ii6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



imprison them in a box a good deal less tlian four feet square, and 

 then say to them, " Now, you poor, frightened, half-starved crea- 

 tures, show us what reasoning powers you possess." About as 

 well throw some benighted Africans into a slave ship and order 

 them to make a telephone or a phonograpli ! My comparison is 

 not too strong, considering the immense distance there is between 

 the human race and the brute creation. And so it must be, in the 

 bringing to light of the powers of memory and the clear exhibi- 

 tion of the reasoning powers, few though they be, that the tests are 

 not conclusive unless made under the most favorable environment, 

 upon dogs of the highest intelligence, and in the most congenial and 

 sympathetic manner. 



Testing this most interesting question in this manner, my de- 

 cided convictions are that animals do reason. 



SKETCH OF GEORGE M. STERXBERG. 



NO man among Americans has studied the micro-organisms 

 with more profit or has contributed more to our knowledge 

 of the nature of infection, particularly of that of yellow fever, than 

 Dr. George M. Steris'berg, of the United States Army. His 

 merits are freely recognized abroad, and he ranks there, as well 

 as at home, among the leading bacteriologists of the age. He was 

 born at Hartwick Seminary, an institution of the Evangelical Lu- 

 theran Church in America (General Synod), Otsego, N. Y., June 

 8, 1838. His father, the Rev. Levi Sternberg, D. D., a graduate 

 of Union College, a Lutheran minister, and for many years prin- 

 cipal of the seminary and a director of it, was descended from Ger- 

 man ancestors who came to this country in 1703 and settled in 

 Schoharie County, New York. The younger Sternberg received 

 his academical training at the seminary, after which, intending 

 to study medicine, he undertook a school at New Germantown, 

 N. J., as a means of earning a part of the money required to de- 

 fray the cost of his instruction in that science. The record of his 

 school was one of quiet sessions, thoroughness, and popularity of 

 the teacher, and his departure was an occasion of regret among 

 his patrons. 



"When nineteen years old, young Sternberg began his medical 

 studies with Dr. Horace Lathrop, in Cooperstown, N. Y. After- 

 ward he attended the courses of the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons, New York, and was graduated thence in the class of 1860. 

 Before he had fairly settled in practice the civil war began, and the 



