The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-02
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC ]. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, D. c.
A PROFESSOR OF ANIMAL
LANGUAGE.

! washington D. C., Jan. 3U.-AS
man who learned to converse with
monkeys and apes. who confined him
self in a cage in the African jungle to
/ observe them, and who sued a photo
graphic company for a hundred thou
SAND dollars because it published a
picture of man kissing an ape, and
| alleged that the man was himself,
Prof. r. i. Garner. of the Smithsonian
Institution, who died a few days ago,
was pretty well known to the public.
| OF the real nature of his work very
little was known to laymen, and that
| despite the fact that he wrote cou-
pie of books differing sharply from
most scientific works in that they are
very interesting and well written.
Doctor Garner did not belong to that
| school of scientists who are interested
primarily in the classification of ami
mails, and who spend most of their
time counting teeth, measuring tails
and preparing dead specimens. His
life was devoted to a most sympa-
thetic study of the living animals,
| some of his views differed radically
from the generally accepted scientific
| dogma, and he was fond, especially in
his younger days, of ridiculing the
| conservative fathers of science
| Doctor Garner, as his views are I'M
derstood by an interested but unscien-
tific reader of them, believes that the
| similarity between man and the other
mammals is a good deal closer than
has generally been recognized. OF
! course, the whole progress of science
has tended to show more and more a
unity of all living things. Man is by
nature great snob, with a tremen-
dous opinion of his own superiority
| So naturally he began by assuming
that he had no relation whatever with
the lower" animals; that he was a SUI
| perior creature of divine origin. He
utterly overlooked the numerous SIM
| ilarities of structure, habit and func-
| tioa between himself and the rest of
the mammals, just as some rich and
| well placed persons seem to assume
that they are of different order from
| the rest of humanity, despite the man
ifest superficiality of the difference.
| Darwin gave a jolt to this compla-
cent view by his theory of evolution
which ascribed to man descent from
apes and monkeys. Even when evolu-
ton had become a theory generally
accepted by scientists and by much
| of the public. it was still usual to re-
| fer to the dumb animals and to
debate at great length the question,
Can dog Think" usually answering
| it in the negative.
DR.. Garner asserted that the ami
mails are manifestly not dumb, that
they communicate with each other
and also that they think just as We do.
He asserted that their means of eX-
preston are entirely adequate to their
capacity for thought, and that their
thinking and talking differ only in
degree of development and not in
kind from the thinking and talking
of humans. He argued very cogently
tRa<> the fact that a dog will learn
to understand his name and good
many different orders shows that he
has a fundamental comprehension of
language. The dog learns to under
stand a part of our language, so that
we can communicate ideas to him.
We do not learn anything of his lam
guage, so that he has great difficulty
in communicating with us. Anyone
who has owned dog knows that he
Il often tries hard to make himself I'M
| derstood.
Among monkeys DR.. Garner found
language so well developed that he
could learn to converse with them. and
it was among them that he found the
most convincing examples of logical
thinking. His interest in the simians
began one day when he was walking
in a geological park and paused be-
fore an enclosure containing a big
mandrill "a kind of ape) and num-
Der of small monkeys. The enclosure
consisted of two compartments con-
nected by small opening. The mon
keys were evidently much afraid of
the mandrill who kept pacing back
and forth between the two compart-
ments. The monkeys in, one compart-
ment would always shout to those in
the other compartment what the man.
drill was doing. Dr. Garner quickly
became convinced that they used quite
varied language in doing this. After
a little he found that he could himself
tell what the mandrill was doing by
listening to the excited remarks of
the monkeys.
After this he spent a great deal of
time in geological parks studying the
language of simians. He learned to
initiate their various sounds with
great accuracy, and he also repro
duced these on the graphophone. He
first attracted wide attention by play
ing graphophone record made by a
female monkey before her mate. The
male monkey answered her remarks
at great length. looked all over the
cage for her, and even put his arm in
the megaphone of the machine to see
of she was inside of it.
One of the first monkey-words that
Doctor Garner learned was that mean
ing drink" He found that by repeat
ing this sound before a monkey he
could induce it to pick up the saucer
, in which t was given milk or water,
and bring it to the front of the cage.
Doctor Gamers early work encoun-
; tered more ridicule than recognition.
but he was finally provided with funds
by friends who were interested in his
theories, so that he was able to go to
Africa and study the apes and mon
keys in wild state. This became his
life work. He spent thirty years in
the French Congo and in other por-
, tons of south and central Africa
l studying monkeys. and at the time of
, his death, at the age of az years, be-
ing too old for further journeys to
Africa. he was planning to establish
t a monkey colony in Florida so that he
r could continue his studies there. His
book on the life and language of mon
Observation-Disclosures
nTx "A