Babe & Ape

An experiment of bringing up an infant ape under identical conditions with a human infant was reported in outline last year by Winthrop Niles Kellogg, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University (TIME, May 23, 1932). Last week Dr. Kellogg, with his wife collaborating, detailed in a book* their curious stunt, the fun and trouble they had.

Professor Kellogg conceived the experiment when he was at Columbia University, six years ago. After he secured his Indiana post and other psychologists applauded the idea, the Kelloggs agreed to have a baby to companion an ape. Their boy, Donald, was born Aug. 31, 1930. His parents at first wanted to take him to Sumatra to find a foster brother or sister among the orangutans. But they lacked the money. No U. S. zoo would loan them an infant ape. The Kelloggs felt frustrated until Professor Robert Mearns Yerkes, Yale's ape expert, offered to loan them Gua, 7 1/2-month-old, tan-faced, brown-eyed, black-haired female chimpanzee, born to healthy inmates of the late Senora Rosalie Abreu's ape colony at Havana. The Kelloggs took a bungalow close to the Yale Anthropoid Experiment Station at Orange Park, Fla. and thereafter Gua and Donald, who was 10 months old, lived precisely similar lives.

From 7:00 a. m. to 6:30 p. m. the Kelloggs were incessantly occupied with the children, dressing, feeding and cuddling them. Daily it was necessary to weigh, measure, test, photograph, observe and teach them. Gua could not learn to speak human words, although she has the necessary apparatus and tried to use it. Nearest she came to a word was to pout her lips in effort to say "Papa."

Gua learned to walk upright more quickly than did Donald. Although both had walking carts to aid them, Gua used hers only for play. She preferred to proceed by hanging on to Professor Kellogg's trousers, walking between his legs. When Donald tried to imitate her in this form of walking, he, being taller, kept bumping his father behind. Gua, while walking thus, kept perfect step with Professor Kellogg, unless he went too fast. In that case she would make skipping hops until in step again.

Gua liked to pull at every kind of hanging--curtains, table cloths, ropes, visitors' skirts. She recognized people by their clothes better than by their faces, by the smell of their chests and arm pits better than by their clothes. Donald recognized faces readily. Gua was fond of poking her fingers in people's mouths. Donald liked to tweak noses.

Gua taught Donald to bite walls and people, and to peek under doors. Gua's many teeth were blunt and so hurt less than Donald's few. Gua hated perfume and asafetida; Donald liked perfume. Both reacted similarly to sweet, salty and bitter substances. Gua, however, liked sour things. Gua was more ticklish than Donald, frequently tickled herself for pleasure. Gua was first to recognize herself in a mirror, first to show interest in the pictures in a book.

At the end of nine months the Kelloggs demonstrated that environment, particularly psychological environment, is necessary for the development of an individual's inherent abilities. Gua, treated as a human child, behaved like a human child except when the structure of her body and brain prevented her. This being shown, the experiment was discontinued. Donald went with his parents to Indiana University at Bloomington, and Gua after "a gradual habituating process" was returned to Professor Yerkes to learn the prison life of other U. S. chimpanzees.

*THE APE AND THE CHILD--Whittlesey House ($3).

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