Matters were entirely different in the pioneer days; then a man was given a machine, after a little preliminary tuition, and allowed to do pretty much as he liked--with results, as may be imagined, which were sometimes remarkable. At one of the French schools, after making a short flight in a monoplane, a novice sprang from his machine before it had come to a standstill, and with his motor still running, although he had throttled it down. His idea was to bring the craft to a temporary halt by holding it back, and then to turn it round by swinging its tail--and with its engine still in operation--so that he might leap in again and fly back across the aerodrome. This daring manœuvre, attempted because he had not as yet mastered the trick of circling while in the machine, was quite successful up to a point. Unfortunately, however, while holding to the side of the hull, and digging his heels into the ground to check the momentum of the craft, the pupil happened to push over the lever which controlled the motor. Accelerating rapidly, the engine drew forward the monoplane with a jerk; the pupil was thrown from his feet and fell prone, and the machine, without a guiding hand upon its levers, rushed across the ground and then rose into the air. An extraordinary flight it made, watched breathlessly by those who stood upon the aerodrome; first upwards, then downwards, and then sideways, until finally, losing its balance in a wavering turn, it fell with a crash and was destroyed. The first thing one must do in learning to fly, is to become familiar with the position and movements of the levers of a machine; and these, as we have explained, are simple. Experience, indeed, after one method and another has been tried, has brought all systems so that they bear a resemblance to each other. In one machine a hand-wheel may be employed, in another perhaps a lever; but the idea underlying all of them is the same. It is that a pilot’s actions, while he balances his craft, should be natural and instinctive--that his lever should swing in the direction he would turn, were he controlling his machine by a movement of the body. Upon a typical school biplane, such as a pupil learns first to fly, he has only two levers with which he need concern himself. One, which he holds in his right hand, controls the rising and alighting and the balance of his machine; the other, which is in the form of a bar upon which he rests his feet, swings the rudder and steers him from side to side. There are, in addition, convenient to his left hand, the switch and small throttle-lever which operate the motor. The simplicity of the control is shown by Fig. 94. What the pupil does--as a first stage in his tuition--is to seat himself in the machine, while it stands at rest on the ground, and move the levers so that he becomes accustomed to their action. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--Control of a School Biplane.]