The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-07-18
The Horses Brain.

fact that ne seems 10 neeu DuI HttiC S'OSP
is brought forward to prove that he has
little mental activity. He is generally, in
point of intelligence, compared unfavorably
with the dog. We must not forget, how
ever, that the dog is the companion OF man,
received into the house, and accustomed
from his earliest years to the society OF in
telIigent people. His mind has been by
this means developed, his mental activity
increased. And the cumulative effect of
heredity must not be overlooked. 1t is an
undoubted fact that certain amount OF
knowledge is transmitted from generation
TO generation among what we are pleased
TO call brute animals. For instance, even
the calves of the present day are less afraid
of railroad train than the cows were when
railroads were first introduced. The dog
has been in an atmosphere of education for
thousands of years, but the horse has been
left to the care of Ignorant and brutal
men, whose only idea of enforcing obedl-
ence is by means of loud, harsh word,
blow, or a kick When he is left in peace,
he is fastened generally with his head to
blank wall, where he can see nothing to
interest him. Sometimes he must stand
for long spaces of time in this way, the IN
terminable, colorless day being broken only
by the process of cleaning and his three
feeds. When his nervous nature under
this strain invents some way of amusing
himself and making time go a little more
rapidly, he is roughly hidden to stand
still, or is forced to stop his little play by
the lash, and earns the title OF vicious
brute. If dog were subjected to the
same treatment, how long would it be be-
fore he would require also only four hours,
sleep by reason of a ''low mental activity!
The Arabs make companions Of their
horses, and they get in return the services
of willing and intelligent friends.
Most horses have their viciOusness
thrust upon them, and even a vicious
horse may be changed in nature by per
sistent and intelligent kindness. The
horse has always done more reasoning
than he has had credit for, and it is usu-
ally because he refuses to be 4 mere ma
chine that he is punished. If we do not
understand his continual protest against
this degradation, it is only because we
ourselves are lacking in intelligent per-
ception. When he does not object to
cow or a whole drove of COWS in the
country. but SHES and almost refuses to
pass one in the city, it certainly shows that
he has the faculties of memory, conception,
comparison, judgment, and reasoning.
When he passes hundred street cars or
wagons drawn by horses without notice,
but shows unmistakable signs Of fear on APP
cable car or wagon moving
without visible means of motion, does he
not testify to his grasp of the causal rela-
ton, and show that he is ready as man
ever has been to suspect the presence Of
the Prince of Darkness wherever his own
intellect was unequal to the problem of
explanation?
Has he not a clear idea Of the flight of
time when he calls you out to the stable to
give him his dinner just at noon? How
does he find his mistress's house among
whole street full of houses precisely alike,
and never miss stopping at the right door ?
As to intelligence and power of acquiring
there can be no doubt, and
that implies attention, and also an appreci-
alton of the laws of association.
The horse certainly can distinguish some
coors, for he is afraid of a red lantern
when he does not mind white one.
think there is no doubt that he also dis
IL In,
he is not, then, so far behind
the Greeks of Homer's time as Judged by
Mr.. Gladstone. He has certainly great
power of invention, and of adaptation Of
means to non-existent ends. And he does
not fail in cunning, nor, think, in u sense
of humor. The same indictments which
move us to honorable action stir his
nature; the same discouragements lower
his ambition, and precisely the same
treatment is necessary with him as with
children in educating them. No more
normal school exists for teacher
than the saddle, if she would be successful
with her human pupils, for here, as is true
often in school, the real teacher generally
learns quite as much from the pupil as he
from her.
The horse shows the capacity for
trustfulness over and above
all his suspicious nature when he will let
his mistress come into his stall while he is
lying down and so at Il disadvantage, and
sit down upon him while he eats from her
hand. And the same animal that will
plunge wildly from the stable, buck
jumping and snorting, if the groom be ON
his back, will never fail to walk softly and
under precisely the same circum-
stances otherwise, if he carries woman.
Such conduct as this, when it is found in
human beings, is supposed to denote a
royal nature On the whole, it has always
seemed to me that we might be much
more Inundated at being forced to
acknowledge our kinship with some of our
nearer relations.
We must never forget that in the case
of animals the pupil cannot rise higher
than the teacher, and that the teacher must
be thoughtful and intelligent He must
not only feel kinship with his pupil, but
he must recognize in him an individual
and must adapt himself to that.
No two horses are exactly alike in character
any more than two people. With regard
to the point of strongly marked individual
character the following stories may serve
as illustrations: My "Mac" cannot endure
to be left alone, and nothing more is neces-
sary to make him perfectly miserable and
llnlost beside himself than to have his
desert him on the road or to
be left solitary in the stable In the for
ner case he becomes evidently anxious and
nervous, and cries in the most pitiful way
ill he catches sight of them again, when
he cry becomes relieved and joyful
and the unwilling and uncertain
gait glad gallop. In the latter case he
never ceases his restless motion and his cry
IF loneliness, his eyes look wild, and he
pulls his head impatiently away from any
,aressing touch. He had been sick for
week, so that one day | did not want him
to 90 far or fast, and sent the other horses
1ut before him, half an hour after they
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