The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-11-12
THE SPORTS OF YOUNG ANIMALS.
They Mean Stem Utilitarfanfsm.

They Mean Stern Utiiitarianism.
Saturday Review: We are all familiar
with the babbIihg pleasant accounts of
how animals make their little beds and
perform a thousand agreeable antics so
that gossipy copy may be found for
family magazines. A Learned German
professor OF philosophy at ,Giessen-has
pondered long over the. sports of young
animals, and has made his reflections into
8, book. He is not the first philosopher
who has given the crowning and kicking
of babies a place in a system. Schiller
and Herbert Spencer, to omit many others
TO whom Our professor does fun justice
in his laborious pages, held that youth
was a time OF frollc, because IN youth
more nervous energy was manufactured
than was enough for the requirements of
a sober decOrous life. The overflow of
superabundant energy expressed itself
in the caoers and antics for which The
learned felt bound TO provide an eXplana-
ton. The new authority is ready to ad-
nit the redundant energy of youth, but
into the nature of things. If one set
out for q constitutional and return pant
ing and exhausted, it is clear that it was
not constitutional for which one set out.
II a puppy spin round. chasing its tail,
until it lies, the mere wreck of 3, puppy,
g2sping on the dawn, il is clear that there
is more IN the business than an outflow
OF superintendent energy The business
goes on not only till the excess, but al
the available energy, has been worked
of. Put shortly, the new theory is that
the games of animals are q preparation
for afserlife. The young animal trains
his powers and faculties in play that they
may be ready for the sterner purposes of
adult life. 1t is an extension to crea lures
generally Of the adage that the battle of
Waterloo was won in the playing fields
of Elton.
On the old theory animals played be-
cause they were young; on the new theory
animals must have a period of careless
youth IN order that they may play And
although impossible to apply universally,
between Instincts as needing no practice
and intelligent habit as requiring practice
gains new meaning. The instinct of a
creature with practically no period of
youth must be complete and ready for i'm
mediate use. moth or butterfly, for in
stance, emerges from the cocoon fully
formed and mature; its larval life as a
caterpillar. so far as habits are con-
cerned, bears no relation to the adult life
must set about the exact duties Of ma
turity. 1t must fly, choose its mate
recognize the foodplants for itself or upon
which TO lay its eggs infallibiy. or ii will
die without leaving progeny. The stimu-
lus to these duties IS Unborn, imperative
and needing no practice, and is to be re-
garded as instructive in the strictest sense
OF the term. The mammal or bird, how
ever, passes through a period Of youth
during which it has no immediate duties
to perform and is cared for by its parents.
learns 10 fly or to run and jump to
recognize its kind, to distinguish between
the pleasant and unpalataDle, to make
and understand call notes or cries of
alarm; in a thousand ways to suit each
occasion with its acton and deserve a
place in the hierarchy of intelligent
beings
The professor has culled from every
available source records of the sports OF
young animals, and has subjected them to
rigid analysis He finds il them all a
stern utilitarianism, a definite relation
to the future advantage of the animal
Games and sports which are the earliest
to appear and are found in the young
of all the higher animals are of the kind
Experiment and Curiosity. Young
creatures play with everything that at
tracts their attention. They try their
teeth or their claws on every available
object. They taste and smell, push and
tumble about, collect in heaps or scatter
everything they are able to reach, and,
indeed, make attempts on the unattain-
able. The greater the intelligence of the
adult animal the more surprisingly the
young animal treats its surroundings in
the spirit OF an empirical philosopher
young monkey, observed by a sister of
the late Prof. Romanus, discovered for
itself that the handle of a hearth brush
was screwed into a socket. 1t succeeded
in unscrewing the handle with ease, and
after long experiments discovered that
only one end. twisted in a particular di-
rection, would fit into the socket. An
other young monkey, chained just beyond
reach of a fire, found out how to tear
strips from a newspaper and roll them
up into taDers sufficiently long to reach
the flames. 4sy some such fertile employ
ment of curiosity the professor thinks
that the ancestors of man may have
gained their mastery over fire.
What may be called the athletic SPORTS
of young animals are a direct training
stance, is as unnatural to a young bird
as walking is to a child, and chick and
baby alike attain their adult mode of
locomotion only by continuous expert
mental practice. The well known South
American stink pheasant (Opisthocomus
cristatus) when it is chick has claws
upon the wings and uses it's wings and
In mammals the exercise of the young
bear a definite relation to adult habit
Mountain living creatures, like kids and