APES EARN MONEY

Evening Star, Issue 21748, 16 June 1934, Page 5

APES EARN MONEY

The chimpanzee, that most intelligent of the apes, has been taught in America how to earn and use money. This is a. tribute to the brain of this wonderful family, but we are not sure that it reflects much credit on humanity. Perhaps the best defence of all such experiments is that they serve to remind ns of the unity of Nature. Professor Robert Yerkes, in a lecture at New .York, has described how a number of chimpanzees have been taught to work with hope of reward in fruit and drink. The work performed consisted in pulling levers, to raise weights, and the apes learned quickly what was required of them to earn what we call money. 1 The money took the shape oi variously coloured counters such as are used at card games. The chimpanzees soon Understood how many counters and of what colour would command coveted delicacies, and how much work was needed to obtain them. “ Easy come, easy go ” runs the old adage, and apes were found to be cheerful spenders. It was also found that they were intelligent enough to bank their money when they could not spend it, hiding the counters in receptacles specially provided for the purpose, to prevent their fellows from stealing their hard-earned cash. All this sounds very much like human nature, but that terra is a much-abused one, for human nature contains many diverse things, and we are apt to apply the words to the worst part of animal nature, its greed and selfishness. We do .not need experimental professors to tell iis that animals are intelligent;'every'bird’s nest, every wild creature proves it in natural life. Fortunately- we know that animals can be not only brutal and selfish, but loving, selfless, and heroic. A small bird will defend its mat© against attack by a bigger animal; and Darwin said long ago that he was not ashamed to claim kinship with a noble baboon which defended its family at long odds. As for us of the C.N., we believe in the brotherhood of all living things, the essential sympathy between all animate creation.