EDUCATING APES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 20

EDUCATING APES

TABLE MANNEES AT THE ZOO.

A fascinating experiment on the brain-power of. apes is making encouraging progress at the London Zoo (reports the London "Daily Chronicle"). The idea is to find out the degree of education which can be reached in the case of the chimpanzee, and four young animals are now competing with one another in an intelligence test. Two have been bought by a Fellow of the Zoological Society simply on their intellectual promise and generously presented to the Zoo for the purposes of the experiment. They live together and are given constant human companionship and tuition. It is believed that the contact with higher brains and class competition with one another should bring out their best. Nothing in the shape of. circus tricks is included in their education; the teaching of an ape to ride a bicycle, for instance, proves nothing. Though the experiment is still in its early stages, there has been one real triumph, for Jack, the bigger chimpanzee, has been taught to be unselfish and chivalrous Vto little Bibi, the only girl in the party- -Bibi, in fact, may be the only failure, for she is liable to be spoiled. Clarence and Jimmy, the other two animals, are younger than Jack, and have so far only learned to behave themselves like little gentlemen at table and to be obedient. At 3.30 every fine afternoon the apes enter a motor-car with a couple of keepers and are driven to a specially designed tea-room cage, where they show their perfect manners to the public. To see the party entering the