I hold it as an article of faith that the British Army is not excelled, man for man, by any in Europe, but does greatly surpass all others in its power of adapting itself to new conditions, maintaining its powers at great distances from its base, and perfecting in its troops the highest ideals of manhood. And yet in all armies men are taught to obey before they think, and, thought being secondary to discipline, is rather apt to lag. The discipline which creates a mob into a weapon tends to disable men in army trades other than that of fighting, so that the departmental or thinking departments are less efficient than the executive. Character is trained to a supreme degree, and the military courts are cleaner, quicker and more direct than the civil in doing justice. Yet intellect takes its chance of surviving discipline. In a world which is managed by men too old to be receptive of new thought, the person with original ideas is looked upon as a public enemy, and the Army is always certain he must be an awful bounder. The aeroplane, for example, was more important as a military idea than anything since the invention of gunpowder, but the inventors and manufacturers in several countries went bankrupt while they waited in vain for orders from. {225} the armies. The German War Office was the first to come to their rescue. It is only by such reasoning as this that one understands why mounted soldiers are given breeches with buckskin straps to help them to grip a saddle specially treated with beeswax to make it slippery. Constructive thought would remove the strapping to make the breeches slippery as the saddle; or, if a grip is wanted would retain the strapping, and roughen the saddle seat and panels by using the leather inside out, or replacing the surface with buckskin. [Sidenote: The hunting-seat] Early in the eighteenth century British racing and fox-hunting became fully organized sports which needed bent-leg riding and a slippery, light saddle. The British Army was not officered by professional soldiers, but by sportsmen who bought commissions. The training of officers was in the hunting field, and the old straight leg, weight-distributing war saddle gave place to something really up-to-date. This was the military saddle, too cumbersome for running or jumping, too small for weight-distribution, and therefore useless either for sport or war. Meanwhile the Riding Masters who were professional soldiers, and ceased to learn when {226} they began to teach, wrought with fanatical zeal to compel straight-leg riding on a bent-leg saddle, and so got a magnificent tally of ruptures and sore tails. In 1805 Prussian instructors were brought to England to enforce the straight-leg seat on the bent-leg saddle. It is only in the twentieth century that this wonderful kidney-crusher military seat has been mercifully abandoned. The army has adopted the hunting seat, and one reads the last word in Major Birch's book on "Modern Riding."