ENLARGING BUSINESS—ATTACHMENT TO THE HORSE—VISITS TO BATAVIA OF RAREY AND
HAMILTON—MY OWN SYSTEM—GOING BEFORE THE PUBLIC—EARLY SUCCESSES.
Having now made myself a home and feeling permanently settled, I desired
to still further increase my business, but finding my capital somewhat
too limited for the amount I wished to transact, I sought assistance
from an esteemed friend, Elandus Dotey, Esq., banker. The aid I sought
was given with a cheerfulness that added to its value, and enabled me to
carry into execution the plans which I had formed. The accommodations I
received frequently amounted to from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand
dollars, thus placing ample means in my hands for extended operations and
enabling me to do a large and remunerative business in which I continued
up to the year eighteen hundred and sixty-seven.
[Illustration: BRICK STORE.]
During these business years in Batavia my attachment for that noble
animal, the horse, gradually increased, and learning that a horse trainer
by the name of Rarey, intended visiting the town, I was one of the first
to seek for and obtain what knowledge I could from him; but finding his
system to be not at all practical, I applied myself to the investigation
of the subject, and began experimenting with a view to the discovery of a
better, simpler and more certain system.
Some years later it was rumored that a gentleman named R. P. Hamilton,
who was self-announced as “the great renowned horse trainer,” would
give instruction on the subject. He soon made his appearance, and, with
others, I attended his lectures. Mr. Hamilton advanced some valuable
ideas which I gladly adopted and added to my former knowledge, and when
I had grasped all that was valuable in his instructions, and united it
to the results of my own experiments, I felt assured that, ere long, I
should reach the height of my ambition and develop a system of educating
the horse far in advance of anything then known, and by which my name
would be handed down to coming generations as one who, more than any
other, had befriended that noble but greatly abused animal. Often in my
retired moments my thoughts would go forward to the time when I should
be able to present my perfected system to the public, and as I looked
down the vista of time to the period when I should announce my system, my
mind pictured to itself the success I since have realized. I was fully
conscious of its value to the world, and thousands have since then freely
acknowledged the practicability and excellence of my system of educating
the horse.
In the autumn of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven I felt myself
sufficiently master of my new and unequaled system to commit myself
unreservedly to its public advocacy: so, after selling out my stock in
trade, I made my preparations to travel for the purpose of bringing it
before the world. Previous to leaving Batavia I had purchased from a
perambulating horse dealer my favorite horse, “Tom Thumb,” then partly
trained.
Feeling now tolerably well equipped, I came before the public with my
new and perfect system, confident that it needed only to be known to be
welcomed with pleasure by every intelligent friend of the horse. In the
month of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, I made my debut at
the town of Geneva, erecting, at considerable cost, an academy for the
exhibition of my system of training. My success was immediate; friends
and well-wishers clustered about me; the hand of encouragement was
extended on every side, and in a little while my class in that place
numbered seventy-five members. The reader can scarcely conceive the
feelings of gratification that were excited in my breast by such prompt
and flattering success. It confirmed my own judgment of the superiority
of my system, and inspired a full confidence in its success.
After leaving Geneva, I visited the pleasant town of Waterloo, where
I built another academy and formed a class of about eighty members,
whose hearty appreciation of the ideas embodied in my system of training
afforded me great pleasure.
Leaving that place, I next proceeded to the beautiful village of Penn
Yan, where also I built an academy and met with brilliant success, my
class numbering over ninety members.
Such gratifying success, and at so early a period, was very encouraging
to me. Both myself and my system were new to the public, and, coming
before them almost unheralded and without the prestige of great names to
give it support, its progress and the general approval it met, could be
attributed only to its own merits, which were everywhere conceded.
The next point visited by me was the beautiful and highly picturesque
village called Watkins, so well and widely known to pleasure-seekers as
an attractive summer resort; its famous “Glen” having an almost national
reputation for romantic beauty. Here I formed an interesting class
of about sixty persons, many of whom gave unmistakable evidences of
confidence in the superiority of my rapidly spreading system for rightly
educating the horse.
Cheered by my continued success, I pursued my journey to the city of
Ithaca, where I built an academy much larger than any I had previously
erected. Here I remained about a week, and had the pleasure of forming a
class of one hundred persons.
Finding it somewhat inconvenient to build academies in many places, I
now purchased canvas for a movable tent, which I had constructed, and
this I carried from place to place, erecting academies only where my tent
was insufficient to accommodate the audiences. On the fourth of July I
pitched my tent at the city of Elmira, and soon had the satisfaction
of enrolling the names of one hundred and fifty persons, who eagerly
sought information, and expressed the greatest gratification with the
instruction they had received.
After this, I continued my tour, exhibiting and lecturing in many towns
and villages during that summer and the autumn following. My success
was everywhere of the most gratifying character, and exceeded my most
sanguine expectations.
In bringing my system to the attention of the public, I employed that
great engine of power, the Press to call attention alike to the cruelty
of most of the previous modes of training the horse, and the superiority
of my new and rational system. As an illustration of this, it may not
be out of place to give a single one of my many addresses to the public
through the medium of the press:
PROFESSOR O. S. PRATT TO THE PUBLIC.—Probably not one person in
a thousand has any adequate idea of the wonderful intelligence
displayed by the noblest of the brute creation, the horse.
Patient, affectionate, sensitive and faithful, possessing
wonderful powers of endurance and a capacity for education far
exceeding any animal extant, a study of his characteristics
is ennobling, and commands the attention of every intelligent
person. But how often do we see him abused, through ignorance,
compelled to draw tremendous loads for hours on a stretch,
whipped, clubbed, and cursed, until patience ceasing to be a
virtue, and through sheer exhaustion, panting, trembling, and
discouraged, he stops to breathe, and men call him balky,
apply the whip again, put sand in his ears, gravel in his
mouth, twist his tail, and goad him to desperation by a system
of barbarous inflictions unworthy of even the first stages of
civilization. Trotting over slippery pavements, imperfectly
shod, twitched to the right or left as a sudden emergency seems
to demand, he stumbles and falls. No compassion is excited by
this mishap. Hastily assisted to arise, and reharnessed, crack
goes the whip. O, lash him, cut him, until the great ridges
of swollen flesh stand out upon his back to testify to man’s
superiority over the brute. Left standing for hours while the
master attends to business or pleasure, impatient to change his
position, he starts before the man is comfortably seated in the
vehicle; crack again goes the whip, until his nerves are strung
to their highest tension.
Crazed almost beyond endurance, he leaps forward, suddenly
a bolt gives way, something strikes his heels, he becomes
frightened, and then, “O! he’s a runaway!” Confined in a
dungeon, poorly ventilated, called a stable, improperly fed,
driven fast, compelled to draw heavy loads, with very little
attention paid to his requirements, it is a wonder that he
lives even a year. The question naturally arises, Why is this?
Simply because the great masses of humanity are ignorant of
the disposition of the horse. They do not understand how to
manage or educate him. They do not think and therefore do not
care. Now any one who succeeds in ameliorating the condition
of this noble animal, is a public benefactor, deserving of
the highest praise. Prof. O. S. Pratt has made this the study
of his life. Slowly, but steadily, he has progressed in his
investigations respecting the management of the horse, until
the press, the pulpit and the public acknowledge him to be
the “Great Horse Educator of the World.” In fact he rules the
horse by a system so comprehensive, and at the same time so
simple, that a child of ordinary intelligence can understand
it. His pupils are numbered by the thousand in almost every
State, and they all endorse the system heartily. No matter how
badly the horse has been abused, no matter how disagreeable
his disposition may be, no matter if he kicks, strikes, bites,
or is a runaway, in a few minutes the most delicate lady or
timid child can manage him with ease by using Prof. Pratt’s
system. Ladies and gentlemen throughout the land! nearly every
one has had a friend or relative injured or killed by some
unmanageable horse. It is within the power of every person
to prevent a like occurrence. “Knowledge is power.” Do not
neglect the opportunity of acquiring this knowledge. We ask
it in no selfish spirit. We urge it that a recurrence of the
accidents that are every day filling our land with sorrow may
be prevented.