12 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



To put a wild sapajou monkey, — weak, timid and afraid,— 

 in a strange and formidable prison box filled with strange 

 machinery, and call upon it to learn or to invent strange me- 

 chanical processes, is like bringing a boy of ten years up 

 to a four-cylinder duplex Hoe printing-and-folding press, 

 and sa3ring to him: "Now, go ahead and find out how to run 

 this machine, and print both sides of a signature upon it." 



The average boy would shrink from the mechanical mon- 

 ster, and have no stomach whatever for "trial by error." 



I think that the principle of determining the mind of a 

 wild animal along the lines of the professor is not the best way. 

 It should be developed along the natural lines of the wild-animal 

 mind. It should be stimulated to do what it feels most inclined 

 to do, and educated to achieve real mental progress. 



I think that the ideal way to study the minds of apes, 

 baboons and monkeys would be to choose a good location in a 

 tropical or sub-tropical climate that is neither too wet nor too 

 dry, enclose an area of five acres with an unclimbable fence, 

 and divide it into as many corrals as there are species to be 

 experimented upon. Each corral would need a shelter house 

 and indoor playroom. The stage properties should be varied 

 and abundant, and designed to stimulate curiosity as well as 

 activity. 



Somewhere in the program I would try to teach orang-utans 

 and chimpanzees the properties of fire, and how to make and 

 tend fires. I would try to teach them the seed-planting idea, 

 and the meaning of seedtime and harvest. I would teach 

 sanitation and cleanliness of habit, — a thing much more easily 

 done than most persons suppose. I would teach my apes to 

 wash dishes and to cook, and I am sure that some of them 

 would do no worse than some human members of the profes- 

 sion who now receive $50 per month, or more, for spoiling food. 



In one corral I would mix up a chimpanzee, an orang-utan, 

 a golden baboon and a good-tempered rhesus monkey. My 

 apes would begin at two years old, because after seven or eight 



