Arizona republican., 1902-10-13
A LITERARY DOG.

The experiments recorded in the Lon don Magazine of Lord Avebury in teaching his dog to read are very curi- ous and interesting, and deserve to be studied We use the word studied" strictly and specially. A mere nasty and superficially wondering perusal of the experiments and their results will not unlikely be misleading. These re- suits are certainly in one sense sur prising. and no doubt show that in some respects the intelligence of the lower animals resembles that of man more closely than is usually supposed. But they by no means make out that the intelligence of animals is of the same kind as that of man, and only different in degree. Between the mind of Lord Avebury and his little dog Van there is still a great gulf fixed, and not merely a long gradation separating the two. In point of fact, the dog was not taught to read at all in the true sense of the word. or in the sense In which | it is useL when we speak of a child | learning to read. What the dog ac- quired was simply to associate certain signs. not with certain ideas, but with certain definite action likely to follow. The dog gained no general idea appli- cable to circumstances differing from the single occasion, or some events with which the sign was associated. To | take only one instance, the dog learned | that if it brought a card having a par ticular mark it would be taken out for a walk. If the mark had been. say, red colored disk, the dog, after a sufficient number of trials, would asso- ciate the red disk card with a walk out of doors. This, of course, would not have been learning to read, whatever else it might have been. Neither is it learning to read when the mark upon the card. instead of being red disk or anything else, happens to be the printed word. Out" This word Is to the dog nothing but a sign which. through repeated trials. it has learned to connect with a certain action.
 Out" as expressing general idea of going from an enclo-Ire to a more open space, it has not learned and until we have indisputable proof to the con- trary we must believe that it cannot learn this. The proos would have to be that the dog had, by associating "out" with a walk in the garden, acquired the power of apblying this sign with say, being let out of kennel in a stable only to walk about within the stable itself, or with taking a biscuit out of box. The proof would not be complete if a separate trai ing had to be given in each separate case. So far, Lord Avebury, while obtaining illustrations of a faculty in dogs of associating signs with actions more curious than any generally observed before, has not broken fresh ground, nor shown that the mental power of animals is of any higher quality than it was previ- ously believed to be. What is under stood by the ass citation of ideas is that from two i.ings occurring to- gether or in secuence a sufficient num- Der of times we come from the occur renee of the one to expect the occur renee of the other. But neither in men nor in animals is the doing so an act of reason, though it must, of course, be an act of some sort of intelligence. It is reasoning, however. which differen- tiates men from animals. All instances of animal intelligence, even that of the elephant testing the bearing power of a bridge before trusting it's whole weight upon it, can be resolved into nothing higher than the association of l two separate events. It is we'll known that cows, after being brought in for milking by a dog that has to be whis- tied for, soon learn to obey the whistle without waiting for the dog. Such in- stances are fully on a level with the intelligence displayed by Lord Ave burys dog in learning to connect cer- tain definite marks on cards with cor responding actions.-London News