Educating " Animals
Almost Human. A Study of Thinking Animals. By Carita
IF we are to admit the sincerity of Madame Borderieux, editor of Psychica, and to acknowledge ourselves convinced by the experiments made by M. M6mterlinck, Herr Krall, Professor Ziegler and many others ; then we must confess that the title of this book is a little patronizing.
The first chapter is devoted to an account of the Elberfeld horses, who were taught by their first owner, Herr Van Osten, to do complicated sums in arithmetic and to give the results by means of taps with the hoof. Herr Krall, who afterwards acquired the horses, allowed many public experiments to be made, which caused much controversy in the Press of -the
-time. Di. Claparede, 'who visited the 'animals, failed in his experiments and Very generously drew no conclusions. -M. Maeterlinck, in his book, " L'Hote Inconnu," gives a lengthy account of unwitnessed experiments that he made. He says that he Jinxed a number of numerical cards, and (without looking at them) placed three on a spring board in front of the horse—" a being so mysterious that I actually dared no longer to call him an animal. Without the slightest hesitation, he correctly tapped out the number formed by the cards."
Dr. II. Hanel declares that the animal tapped out the fourth root (53) of 7890481, an answer which he did not know himself until he looked, for verification, on the back of the paper containing the sum. Madame Borderieux attributes Dr. Claparede's failure to obtain similar results, to the fact that some people confuse animals.
The remainder of the book- deals with the " education '1 of dogs. The most remarkable anecdote of this section is supplied by Frau Mokel, the owner of a dog named Rolf. She says, " Our little Frieda obstinately refused to solve the problem 2 plus 2. Rolf came to me and gazed at me intently. I said to him, ' Do you know what two and two make ? ' To my intense.surprise he struck -four taps with his paw on my arm." He later gave ten taps as a solution of the problem five plus five—and this with no previous instruction. After this, Frau Mokel, in collaboration with Rolf, compiled a numerical alphabet, and, according to her evidence, the dog learned not only to count accurately, but to tap cut long sentences in reply to questions. In another chapter the results of experiments with this dog are recorded. Again Dr. Claparede was unsatisfied with his investigations and the dog's illness prevented them from being repeated. Dr. Ziegler, a professor of zoology, made tests in the presence of a solicitor. On one occasion he took Rolf alone into the kitchen and released a rat from a box that he hid brought. Rolf killed the rat, " without thinking of devouring him, although it was the time of ' famine ' July, 1916." On his return to the family, Rolf refused to answer questions. When yrau Mike! insisted, he tapped out, " I cannot because of ugly rat. Too hot to work. Stupid Ziegler."
The author relates many stories of the education of her own cross-bred dog, Zou. She says that he could read her thoughts and gave wrong arithmetical answers if she thought of the incorrect number. This is more easy to believe than the story of the rat, since any dog-owner will admit that dogs are -very sensitive to moods. -
The book arouses scepticism, but in justice to Madame Borderieux, we must state that she does not plead for belief. She quotes many authorities, whose sincerity we should not presume to impugn, and she invites questions, which may be addressed to her at 23 rue Lacroix, Paris 18.
The author concludes with a plea for the protection of dogs from the vivisectionist, and adds, " May all who love animals join us in helping our humble friends to emerge from the ignorance in which we have always kept them."
Does Madatne Borderieux really think that we shall benefit the canine :race by substituting for their marvellous natural instincts an elementary education in two of the R's ? Why should we do it, in any case ? Why should we help them to emerge from _ their blessed innocence and infinite know- ledge--always supposing that we could do so ?
B. E. T.
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