Reason In Animals

1895

A THEORY THAT IT COULD BE SUCCESSFULLY CULTIVATED.

Truly Wonderful Examples In the Dog Family—One Taught by the Kindergarten Method—A Black and Tan That Displayed Human Intelligence.

"Instead of trying to learn the speech of animals," said a gentleman interested in science recently, "there may come a time when what we now consider dumb brutes may be endowed through the efforts of man with an intelligence approximating the human intellect. In other words, the higher order of animals may be taught to reason and demonstrate their power of thought in a way that would indeed be marvelous considered in the light of the laws of nature as we now have them revealed to us. But we are forced to believe from the world's experience in the past that all things are possible, and that we have not by any means attained the climax of the knowledge which we are to obtain in this life. In regard to the education of animals I am not speaking from theory, for I have but recently had examples of the great development of animal intelligence which, as a starter in a new line of scientific teaching, is extraordinary. But recently there was exhibited at one of the theaters of the city a dog whose exhibition was so remarkable that every person attributed it to a trick. A wink of the eye or some movement of the hand by the owner signified to the dog when he came opposite the correct card. Now, this dog, the owner told me, really did not reason. His power was developed by the kindergarten system of instruction and was discovered by a small child, who for amusement was accustomed to have her constant playfellow pick out numbers and cards while she was at her kindergarten lesson. The dog was with the child continually and soon showed signs of reasoning and evidenced an intelligence which would seem unusual in a brute. The dog had had the advantage of all the kindergarten instruction given the small child and strangely had made use of it.

"It had learned by observation just as a child does in the kindergarten. It is nothing surprising either when you observe how rapidly the mind of a child develops under such teaching. Why, there are many instances of a child being deaf and dumb or not knowing the English language, yet making almost as fast progress in the kindergarten as the child more fortunate. To a person not knowing that children have reasoning powers an untutored deaf and dumb child would scarcely show more intelligence than a dog. So why should we assert that a dog has no intelligence that can be developed simply because we do not know anything about it? Who knows what results could be obtained in the education of dogs if the systematic teaching that is bestowed upon children was given to the canines? Whether the dog which was exhibited here was really educated as the man claimed or not is immaterial. But that such a possibility exists was proved to me by a personal experience I had with a dog in the east recently. I was in a small town in Jersey, and in walking down the street one day I saw an elderly man carrying a small black and tan dog wrapped in a sort of a blanket which had been made especially for it. I approached the man and ventured that he must think a great deal of the dog from the care he took of it. 'A great deal,' said the old fellow. 'Why, if he was may son I could not think more of him. He has actually a human intelligence.' I told him I had heard of such cases before, but had always attributed the show of intelligence to a well devised trick. 'Well,' continued the old man, 'my friend, I can prove to you that this dog really does reason. He will do anything you tell him to, discriminate between objects and men, and, in fact, show an intelligence which will surprise you.' By this time three or four men passing by, hearing the conversation, became interested and stopped. The owner of the dog then took a little square piece of black flannel from his pocket and spread it upon the pavement. He then placed the dog upon it and asked me to tell him to pick out any one in the crowd by the description I should give of him. I then spoke to the dog, 'Pick out the man who has the red mustache and red necktie and wearing the light checked trousers.'

"I referred to a man in the rear of the crowd. The little dog sat up, and raising his ears looked all about the crowd. Then, as soon as he spied the man, he ran to him and jumped up, putting his fore paws on the man's legs. I tried this several times on different people, and never once did the dog make a mistake. Then the dog was asked his age, and by a number of barks told it. he then did some addition and subtraction. I then told the man that I thought there was some trick about it, so he said he would convince me fully that the dog really reasoned. 'Now,' said he, 'tell him to go to any object you may see within two blocks of here and tell him to point it out by placing his feet upon it when he finds it. I will go into this store, out of his sight, so that there will be no chance of my giving a signal.' After the man had retired I noticed a bicycle leaning against a post about a block and a half up the road. I turned to the dog and said slowly, 'Go find a bicycle up the road, and when you come to it put your hind feet on the back wheel.' The dog started on a lazy walk, looking all about him in the direction of the bicycle, and when he saw it he broke into a little trot. He then set his foot on the hind wheel and stood in this position looking toward us until a shout of approbation told him he was correct, when he got down and ran toward us as fast as he could. When he reached us, he jumped up and down, seeming pleased with his accomplishment. Of course there was no room left for me to doubt. I had to believe that if I ever was to believe anything. After this the dog pointed out an open carriage from a number of vehicles; also a drug store and a grocery from a block of miscellaneous stores. His scope of tricks, if they could be so called, seemed unlimited. He was able to do anything that was told him. The man told me his education had been like a child's. At first he could tell but one object, and by degrees he was taught to know more until out of 36 various articles placed in a room he could pick out any one that would be mentioned." — Pittsburg Dispatch.


Utility Vases

A large vase, such as usually serves for a potted plant, makes a good umbrella stand, and these are found in every variety of color and style. One of the big, pot bellied Moorish or Spanish peasant pottery, in rough, quaint designs of blue and yellow on white or of a rich, dark green solid color, relieved only by gradations of color in the glaze, would be effective and substantial.

The Boy Who Learned the Way

1901

He was very young — about 13 — this boy who spent most of his time in the studios watching the artists draw and paint and wishing he could do the same.

"What kind of pencils do you use?" he said one day, and they gave him one of the kind. That night he tried to make a figure he had seen one of the artists draw. It seemed so easy. But he could not do the same kind of work.

"Perhaps I haven't the right kind of paper," he reasoned. "I will get a piece tomorrow." Even the right kind of paper did not help him any.

"I need a studio and an easel," was his next conclusion. "I have the desire; surely all I need now are the necessary surroundings."

A few years of impatient waiting passed before he secured the "necessary surroundings," and when he had them all and still found it impossible to draw the truth dawned upon him.

"I know what is wrong," he cried, throwing down his pencil. "I know nothing of the principles of art. I must learn them first."

He was still young when his name as a great painter was known on two continents. He had learned the "principle." A bit of brown paper and a burned match would then enable him to draw as easily as all the art essentials. — Ann Partlan in Success.

Perseverance

1901

With perseverance the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if properly employed, enable any man of ordinary capacity very shortly to master a complete science. It would make an ignorant man a well informed man in ten years. We must not allow the time to pass without yielding fruits in the form of something learned worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated or some good habit strengthened.

No Monopoly of Brains

1905

Hopeful Sign That Proves This the Age of Opportunity

One of the most hopeful signs of the times is the apparent decay of the breed of so-called great men — those mighty personalities that in former times stood out like a solitary tree in a vast prairie.

The reason for it, of course, is the distinction of all those old-time monopolies of brains which stunted all human beings except a few who, by chance rather than by superiority of fibre, grew and developed. There are thousands, literally thousands, of men now living who, if they had lived a century or so ago and had done a work similar to which they are doing without any very sonorous fanfare upon the trumpets of fame, would have been the talk of the world and the main topic of history.

And how many of the so-called great achievements of so-called great statesmen, soldiers and thinkers of former times would be impossible to-day, because those achievements depended chiefly upon the ignorance and incapacity of the overwhelming mass of the men of their day!

Truly, this is the age of opportunity. — Saturday Evening Post.

A Glimpse of Longfellow

1896

In "A Glimpse of Longfellow," published in one of the magazines, Rev. Minot J. Savage calls him "the most widely read poet of the English-speaking world." This is approximately true, observes the New York World, and the cause for it is found in the poet's universal sympathy with the literature of all times and countries.

He is the most widely read poet of America because of all American poets he read most widely. The extent of his studies is astonishing. In his youth he went deep into the early literature of England, and added to the usual college acquaintance with the classics a knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and literature which did much to insure his success. He went from Saxon to the Scandinavian languages and to old Norse; then to old High German and from that to Italian, making a translation of Dante, which if lacking in the high poetic art of the original verse will always be respectable.

As a result of wide literary sympathies, he was able to appeal to the universal human nature. If he had something of natural provincialism in his youth, his maturity knew no boundary of section or country. His works have been translated into all the principal languages of Europe because by long labor he learned to understand the common humanity that underlies all differences of Nationality.

The central fact of his career was his great capacity for work. It made him the greatest of New England poets and one of the most useful men of his century.

To Teach, Or Not to Teach

1922

Teaching as a profession because of its traditional "gentility" is no longer. Today girls enter that profession because they have a genuine love for the work. Yet, despite the innumerable avenues that have been opened to women during the last few years, we still hear mothers advising their daughters to go in for teaching in preference to the more difficult jobs in other lines of work.

Teaching is not easy. The very principle of it makes it difficult. And in figuring out the advantages of choosing it as a career in preference to some other line of work for which the girl may have a natural talent, it is well to look at the other side of the seeming simplicity.

Children do not like to be taught. It is natural for them to love play and shun any influence that tends to curb this natural instinct. So that the premier difficulty the teacher finds is to get her class into the right frame of mind. Her own mind must be so constructed that she no more questions the value of what she is doing than a bird wonders if it is worth while to build a nest. She must possess enough lasting enthusiasm to make her pupils believe in the importance of education; to make them like what they naturally dislike.

Effort, self-control and love of learning are not universal human traits like receiving mail, dancing, skating and shopping. And yet it is this that the natural teacher must sell as her ware. To avoid the colorless existence of the drudge, the successful teacher must be endowed with a natural aptitude for this very technical line of work.

The long Summer vacation, the Saturdays off, the 9 to 3 hours all look attractive. Yet the other side of the picture ought to be taken into consideration. For it is the drudgery that comes from being forced into the wrong kind of work that frazzles out the nerves every year of some of our finest young women.

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, January 3, 1922, page 12.

Thinking About Education, Facts or Principles

1921

Something to Think About
By F. A. Walker

EDISON QUESTIONS

THOMAS A. EDISON, who has a very low opinion of the intellectuality of the average college student, has come out with a new set of questions, historical, political, geographical and scientific.

The Wizard is much too honest a man for anybody to suggest that he deliberately got up these posers for the purpose of humiliating his fellow citizens.

So it may be admitted that the wide ground covered by the queries represents his own interest in all sorts of subjects having to do with human activities.

But it is doubtful whether or not ability to answer correctly all or most of these questions could be any test of the intelligence of anybody, in college or out of it. For intelligence and knowledge are very different things.

It was once said of a distinguished man that he had a larger store of useless knowledge than anybody of his time. Mr. Edison would not admit that any knowledge could be useless.

In fact he seems to take the attitude of the late Lord Macaulay who was in the habit of qualifying a statement as to something that nobody knew anything about but himself, by saying "as every schoolboy knows." As a result "Macaulay's Schoolboy" became the proper definition of an infant prodigy.

Lord Kelvin was one of the most distinguished men of science of his time. Addressing his students at Glasgow University on one occasion he said that the great thing about the higher mathematics was that it could be of no possible use to anybody.

Yet the fact that Kelvin and a couple of his friends, one in America and another in Europe, used to amuse themselves with these useless investigations, is, in a way, an argument in favor of Mr. Edison. It goes to show that certain things are worth while even if no direct advantage is to be derived from them.

Old-fashioned schoolmasters were great believers in the importance of facts, and a great part of their time was passed in getting them into the minds of the young.

But the modern schoolmaster goes about his business in a different way. He does not try to teach facts. He does try to teach general principles. It is like the difference between the old geography and the new.

The old dealt with the names of places, rivers, mountains and so on. The new deals with the effect of the physical shape of the earth's surface on the races scattered over it.

A well-trained lawyer is not one who carries all the cases around with him in his head. But he does know how to put his hand on anything he wants.

In the same way it is more important to be able to get at your facts than to know them.

—Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, October 29, 1921, page 6.