THINKING HORSES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4010, 17 August 1915, Page 7

THINKING HORSES.

VICTIMS OF THE WAR. LOSS TO GERMANY. A recent issue of the “Now York Sun” contained a cable despatch from Paris announcing the death of the “thinking horses” of Eberfeld. It seems that when the war broke out tho Prussian military authorities requisitioned the Horses for military service. Hr Vogel, their owner, protested and was supported in his stand by the Royal Academy of Berlin. A reprieve was thereupon granted. Later' the horses were again seized for duty in the artillery, and they met their death iri Flanders. The death of tho “thinking horses'’ recalls the fact that there has always been do'uht in the minds of the scientists who investigated and studied the horses whether the animals really-pos-sessed the wonderful ability claimed for them by their owner or were simply taught to respond with astonishing precision to certain conscious or unconscious, arid extremely small .movements on the part of the trainer. In March, 191.2, .Hr Edward Bullough, of Cambridge University, and Dr Y. j. Woolley' visited Eberfeld for the purpose of investigating the wonderful powers of the thinking horses. This visit was tho result of the widespread interest the horses had aroused for over a. year in Germany, 'Kranee ami Italy. When Hr Wooley and Mr BnUough set out on their investigations the possibilities they had to consider were roughly four: (a) the horses might really possess tho intellectual powers aseriiied to them by their owner j (bj they might by this time have learned by heart the answers to all problems which people could present to them ; (<•■) they might respond to signals given consciously or unconsciously by some, person present; (d) they might respond to some supernormal influence exerted by some such person. The investigators in their report to the Society of Psychical Research admitted that iney were not in a position to give any definite solution of the p ro Worn. Mr Bullough and Dr Woolley learned that a retired mathematical tea.her, von listen by name, living in Berlin in 1800, observed that a horse which he used to drive responded intelligently to demands. The idea of rudimentary education for thehnr.se suggested itself to von Osten and he set about to perfect- the Horse in it. After some patient training the horse was taught to respond to such commands as “stop,” “walk, “turn,” “go to the left,” “hack,” etc. Von Osten soon discovered that- it was possible for him to drive through the crowded streets of Berlin without reins - , the horse obeying vocal commands perfectly. He named the .horse Hansl. and decided to put- the animal through a regular course of instruction. Before he was able to do it the horse died. Von Osten was not- discouraged by this reverse. Instead, it- made him more anxious than ever to experiment with bis theory that horses could be educated. He bought a five-year-oid Russian stallion, which was destined to become the pioneer of equine education, and named him Hans. It was necessary for von Osten to train his stallion for month,s before he was ready for public exhibition, but tins animal proved so remarkably clever m arithmetic, spelling, etc., that great curiosity was aroused. A commission was appointed to investigate. Hans. In ]905 von O-sten was introduced to Herr K. Krall, a jeweller at Eborfeld. Krall had never handled horses and had never been interested in them untjl lie heard of the wonderful acts of Hans. When lie realised tho educational possibilities and the scientific aspect of tho matter he decided to got in touch with von Osten. After working with Hans he was convinced that the horse possessed wonderful powers. But. Krall wanted to investigate with horses of his own. and he decided that the best subjects would be horses that were unspoiled by performances and investigations Krall. bought two Arabian stallions and named them Zarif and Mohammed. Following aong the lines of instruction used by von Osten, these horses received a. systematic, course oi instruction of an elementary school character. The. horses wore taught to count, add. substract and multiply up t-o 12 times 12. Date reckoning, division, squaring and the extraction of roots were also included in the

course. The horses made such progress in arithmetic, spelling, reading, etc., that object, lessons were instituted at’ which portraits, pictures and other objects were displayed and discussed. Krill 1 thought that these would settle beyond doubt the intelligence of the. horses and that they were superior to spelling, reading and arithmetic in proving his contention. In teaching the horses spelling Krall used a simplified spelling table. On this table each letter was implemented by a number. Once the association between the numbers and letters was made the spelling ot tin*words written on a blackboard aas merely a matter of memory. But when Krail tried to teach the norscs the complicated German oitnograpliy ho gave up the task aftci making many attempts. The trainoi left the horses to their own devices and found that they sometimes produced an ingenious phonetic spelling, such as “sn” tor ‘‘essen,’ to eat. In arithmetic Krall did not go beyond simple problems such as a child could do. The investigators were greatly astoushed at the ease with which the horses solved these prqk Ictus, ami after witnessing these demonstrations the investigators assumed that the animals had a conception of number.-

They were amazed at the rapidity in which the horses' wore able to tell the difference between G x 4 and 04. They were astonished and puzzled, too, by the ability of the horses in extracting the roots ,of numbers higher than 144, the highest square whi< had been taught to them by Krall. There is no doubt that Mr Bulhnigh and Dr Woolley were favorably impressed by the intelligence of the horses, but P. Hr.chet-iSouolet, director of the Institute de Psychologic Zoologique of Paris, believed that tho superior knowledge- attributed too the horses owned and trained by Krall was greatly exaggerated.