HUMANISING A CHIMPANZEE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 114, 10 November 1934, Page 25

HUMANISING A CHIMPANZEE

An extraordinary* experiment was described 'in the^Educational section of) the British: Association, meet-, ing by Dr. N.-T, -"Walker, of Aberdeen University. Professor'} and Mrs. Kellogg, of Indiana University, adopted a female chimpanzee and reared her in exactly the game way as they reared their own son, in an endeavour to study the influence of human environment on the development and reactions of a chimpanzee. ■> •

The chimpanzee was a baby, soven and a hall months old, when adopted. She had«been ,born'in captivity, and the experimenters' own: child, a boy of tivo and '.'a 'half months older, acted as control-subject/- Conditions were so arranged tha^the child ape should be reared in the game way to the most minute detail*. The animal was to be

fed. by bottle, clothed, "bathed, fondled, and even, placed }n a, perambulator and wheeled about. '• — , She was to be induced at the proper time to walk upright and learn to eat with a spoon. Her mistakes were to be gently but persistently corrected, and she was to be made a thoroughly humanised member of the family. The training lasted nine months. The result of the experiment was that, the chimpanzee remained a chimpanzee and the child a child.

■At tho end of the nine months, however, the ape was able to 'respond to 58 different words, and the child to 63. In certain forms of learning "Gut," was superior to Donald, the boy. She learnt more quickly to eat with a spoon, and actually showed a preference for walking upright. But, in imitative learning, added Dr. Walker, the apo was inferior.