Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1915-05-13
THINKING HORSES DEAD
Elberfield's Wonderful Creatures VAST
ed in the German slaughter.

ElberfieId's Wonderful Creatures VAST !
ed in the German Slaughter.
recent cable despatch from Paris an !
nounced the death of the thinking
horses" Of Elberfeld. 1t seems that when
the war broke out the Prussian military !
authorities requistioned the horses for
military service. DR.. Vogel. their owner. !
protested and was supported in his stand
oy the Royal academy of Berlin. A re-
prieve was thereupon granted. Later the
horses We're again seized for duty in the
artillery and they met their death in
Flanders.
The death of the thinking horses re-
calls the fact that there has always been
doubt in the minds of the scientists who
investigated and studied the horses
whether the animals really possessed the
wonderful ability claimed for them by
their owner or were simply taught to re-
spond with astonishing precision to GER
tain conscious 0. unconscious and ex-
trcmcly small movements on the part OF
the trainer.
! In March, 1913, Edward Bullough of
/ Cambridge university and DR.. V. j. Wool
| ley visited Elbcrfeld for the purpose of
! Investigating the wonderful powers OF
the thinking horses. This was the result
Of the widespread interest the horses had
aroused for over a year in Germany,
France and Italy.
| Mr.. Bullough and Dr. Woolley learned
| that a. retired mathematical teacher, Won
Osten by name, living in Berlin in 1890,
| observed that a horse which he used to
drive responded intolligently to demands.
The idea of rudmentarY education for
the horse suggested itself to Won Osten
and he set about to perfect the horse in
After some patient training the horse
was taught to respond to such commands
as stop" walk" turn" "go to the
left" back" etc Won Osten soon dis
covered that it was possible for him to
drive through the crowded streets of Bar
| lin without reins, the horse obeyng vocal
commands perfectly. He named the
horse Hans and decided to put the ami
nal through n regular course of instruc-
ton Before he was able to do it the
horse died
In 1895 Won Osten was introduced to
*. krall. a jeweler in Elberfeld. Krali
had never handled horses and had never
been interested In them until he heard
of the wonderful acts OF Hans. When he
realized the educational possibilities and
the scientific ASPECT Of the matter he de-
cidod to get in touch with Won Osten.
After working with Hans he was con-
WINGED that the horse possessed wonder
ful powers But Kral wanted to expert
ment with horses Of his own and he de-
cided that the best subjects would be
horses that We're unspoied by perform
ances and Investigations
4
named them Zarf and Mohamme1. Fol-
lowing along the lines Of instruction used
by Von Osten. these horses received a
systematic course of instruction Of an
elementary school character. The horses
We're taught to count add, subtract and
multiply up to 70 times 70. Date reckon
ing. division, squarng and the extrac-
ton Of roots We're also included in the
course
Kral explained that tanning the horse
was the first step in training the animal
To do this successfully ii was necessary
TO make the horse familiar with his mas
ter and captivate his attention by caresses
and other signs Of affection. After that
the next step was to teach the horse how
to control his movements so as to adapt
them to responsive EXPRESSIONS This Is
the difficult stage.
In teaching the horses spelling Krall
used a simplfied spelling table. on this
table each letter was represented by a
, number. once the association between
the numbers and letters was made the
spelling Of the words written on a black
board was merely matter of memory,
But when Krall tried to teach the
horses the complicated German orthog-
raphy he gave up the task after making
many attcmpts The trainer left the
horses to their own devices and found
that they sometimes produced an in
Rcnious phonetic spelling. such as ''sn'
y for lessen" to eat.
In arithmetic Krall did not go beyond
simple problems such as a child could do
l The investigators We're greatly astonshed
at the ease with which the horses solved
these problems. and after witnessing these
demonstrations the investigators assum-
, ed that the animals had a conception OF
number.
Y They We're amazed at the rapidity ir
$ which the horses We're able to tell the diff
Q ference between 6x4 and g. They were
0 astonished and puzzled, too, by the abil
h ity Of the horses in extracting the roots
a OF numbers higher than IA, the highes
8 square which had been taught to them b,
e l<rall.-Dctroit Free Press