4 NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



enough to distinguish between friends and enemies and 

 to discover companions and helpers among the animals 

 about him. The first animal tamed was the dog, which is 

 still the idol of the child's heart. Although taming of the 

 dog antedates all historic records, it is quite probable that 

 this great advance was made by the plastic fancy of a child, 

 — that tJie first animal domesticated was the playfellow of 

 some savage boy or girl. 



Then follows, also before the dawn of authentic history, 

 domestication of the horse, sheep, goat, horned cattle, 

 and most of our domesticated birds, and it is self-evident 

 that the family or tribe first to develop the patience and 

 intelligence to tame and thus utilize animal helpers must 

 have rapidly outstripped all rivals in the race for life. 



Human races, in fact, may be divided into those that 

 have and those that have not tamed the horse. In long 

 struggles small margins of strength are often decisive, but 

 one ''horse power" equals that of five men, from which 

 we see what an enormous advantage accrued from domes- 

 tication of this one animal. Who first tamed and rode a 

 colt no one will ever know, but it must have been some 

 boy, lithe, strong, and daring. Certainly the twelve-year- 

 old Alexander succeeded better with Bucephalus than the 

 royal grooms of his father Philip. 



The important interest for nature study is the process 

 of domestication, the gaining of "dominion" expressed 

 in the command, the establishment of helpful relations, 

 rather than anything connected with the animal itself. 

 Thus we miss the substance for the shadow when we 

 attempt to give this kind of education by pictures of ani- 

 mals ; and we also lose the humanizing and educational 



