Chapter III: Part 3

But all these noisy revilings of their race could only outwardly, not inwardly, disturb the self-esteem of the Malays, because their leading spirits had by critical psychological studies of the white race confirmed the opinion of the simple Tagal peasants that the whites are made out of the same earth as the colored, and that the latter could, under equal conditions, have done as well as they. Only the whites have adopted that lordly code of morals which, like the flag with contraband goods, covers the grossest breaches of right and other outrages, which a white gentleman would not venture, indeed, to commit upon his peers, but which, in the treatment of colored men, belong, so to speak, to good tone, to "European smartness."

The educated brown man generally feels in his intercourse with the European that uneasiness, that poorly concealed embarrassment, which the parvenue with us feels in the presence of one of the blue-blooded aristocracy. He feels every instant that the white man's critical eye is upon him, and knows that the criticism will be pitiless and harsh to injustice. He knows, further, that this criticism in every case does not apply only to him, the individual, but that conclusions are drawn at once from his errors, even though they may be only presumed, that are applied to his whole race or caste--conclusions which are never flattering, but always culminate, in agreement with the scorn of the superior, in a severe condemnation.

This consciousness of running the gantlet before the eyes of Europeans often causes the brown man to commit mistakes in European society, which refuses to pass him among people whose favor he would be sure to enjoy.

The opinion which Europeans living in the tropics form of the brown men is generally unfavorable and unjust to them. We Europeans, or rather our nations and states, already judge one another harshly and in a more than partisan manner, because we see first only the weaknesses, often even only the fancied weaknesses, of our neighbors. How, then, could we expect anything better when a European has to pass an opinion on a brown man? We should not forget that only those Europeans go to the tropics who display special energy and force of will--a kind of chosen lot among our race--while the natives there include all the levels of the people. If we add to this that all the Europeans believe in their own superiority and in the inferiority of the brown men, it will seem quite natural that when the Europeans begin to make comparisons between themselves and the natives the comparisons will always be flattering to those who make them.

In the Philippine Islands, on the other hand, the reaction of the natives against this extreme self-conceit of the whites has been making itself felt for more than twenty years. This has come to pass since the philosophical heads among them have carefully studied the whites in the various countries of Europe, and have in consequence lost faith in the divine likeness of the Caucasians.

Single examples of the studies of these men have been published, such as that of the war minister of the Philippine republic, Don Antonio Luna, a pure-blooded Malay like his brother the painter. Luna studied in Spain and in Paris (under Pasteur), and lived a little while in England, so that he had opportunities to become acquainted with three civilized nations at their home. His literary works are represented to us in the garb of novels and _feuilletons_, the sarcasm of which, while it certainly escapes the uninitiated European, will be all the more effective and precious upon those who are acquainted with the purpose of the brilliant author, which is to satirize the depreciatory accounts by European travelers of the land and people of the Philippine Islands. This he does by telling of his rummaging through the critics' home and finding all the weaknesses and faults which are accredited to the brown men as signs of their incapacity no less prevalent in Europe than in the Philippine archipelago; and arguing that therefore the whites and the browns differ only in the color of their skin, in build, and in language, but not in mind.

If space allowed I should be glad to follow my inclination to repeat some of Luna's descriptions, which are given in a style that reminds one of Maupassant's. I shall only say that Luna has drawn within the circle of his observations the movements of all classes in the aristocratic saloon and in the workman's beerhouse, and remarks that everything that has been charged against the brown man appears likewise in the European. The first sketch is excellent. European travelers speak in their works of the "stupid staring" at their white-skinned, thoughtful faces by the "brown savages." Luna, whose pen-name is Taga-ilog,[7] parodies these stories by simply relating that on his arrival in Europe and during his earlier residence there the people on the streets stared at him, and some of the boys threw stones or stuck out their tongues at him. He did not, however, care for that, while he expected that the better circles would convince him of the superiority and the innate tact of the lordly race by their more refined behavior. But it did not turn out so. He saw the ladies in the saloons tittering behind their fans and making merry over "the queer man." And then at the table! How plain was the expression of astonishment among the gentlemen of the saloons that the brown man behaved in his eating just as the whites did! They had apparently anticipated that the "black" would act as if he were tearing live pigeons to pieces and swallowing them. The indolence of the Europeans is shown up no less amusingly. Luna finds it apparent in all conditions, prevailing in the highest and the lowest social strata. He asks what would become of the industry and activity of the European peoples if they were suddenly given the climate and the fruitfulness of his native land. These two examples are all we can give. Likewise interesting are the studies of my Tagalog friends Don Marcelo H. del Pilar and Don Mariano Ponce. The former, an advocate from the province of Bulakan, in the island of Luzon, and a descendant of King Lakandola, of Manila, was the leader of the Reformist party and the chief editor of the journal _La Solidaridad_, published in Madrid, which he directed with a remarkable skill that was recognized by his opponents. He died in Barcelona in the summer of 1896. His compeer, Ponce, is now living in Japan and is no less distinguished than Pilar for his keen wit and his zeal in research.

[Footnote 7: From over the water; or it may be derived from
Ilokos, or Tagal.]

These two Malay jurists carefully examined the criminal records of Europe. Why? Because, whenever an extraordinary or especially heinous crime was committed in the Philippine Islands, the Spaniards were accustomed to use it to confirm their conclusions as to the innate inferiority of the Malay race. "That could occur only among a people of inferior intelligence," was their standing phrase. Del Pilar and Ponce gathered the accounts of trials from the European journals, and were able to reply to the Spaniards quietly: "No, that is not so. All these crimes occur among you Europeans, and relatively more frequently than with us. Your conclusion is therefore false, or else you too have a defective intelligence such as you ascribe to us." Del Pilar, from his studies of the colonial enterprises of all peoples, came to the conclusion that "the Europeans founded most of their colonies at a time when the holding in vassalage of men of their own race by whites and the slavery of negroes and Indians were not regarded as offenses. If, now, we look at colonies in which, as in the Philippine Islands, agricultural populations are living with a civilization of their own, the development of the native races will depend on their religion. In a colony where Islam or a dogmatized heathen religion prevails no assimilation between Europeans and natives can take place. It is otherwise in countries like the Philippines, where the natives accepted Christianity at a time when religion had more importance among Europeans than now; a common basis was formed for the co-operation of both parts, the whites and the colored. But the circumstance that rulers and ruled had the same religion and the same official language may have led directly to another evil--that the colors became marks of condition, the whites being the Spartans, the mestizos the perioikoi, and the colored men the helots or servile people. So long as no pressure toward higher ambitions occurred from among those of the perioikoi and the helot grades, and so long as the whites were able to keep their prestige freely recognized by their dependents, the view of the whites, that the colored were both socially and intellectually a lower caste, seemed to be justified. The case has been different in the present century, especially in the second half of it. People of our (Philippine) race attended the high schools, appropriated to themselves the civilization and the knowledge of the whites, and still the brand of inferiority stuck to them. And this happened, too, when the quality of the whites had deteriorated. They were no longer exclusively _señors_, but there came bankrupted Spaniards or those of the lowest classes into the country, among them persons who could not read and write, who should be rated as beneath our school-trained people. And yet these illiterates claimed, by virtue of their color, to be respected as lords of the land, an absurdity which left the idea of 'European prestige' without justification, for how could beggars, spongers, bummers, rowdies, and illiterates impress anybody? The decent Spaniards committed the mistake of avowing their solidarity with the sorry fellows of their caste, instead of rejecting them and holding aloof from them and sending them back to Spain. So the Spaniards have brought it to pass, through a mistaken policy, that the Filipinos on their side, too, throw the good elements of the Spanish population into the same pot with the foul. Another reason why a Spanish prestige can not be thought of among us is that, with the exception of the tobacco companies, all the great enterprises in our country are carried on by foreigners and Filipinos. We owe all that is called progress not to the Spaniards, but to our own force or to foreigners."

When the painter Juan Luna attracted so much attention with his picture Spoliarum it was not known that the artist was a Malay, and the work was therefore regarded and criticised from a purely artistic point of view. But as soon as the race of the painter became known, European prejudice made itself manifest. It was said that the choice of a tragic subject could unquestionably be traced back to the descent of the artist from "savages." But when did artists of the white race ever shrink from such subjects? Luna has had cause enough to complain of European injustice. The natives are charged with not being independent in art. "They can only imitate," it is said. But how many European nations one would have to strike out of the list of the civilized if that title is to belong only to those which have an art of their own! It should not be forgotten that the Spaniards have, during their three hundred years' rule, impressed a Spanish mark on the native artistic tendencies. The ethnographer who is acquainted with the woven and carved designs of the heathen tribes which have remained free from the Spaniards and from Christian civilization will certainly not be able to deny that the Malays of the Philippine Islands have a great talent for ornamental art. But if the reproach is cast against the Filipinos that they have tried to Europeanize themselves in plastic art as well as in music, they have not done differently from the Europeans--that is, they denationalize themselves and come into the great international circle of civilization, a thing that can hardly be charged as a sin against them. It is very remarkable, they say, that Europeans condemn in the Filipinos, as a mark of inferiority that which they regard in themselves as a sign of progress.

Rizal also has spoken of the injustice of the judgments which Europeans pass upon Philippine conditions. I have published his views on this subject in the tenth volume of the _Internationalen Archivs für Ethnographie_, and will therefore on the present occasion only give a sketch of them, with a few additional observations to complement them. Dr. Rizal says that most Europeans judge the natives from their servants, which would be as false as if anybody should form his conception of the German people from the complaints which German housewives are always ready to make concerning their domestics. At one time while he was visiting me we strolled out of town. He gathered some wild flowers and asked me their names. I had to confess respecting many of them that I knew neither their common nor their botanical names. He laughed and said: "Well, you are a cit; let us ask a countryman." We met a peasant, but he could not give us any information about any of the flowers. "Why," Rizal said, "is this the first time you ever saw the flowers?" The peasant replied that he knew the flowers very well, but did not know what they were called. When the countryman had gone, Rizal said to me: "How fortunate you Europeans are as compared with us poor Tagals! If such an experience as I have just gone through should happen to a European among us he would write in his notebook that 'the stupidity of these people shows itself in the fact that they do not know or have no names for many of the flowers which they see every day and tread upon with their clumsy feet. What can not be eaten or put to some immediate use has very little value or interest to these fellows, and such dull-witted folk as these want reform and autonomy!' And he would be only a modest traveler. Another one would write a whole chapter over the incident, as illustrating the inferiority of all our people."

I might continue at greater length on this theme, but I believe that the reader will sufficiently apprehend from what I have said that the European and American whites have not made a good impression on the colored Filipinos, and that the Philippine creoles feel as one with their colored brethren; that there is no spirit of caste in the matter like that which existed in the old colonial times, but they all call themselves simply Filipinos, and that the rule of the American Anglo-Saxons, who regard even the creoles as a kind of "niggers," would be looked upon by educated Filipinos of all castes as a supreme loss of civic rights.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Deutsche Rundschau._

DO ANIMALS REASON?

BY EDWARD THORNDIKE, PH. D.

Probably every reader who owns a dog or cat has already answered the question which forms our title, and the chance is ten to one that he has answered, "Yes." In spite of the declarations of the psychologists from Descartes to Lloyd Morgan, the man who likes his dog and the woman who pets a cat persist in the belief that their pets carry on thinking processes similar, at least in kind, to our own. And if one has nothing more to say for the opposite view than the stock arguments of the psychologists, he will make few converts. A series of experiments carried on for two years have, I hope, given me some things more to say--some things which may interest the believer in reason in animals, even if they do not convert him.

In trying to find out what sort of thinking animals were capable of I adopted a novel but very simple method. Dogs and cats were shut up, when hungry, in inclosures from which they could escape by performing some simple act, such as pulling a wire loop, stepping on a platform or lever, clawing down a string stretched across the inclosure, turning a wooden button, etc. In each case the act set in play some simple mechanism which opened the door. A piece of fish or meat outside the inclosure furnished the motive for their attempts to escape. The inclosures for the cats were wooden boxes, in shape and appearance like the one pictured in Fig. 1, and were about 20 × 15 × 12 inches in size. The boxes for the dogs (who were rather small, weighing on the average about thirty pounds) were about 40 × 22 × 22. By means of such experiments we put animals in situations seeming almost sure to call forth any reasoning powers they possess. On the days when the experiments were taking place they were practically utterly hungry, and so had the best reasons for making every effort to escape. As a fact, their conduct when shut up in these boxes showed the utmost eagerness to get out and get at the much-needed food. Moreover, the actions required and the thinking involved are such as the stories told about intelligent animals credit them with, and, on the other hand, are not far removed from the acts and feelings required in the ordinary course of animal life. It would be foolish to deny reason to an animal because he failed to do something (e. g., a mathematical computation) which in the nature of his life he would never be likely to think about, or which his bones and muscles were not fitted to perform, or which, even by those who credit him with reason, he is never supposed to do. So the experiments were arranged with a view of giving reasoning every chance to display itself if it existed.

What, now, would we expect to observe if a _reasoning_ animal, who is surely eager to get out, is put, for example, into a box with a door arranged so as to fall open when a wooden button holding it at the top (on the inside) is turned from its vertical to a horizontal position? We should expect that he would first try to claw the whole box apart or to crawl out between the bars. He would soon realize the futility of this and stop to consider. He might then think of the button as being the vital point, or of having seen doors open when buttons were turned. He might then poke or claw it around. If after he had eaten the bit of fish outside he was immediately put in the box again he ought to remember what he had done before, and at once attack the button, and so ever after. It might very well be that he would not, when in the box for the first time, be able to reason out the way to escape. But suppose that, in clawing, biting, trying to crawl through holes, etc., he happened to turn the button and so escape. He ought, then, if at once put in again, this time to perform deliberately the act which he had in the first trial hit upon accidentally. This one would expect to see if the animal _did_ reason. What do we really see?

To save time we may confine ourselves to a description of the twelve cats experimented with, adding now that the dogs presented no difference in behavior which would modify our conclusions. The behavior of all but No. 11 and No. 13 was practically the same. When put into the box the cat would show evident signs of discomfort and of an impulse to escape from confinement. It tries to squeeze through any opening; it claws and bites at the bars; it thrusts its paws out through any opening, and claws at everything it reaches; it continues its efforts when it strikes anything loose and shaky; it may claw at things in the box. The vigor with which it struggles is extraordinary. For eight or ten minutes it will claw and bite and squeeze incessantly. With No. 13, an old cat, and No. 11, an uncommonly sluggish cat, the behavior was different. They did not struggle vigorously or continually. (In the experiments it was found that these two would stay quietly in the box for hours, and I therefore let them out myself a few times, so that they might associate the fact of being outside with the fact of eating, and so desire to escape. When this was done, they tried to get out like the rest.) In all cases the instinctive struggle is likely to succeed in leading the cat accidentally to turn the button and so escape, for the cat claws and bites all over the box. These general clawings, bitings, and squeezings are of course instinctive, not premeditated. The cats will do the same if in a box with absolutely no chance for escape, or in a basket without even an opening--will do them, that is, when they are the foolishest things to do. The cats do these acts for just the same reason that they suck when young, propagate when older, or eat meat when they smell it.

Each of the twelve cats was tried in a number of different boxes, and in no case did I see anything that even looked like thoughtful contemplation of the situation or deliberation over possible ways of winning freedom. Furthermore, in every case any cat who had thus accidentally hit upon the proper act was, after he had eaten the bit of fish outside, immediately put back into the box. Did he then think of how he had got out before, and at once or after a time of thinking repeat the act? By no means. He bursts out into the same instinctive activities as before, and may even fail this time to get out at all, or until a much _longer_ period of miscellaneous scrabbling at last happens to include the particular clawing or poking which works the mechanism. If one repeats the process, keeps putting the cat back into the box after each success, the amount of the useless action gradually decreases, the right movement is made sooner and sooner, until finally it is done as soon as the cat is put in.

This sort of a history is not the history of a reasoning animal. It is the history of an animal who meets a certain situation with a lot of instinctive acts. Included without design among these acts is one which brings freedom and food. The pleasurable result of this one gradually stamps it in in connection with the situation "confinement in that box," while their failure to result in any pleasure gradually stamps out all the useless bitings, clawings, and squeezings. Thus, little by little, the one act becomes more and more likely to be done in that situation, while the others slowly vanish. This history represents the wearing smooth of a path in the brain, not the decisions of a rational consciousness.

We can express graphically the difference between the conduct of a reasoning animal and that of these dogs and cats by means of a time-curve. If, for instance, we let perpendiculars to a horizontal line represent each one trial in the box, and let their heights represent in each trial the time it took the animal to escape (each three millimetres equaling ten seconds), the accompanying figure (Fig. 2) will tell the story of a cat which, when first put in, took sixty seconds to get out; in the second trial, eighty; in the third, fifty; in the fourth, sixty; in the fifth, fifty; in the sixth, forty, etc. This figure represents what did actually happen with one cat in learning a very easy act. Suppose the cat had, after the third accidental success, been able to reason. She would then have the next time and in all succeeding times performed the act as soon as put in, and the figure would have been such as we see in Fig. 3. The thing is still clearer if, instead of drawing in the perpendiculars, we draw only a line joining their tops. Fig. 4 shows, then, the curve for the real history, and Fig. 5 shows the abrupt descent, due to a rational comprehension of the situation. I kept an accurate record of the time, in seconds, taken in every trial by every cat in every box, and in them all there appears no evidence for the presence of even the little reasoning that "what let me out of this box three seconds ago will let me out now." Surely, if an animal could reason he would, after ten or eleven accidental successes, think what he had been doing, and at the eleventh or twelfth trial would at once perform the act. But no! The slope of the curves, as one may see in the specimens shown in Fig. 6, is always gradual. So, in saying that the behavior of the animals throughout the experiments gave no sign of the presence of reasoning I am not giving a personal opinion, but the impartial evidence of an unprejudiced watch. The curves given in Fig. 6 are for cats learning to escape from the box already described, whose door was held by a wooden button on the inside.

Some one may object that, true as all this may be, the intelligent acts reported of animals are in many cases such as could not have happened in this way by accident. These anecdotes of apparent comprehension and inference are really the only argument which the believers in reason have presented. Its whole substance vanishes if, as a matter of fact, animals can do these supposed intelligent acts in the course of instinctive struggling. They certainly can and do. I purposely chose, for experiments, two of the most intelligent performances described by Romanes in his Animal Intelligence--namely, the act of opening a door by depressing the thumb-piece of an ordinary thumb-latch and the opening of a window by turning a swivel (see pp. 420-422 and p. 425 of Animal Intelligence, by G. J. Romanes). Here I may quote from the detailed report of my experiments (Monograph Supplement to the Psychological Review, No. 8):

"G was a box 29 × 20-1/2 × 22-1/2, with a door 29 × 12 hinged on the left side of the box (looking from within), and kept closed by an ordinary thumb-latch placed fifteen inches from the floor. The remainder of the front of the box was closed in by wooden bars. The door was a wooden frame covered with screening. It was _not_ arranged so as to open as soon as the latch was lifted, but required a force of four hundred grammes, even when applied to the best advantage. The bar of the thumb-latch, moreover, would fall back into place again unless the door were pushed out at least a little. Eight cats (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 13) were, one at a time, left in this thumb-latch box. All exhibited the customary instinctive clawings and squeezings and bitings. Out of the eight, _all succeeded, in the course of their vigorous struggles, in pressing down the thumb-piece_, so that if the door had been free to swing open they could have escaped. Six succeeded in pushing both thumb-piece down and door out, so that the bar did not fall back into its place. Of these, _five succeeded in also later pushing the door open, so that they escaped and got the fish outside_. Of these, three, after about fifty trials, associated the complicated movements required with the sight of the interior of the box so firmly that they attacked the thumb-latch the moment they were put in."

In the cases of No. 1 and No. 6 the combination of accidents required was enough to make their successes somewhat rare. Consequently weariness and failure offset the occasional pleasure of getting food, and after succeeding four and ten times respectively they never again succeeded, though given numerous opportunities. Their cases are almost a perfect proof of the claim that accident, not inference, makes animals open doors. For they hit upon the thing several times, but did not know enough to profit even by these experiences, and so failed to open the door the fifth and eleventh times.

Accident is equally capable of helping a cat escape from an inclosure whose door is held by a swivel.

"Out of six cats who were put in the box whose door opened by a button, _not one failed_, in the course of its impulsive activity, to push the button around. Sometimes it was clawed one side from below; sometimes vigorous pressure on the top turned it around; sometimes it was pushed up by the nose. No cat who was given repeated trials failed to form a perfect association between the sight of the interior of that box and the proper movements."

If, then, three cats out of eight can escape from a small box by accidentally operating a thumb-latch, one cat in a hundred may easily escape from a room by accident. If one hundred per cent of all cats are sure to sooner or later turn a button around when in a small box, one cat in a thousand may well escape from a room by accidentally turning a swivel around.

So far we have seen that when put in situations calculated to call forth any thinking powers which they possess, the animal's conduct still shows no signs of anything beyond the accidental formation of an association between the sight of the interior of the box and the impulse to a certain act, and the subsequent complete establishment of this association because of the power of pleasure to stamp in any process which leads to it. We have also seen that samples of the acts which have been supposed by advocates of the reason theory to require reasoning for their accomplishment turn out to be readily accomplished by the accidental success of instinctive impulses. The decision that animals do not possess the higher mental processes is re-enforced by several other lines of experiment--for example, by some experiments on imitation.

The details of these experiments I will not take the time to describe. Suffice it to say that cats and dogs were given a chance to see one of their fellows free himself from confinement and gain food by performing some simple act. In each case they were where they could see him do this from fifty to one hundred and fifty times, and did actually watch his actions closely from ten to forty times. After every ten chances to learn from seeing him, they were put into the same inclosure and observed carefully, in order to see whether they would, from having so often seen the act done, know enough to do it themselves, or at least to try to do it. In this they signally failed. Those who had failed previously to hit upon the thing accidentally never learned it later from seeing it done. Those who were given a chance to imitate acts which accident would sooner or later have taught them learned the acts no more quickly than if they had never seen the other animal do it the score or more of times. The animals, that is, could not master the simple inference that if, in a certain situation, that fellow-cat of mine performs a certain act and gets fish, I, in the same situation, may get fish by performing that act. They did not think enough to profit by the observation of their fellows, no matter how many chances for such observation were given them.

Equally corroborative of our first position are the results of still another set of experiments. Here the dogs and cats were put through the proper movement from twenty-five to one hundred times, being left in the box after every five or ten trials and watched to see if they would not be able at least to realize that the act which they had just been made to do and which had resulted in liberation and food was the proper act to be done. For instance, a dog would be put in a box the door of which would fall open when a loop of string hanging outside the box was clawed down an inch or so. Animals were taken who had, when left to themselves, failed to be led to this particular act by their general instinctive activities. After two minutes I would put in my arm, take the dog's paw, hold it out between the bars, and, inserting it in the loop, pull the loop down. The dog would of course then go out and eat the bit of meat. After repeating this ten times (in some cases five) I would put the dog in and leave him to his own devices. If, as was always the case, he failed in ten or twenty minutes to profit by my teaching I would take him out, but would not feed him. After a half hour or so I would recommence my attempts to show the dog what needed to be done. This would be kept up for two or three days, until he had shown his utter inability to get the notion of doing for himself what he had been made to do a hundred or more times. The mental process required here need not be so high a one as inference or reasoning, but surely any animal possessing those would, after seeing and feeling his paw pull a loop down a hundred times with such good results, have known enough to do it himself. None of my animals did know enough. Those who did not in ten or twelve trials hit upon an act by accident could never be taught that act by being put through it. And, as in the case of imitation, acts of such a sort as would be surely learned by virtue of accidental success were not learned a whit sooner or more easily when I thus showed them to the animal.

An interesting supplement to these facts is found in the following answers to some questions which I sent to the trainer of one of the most remarkable trick-performing horses now exhibited on the stage. The counting tricks done by this horse had been quoted to me by a friend as impossible of explanation unless the horse could be educated by being put through the right number of movements in connection with the different signals.

_Question 1._--If you wished to teach a horse to tap seven times with his hoof when you asked him "How many days are there in a week?" would you teach him by taking his leg and making him go through the motions?

_Answer._--"No!"

_Question 2._--Do you think you _could_ teach him that way, even if naturally you would take some other way?

_Answer._--"I do not think I could."

_Question 3._--How would you teach him?

_Answer._--"You put figure 2 on the blackboard and _touch him, on the leg_ twice with a cane, and so on."

The counting tricks of trained horses seem to us marvelous because we are not acquainted with the simple but important fact that a horse instinctively raises his hoof when one pricks or taps his leg in a certain place. Just as once given, the cat's instinct to claw, squeeze, etc., you can readily get a cat to open doors by working latches or turning buttons, so, once given this simple reflex of raising the hoof, you can, by ingenuity and patience, get a horse to do almost any number of counting tricks.

Probably any one who still feels confident that animals reason will not be shaken by any further evidence. Still, it will pay any one who cares to make scientific his notions about animal consciousness to notice the results of two sets of experiments not yet mentioned. The first set was concerned with the way animals learn to perform a compound act. Boxes were arranged so that two or three different things had to be done before the door would fall open. For instance, in one case the cat or dog had to step on a platform, reach up between the bars over the top of the box and claw down a string running across them, and finally push its paw out beside the door to claw down a bar which held it.

The animal's instinctive impulses do often lead it to accidentally perform these several acts one after another, and repeated accidental successes do in some of these cases cause the acts to be done at last in fairly quick succession. But we see clearly that the acts are not thought about or done with anything like a rational comprehension of the situation, for the time taken to learn the thing is much longer than all three elements would take if tackled separately; and even after the animal has reached a minimum time in doing the acts, he does not do the things in the same order, and often repeats one of the acts over and over again, though it has already attained its end.

The second set comprised experiments on the so-called "memory" of animals. I will describe only one out of many which agree with it. A kitten had been trained to the habit of climbing the wire-netting front of its cage whenever I approached. I then trained her to climb up at the words "I must feed those cats." This was done by uttering them and then in ten seconds going up to the cage and holding a bit of fish to her at its top. After this had been done about forty times she reached a point where she would climb up at the signal about fifty per cent of the times. I then introduced a new element by sometimes saying, "I must feed those cats," as before, and feeding her, and at other times saying, "I will not feed them," and remaining still in my chair. At first the kitten felt no difference, and would climb up just as often at the wrong signal as at the right. But gradually (it took about four hundred and fifty trials) the failure to get any pleasure from the act of climbing up at the wrong signal stamped out the impulse to do so, while the pleasure sequent upon the act of climbing up at the other signal made that her invariable response to it. Here, as elsewhere, the absence of reason was shown by the cat's failure at any point in these hundreds of trials to think about the matter, and make the easy inference that one set of sounds meant food, while the other did not. But still better proof appears in what is to follow. After an interval of eighty days I tried her again to see how permanent the association between the signal and act was. It was permanent to the extent that what took three hundred and eighty trials before took only fifty this time, for after fifty trials with the "I will not feed them" signal, mixed up with a lot of the other, the cat once more attained perfect discrimination. But it was not permanent in the sense that the cat at the first or tenth or twentieth trial felt, as a remembering, reasoning consciousness surely ought to feel, "Why, that lot of sounds means that he won't come up with fish." For instead of at first forgetting and for a while climbing up at the _I will not feed them_, and then remembering its previous experience and at once stopping the performance it had before learned was useless, the cat simply went through the same gradual decreasing of the percentage of wrong responses until finally it always responded rightly.

What has so far been said is true regardless of any prejudice or 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 unmentioned here which pointed clearly to their absence.

All that is left for the fond owner of a supposedly rational animal 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 experiments 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 presence 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 progressive, 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."

THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.

BY HON. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,

DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

A national museum should be the center of scientific activity in the country in which it is located. In England the British Museum is the Mecca of scientific men. In Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Berlin, and other capitals of Europe the national museum stands in similar relations to the scientific work of its own country. Such a relation our National Museum should hold to scientific men and affairs in America. It should receive and take care of all material that has been or may be valuable for investigation or for the illustration of the ethnology, natural history, geology, products, and resources of our own country, or for comparison with the material of other countries. It should furnish material for all kinds of scientific investigations which deal with specimens or types, and give aid to such researches and publish their results. It should present by illustration such of the results of the scientific investigations of its corps of officers as are susceptible of such representation. It should co-operate with all the higher educational institutions of learning in the country, and assist in the promotion and diffusion of knowledge in all lines of investigation carried on by it. It should provide library facilities, and aid all post-graduate students who may wish to take advantage of the provisions made by the Government for scientific research.

HISTORY AND PRESENT ORGANIZATION.--Beginning in a small way in the Patent-Office building early in the century, the "Government" collections of "natural products" were transferred to the custody of the Smithsonian Institution in 1858, where they were installed along with the larger and more valuable collections of the institution. Twenty-three years later, in 1881, the present National Museum building was ready for the great mass of material that had accumulated in the Smithsonian building, and had been transferred from the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. Out of these heterogeneous collections Dr. G. Brown Goode, under the direction of Secretary Baird, of the Smithsonian, organized a museum of broad scope, based on all that had proved best in museum experience to that time. Faithfully he carried forward the work until September, 1896, when his health broke under the strain of too many duties, and one of the best museum administrators the world has yet produced, if not the very best one, passed from us. In January, 1897, I was placed in temporary charge of the administration of the museum as an acting Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and remained in charge until July 1, 1898.

On July 1, 1897, in order to meet changed conditions, a new plan of organization went into effect. The various divisions and sections of anthropology, biology, and geology, which had previously been conducted independently of one another, the curators and custodians reporting directly to the assistant secretary in charge of the museum, were united under three head curators--one of anthropology, another of biology, and a third of geology. This secured direct expert supervision, and correlated the work of each department. Before this such correlation had been impossible, owing to the large number of independent heads of sections and divisions in each department, who planned and executed the work more or less independently of one another.

In the department of anthropology the system of installation inaugurated by Prof. W. H. Holmes is somewhat elaborate. The primary arrangement is founded, first, on the geographical or ethnographical assemblage, and, second, on the developmental or genetic assemblage. Other methods may be classed as special; they are the chronologic, the comparative, the individual, etc. The primary methods are adapted to the presentation of the general truths of anthropology, and the special methods are available for limited portions of the field.

In many ways the department of biology, under the charge of Dr. F. W. True, was, at the date named, in much better condition than either of the other two departments. Many of the zoölogical divisions had been in existence since the reorganization of the museum in 1883, and several of them for a much longer period, and as the biological specimens had been in charge of curators and assistants who followed well-defined and long-established methods, the reorganization of the department was a relatively simple matter, no radical changes in the scientific methods or in the business administration being required.

To the organization and administration of the department of geology, Dr. George P. Merrill brought the results of a recent study of various European museums. He found it necessary to make a systematic examination of the written and printed records of the various Government exploring expeditions and surveys, with a view to ascertaining what geological material had been collected which could properly be considered the property of the Government, and what disposition had been made of the same. The law[8] provides that collections made for the Government shall, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, be deposited in the National Museum. It was found that this law had not in all cases been strictly enforced, and that several important collections had not been transferred to the museum, although some of the earlier exploring expeditions had passed out of existence, and in several instances the individuals making the collections had likewise passed away. This investigation has resulted in the transfer to the museum of several car loads of specimens no longer needed elsewhere.

[Footnote 8: "And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils,
fossils, and objects of natural history, archæology, and
ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological
Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United
States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress,
shall be deposited in the National Museum...."--_Supplement to
the Revised Statutes of the United States_, vol. i, second
edition, 1874-1891, p. 252.]

The National Museum is unique among permanent museums in having large sections of its collections almost constantly away from it. It made displays at London in 1883, at Louisville in 1884, at Minneapolis in 1887, at Cincinnati and Marietta in 1888, at Madrid in 1892, at Chicago in 1893, at Atlanta in 1895, at Nashville in 1896, and at Omaha in 1898. The injury to the museum resulting from the packing and transportation of specimens and from the interruption of systematic work and development has been keenly felt at times by the scientific staff. The advantages have consisted in showing to the people of many sections of the country what the museum is doing, in securing collections that otherwise would not have been obtained, and in extending the educational sphere of influence.

RELATIONS TO THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--The museum is a child that has by its vigorous growth already overshadowed the parent institution in the extent of its buildings, its expenditures, and its direct influence upon the people of the United States. In the larger fields for which the Smithsonian Institution was organized, for the purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men throughout the world, the museum is subordinate to the institution, and if the latter is administered in the future as it has been in the past, it will continue to hold a unique place among all institutions for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.

In 1877 Prof. Asa Gray, as chairman of a special committee of the Regents of the Smithsonian, submitted a report which recommended that a distinction between the institution itself and the museum under its charge should be made as prominent as possible. The fear was expressed that if the museum was developed to its full extent and importance within the Smithsonian Institution it would absorb the working energies of the institution, and it was thought that such a differentiation would pave the way to entire separation of administration or to some other adjustment, as the Board of Regents might think best or be able to accomplish. Professor Baird, in 1878, in his report to the regents, called attention to the frequent mention in the reports of his predecessor of the relations existing between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum, and remarked that "it is only necessary to mention briefly that the museum constitutes no organic part of the institution, and that, whenever Congress so directs, it may be transferred to any designated supervision without affecting the general plans and operations connected with the 'increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.'"

During the administration of the museum by Dr. Goode, under the direction of Professor Baird, and later Professor Langley, no movement was made toward the separation of the museum from the Smithsonian. On the contrary, Dr. Goode was strongly opposed to any such action, and in this he was heartily supported by Secretary Langley. He felt that the result of placing the museum under the control of one of the great departments of the Government, or leaving it to be buffeted about in the sea of politics as an independent organization, would be the destruction of its scientific character.

I have been intimately acquainted with the administration of the museum since 1886, and less so with the administration of other scientific bureaus of the Government, one of which, the Fish Commission, is independent of departmental control. After a careful reconsideration of the subject of the relations of the National Museum to the Smithsonian Institution, I have come to the conclusion that the present welfare and the future development of the museum will be best served by administrative connection with the Smithsonian Institution. Under the present organization there is no necessity for large demand upon the time and energies of the secretary by the affairs of the museum. If in the future it should become otherwise, relief could readily be secured by action of the Board of Regents, requiring the officer in charge of the museum to report to them through the secretary, much as the various bureaus of the departments report through their respective secretaries to Congress. It is not probable, however, that this will become necessary, for at any time an assistant secretary could be appointed to take sole charge of the museum, thus relieving the secretary of all but the most general administrative supervision.