i 4 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



is actually supposed to distinguish between the ordinary ' s ' and the 

 ' long s ' at the end of the word, between ' au J (with the Umlaut) and 

 ' au ' without it, and so on. Such, at all events, is the claim set 

 forth for ' Hans's ' miraculous intelligence. As a fact it is, of course, 

 completely a matter of indifference to ' Hans ' what the questions may 

 be; they could with equal success be put in Greek or Sanskrit, so long 

 as he can catch the right signal and stop pawing at the right time. 

 And so again the gap between fact and fable is world-wide; and the 

 assumption equally groundless that any measure of the human kind 

 of reasoning intervenes to make possible the horse's replies. 



Surely there is nothing in either of these performances, except the 

 pretences of the showman, that in the least suggests the use of any of 

 the powers that the developing child must first acquire to gain an 

 actual knowledge of numbers and letters. And, if we look, we shall 

 find many indications of the quite different processes that are really 

 concerned. The best of these lies in the nature of the mistakes that 

 are likely to occur. For ' Jim Key,' these take the form of selecting a 

 neighboring letter — an { x ' for a ' y ' — a kind of mistake which no 

 mind that really was doing any spelling would be in the least tempted 

 to commit ; while ' Hans's ' mistake consists in not seeing the signal 

 quickly enough, and in pawing once too often or in anticipating through 

 the getting ready of the signal, and stopping too soon, again a type of 

 mistake that has no relation to the actual operation of those who cal- 

 culate and read. So also the scope of the questions that these mar- 

 velous animals at once attack without preliminary training shows how 

 unrelated is the finding of the answer to the consideration of the prob- 

 lem. If we add considerably to the difficulty of the problem that we 

 set to a calculating child, we must be prepared to accustom its powers 

 gradually to the increased difficulty and to take small steps repeatedly 

 with much chance for mistake in the newer processes. But these cal- 

 culating horses jump at once into fractions and square-roots, into 

 propositions in geometry, and equations in algebra, when some enter- 

 prising questioner proposes them. This at all events is true for 

 ' Hans's ' master, who easily prepares the result ; though in ' Jim 

 Key's' case, one sometimes suspects that the calculating possibilities 

 of the master are not immeasurably in advance of those of the horse. 



And once more — it certainly seems strange that so exceptionally 

 educated an animal should find no other occasion to exercise his re- 

 markable powers, should not spontaneously exhibit some original evi- 

 dences of his genius, that would distinguish him from the ordinary 

 horse. We are even tempted to pity so talented an animal with no 

 outlet for its vigorous mind, condemned to the monotonous round of 

 oats and hay, varied only by the tit-bits of carrot and sugar which, 

 however, seem to be appreciated as rewards of learning by these edu- 

 cated animals quite as keenly as by their untutored kind. It is also 



