490 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



incompetence on my part, for the proof in all cases rests not on my 

 observation, but on impartial time records or such matters of fact 

 as the escape or nonescape, the climbing or not-climbing of the 

 animals. I may add that in a life among these animals of six months 

 for from four to eight hours a day I never saw any acts which even 

 seemed to show reasoning powers, and did see numerous acts unmen- 

 tioncd here which pointed clearly to their absence. 



All that is left for the fond owner of a supposedly rational ani- 

 mal to say is that though the average animal, the typical dog or cat, 

 is by these experiments shown to be devoid of reasoning power, yet 

 his dog or her cat is far above the average level, and is therefore 

 to be judged by itself. He may claim that just because my average 

 animals failed to infer, we have no right to deny inference to all, 

 particularly to his. Is it not fair to ask such a one to repeat my ex- 

 periments with his supposedly superior animal? Until he does and 

 systematically tries to find out how its mind works and what it is 

 capable of, has he any right to bear witness? It may also be said 

 that of the number of people who witnessed the performances of 

 my animals after they had fully learned a lot of these acts, but had 

 not seen the method of acquisition, all unanimously wondered at 

 their wonderful intellectual powers. " How do you teach them? " 

 "Where did you get such bright animals?" "I always thought 

 animals could think," and such like were common expressions of my 

 visitors. The fact was that the dogs and cats were picked up in the 

 street at random, and that no one of them had thought out one jot or 

 tittle of the things he had learned to do. The specious appearance 

 of reasoning in a completely formed habit does not involve the pres- 

 ence or assistance of reasoning in the formation of the habit. 



Here, at the close of this account, I may signify my willingness 

 to reply, so far as is possible, to any letters from readers of the 

 Popular Science Monthly who may care to ask questions about any 

 feature of animal intelligence. 



In a discussion of the question " How Education fails," Dr. J. T. Searcy, 

 of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, speaks of the tendency of too much education as 

 being to make the pupil too machine-cut. " The successful, the progres- 

 sive, the aggressive men, families, and races are not the manufactured 

 ones, but the self-made ones." In the conditions and complexities of 

 human society, the accumulating data of knowledge change so rapidly 

 that educators can not anticipate the future in the elements and curricula 

 of prescribed education. The advancing man, who is able to keep up in 

 his day and generation, shows his excellence in his ability to readjust to his 

 changing environment. The schools can not give this faculty, but rather 

 have a tendency to weaken it; yet on it, more than anything else, rests the 

 success of the man and the race. " Too much ought not to be demanded of 

 the schools, nor ought they to assume too much to themselves." 



