Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/173

Rh they sent me to the course in the autumn, so that I commenced in the cool and damp season. The pedantic treatment of this noble art was highly repugnant to me. From first to last, the whole talk was about sitting the horse: and yet no one could say in what a proper sitting consisted, though all depended on that; for they went to and fro on the horse without stirrups. Moreover, the instruction seemed contrived only for cheating and degrading the scholars. If one forgot to hook or loosen the curb-chain, or let his switch fall down, or even his hat,—every delay, every misfortune, had to be atoned for by money; and one was laughed at into the bargain. This put me in the worst of humours, particularly as I found the place of exercise itself quite intolerable. The wide, nasty space, either wet or dusty, the cold, the mouldy smell, all together was in the highest degree repugnant to me; and since the stable-master always gave the others the best and me the worst horses to ride,—perhaps because they bribed him by breakfasts and other gifts, or even by their own cleverness; since he kept me waiting, and, as it seemed, slighted me,—I spent the most disagreeable hours in an employment that ought to have been the most pleasant in the world. Nay, the impression of that time and of these circumstances has remained with me so vividly, that although I afterward became a passionate and daring rider, and for days and weeks together scarcely got off my horse, I carefully shunned covered riding-courses, and at least passed only a few moments in them. The case often happens, that, when the elements of an exclusive art are taught us, this is done in a painful and revolting manner. The conviction that this is both wearisome and injurious has given rise, in later times, to the educational maxim, that the young must be taught everything in an easy, cheerful, and agreeable way: from which, however, other evils and disadvantages have proceeded.