VII
OUR COUSIN THE MONKEY
The organ-grinder and his monkey are two animals well known to us all, and we may have looked at them now and then and asked ourselves which of the two had the best brain. The one spends his time turning a crank and grinding out something that passes for music. His little brother dances about on his nimble legs, holds out his hat for pennies, and chatters away in a language of his own.
We do not understand what he has to say; but neither do we understand a Chinaman or a Frenchman. We say to ourselves that he has been taught his tricks; but so has his master been taught how to use his music-box. No doubt the master learns his art more quickly than the monkey, but then he understands what is told him while his poor little comrade does not, but has to be shown everything he is to do, so this gives the man a great advantage.
Now do not think that I am trying to say that the monkey has as good a brain as the man. All I want to say is that he has a brain that acts in the same way. But it gets to its upper level of thought before it reaches what is a low level in man. The monkey can think as we can, and often shows that he is thinking. So can many other animals, such as the dog and the parrot; but while the monkey looks more like a man than these animals, it also seems to think more like a man.
Have you ever been to the zoo and seen a cage full of monkeys, or seen a cage of them in a travelling menagerie? Lively, cunning, jolly little fellows they are, playing tricks on one another, leaping and climbing, never still for two minutes together, and the most curious of all the animals we know. What does this curiosity mean? Does it not mean that the monkey wants to know, just as we want to know when we show curiosity? And wanting to know is the first step towards getting to know.
THE MONKEY AS A PET
Among the many pets kept by man the monkey must be included. We take a fancy to it as if it were a far-off cousin of our own. With its power of walking on its hind legs and using its front legs as arms and its paws as hands, and also often in the shape of its face, it has something very human about it, and there is no animal in which young folks take more delight—and many older folks also.
What many enjoy in it is its love of mischief. There is no trick that it is not up to. At any rate when we hear of boys playing "monkey tricks" they seem to us, in this way, on the same level as the monkey. They would likely play more of them if they had the monkey's nimble ways, for the monkey has the best of the boy in getting out of reach. Many of them can even use their tails to swing on, leaving all their legs free for acts of mischief.