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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.

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.