actual
harshness from him, although he will refuse to flatter you, and
will repeat his warnings against faults, quite as persistently as
any foreigner.
A very little observation of your fellow pupils will show you
that presumption upon his good nature is wofully common, and that
his American inability to forget that a woman is a woman, even
when she conducts herself as if her name were Ursa or Jenny,
often subjects him to stupendous impertinence, which he receives
with calm and silent contempt. You will find that his instruction
follows the same lines as that of all foreign masters in the
United States, for there is no American system of horsemanship,
the traditions of the army, and of the north, being derived
from France, those of the south fro, England, and those of the
southwest from Spain, by the way of Mexico and Texas. Under
his instruction, you will remain longer in the debatable land
between perfect ignorance of horsemanship, and being a really
accomplished rider, than you would if taught by a foreigner, but,
as has already been said, you will learn more rapidly at first,
an the result, if you choose to work hard, will be much the same.
Should you, by way of experiment, choose to take lessons from
both native and foreign masters, you will find each frankly ready
to admit the merits of the other, and to acknowledge that he
himself is better suited to some pupils than to others and, to
come back to what was told you at the outset, you will find them
unanimous in assuring you that your best teacher, the instructor
without whose aid you can learn nothing, is yourself, your
slightly rebellious, but withal clever, American self. You can
learn, Esmeralda. There is no field of knowledge into which the
American woman has attempted to enter, in which she has not
demonstrated her ability to compete, when she chooses to put
forth all her energy, with her sisters of other nations, but she
must work, and must work steadily. There are American teachers of
grammar who cannot parse; American female journalists who cannot
write; American women calling themselves doctors, but unable to
make a diagnosis between the cholera and the measles; and
American women practising law and dependent for a living on
blatant self-advertising, but with the faculties of Vassar and
Wellesley in existence; with the editor of Harper's Bazar
receiving the same salary as Mr. Curtis; with American women
acknowledged as a credit to the medical and to the legal
profession--what of it? The American woman can learn anything,
can do anything. Do you learn to ride, and, having done it, "keep
riding." At present you have received just sufficient instruction
to qualify you to ride properly escorted, on good roads, but--
"KEEP RIDING!"