CHAPTER V

BALKING

When I write my book on farm pedagogy I shall certainly make large
use of the horse in illustrating the fundamental principles, for he
is a noble animal and altogether worthy of the fullest recognition.
We often use the expression "horse-sense" somewhat flippantly, but I
have often seen a driver who would have been a more useful member of
society if he had had as much sense as the horses he was driving. If
I were making a catalogue of the "lower animals" I'd certainly
include the man who abuses a horse. Why, the celebrated German
trick-horse, Hans, had even the psychologists baffled for a long
time, but finally he taught them a big chapter in psychology. They
finally discovered that his marvellous tricks were accomplished
through the power of close observation. Facial expression, twitching
of a muscle, movements of the head, these were the things he watched
for as his cue in answering questions by indicating the right card.
There was a teacher in our school once who wore old-fashioned
spectacles. When he wanted us to answer a question in a certain way
he unconsciously looked over his spectacles; but when he wanted a
different answer he raised his spectacles to his forehead. So we
ranked high in our daily grades, but met our Waterloo when the
examination came around. That teacher, of course, had never heard of
the horse Hans, and so was not aware that in the process of watching
his movements we were merely proving that we had horse-sense. He