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"Humanizing" the Birds
CAROLINE G. SOULE
IN the first number of Bird-Lore the author of 'Bird Studies for Children' says: "Most bird stories will interest them [children], especially if the birds are huimanized for them by the teller of the tale." Humanizing, in this connection, means endowing with human characteristics, and is a process much in vogue just now among writers of nature-study books and papers for the use of children and teachers. Let us see if it is worth doing — or even is justifiable.
Birds possess some characteristics or qualities which are also possessed by human beings, and by other animals. These qualities are not merely "human" then, but are common to many species of creatures. Since birds already have these qualities, there is no need of endowing them with them. To "humanize" the birds by ascribing to them human qualities which they do not and cannot possess, is only to misrepresent them, and stories which so humanize them are of no more value, as nature-study or bird-study, than so many fairy-tales. More than this — they are positively harmful because they give, as facts, statements about existing creatures which are not true. This is not bird-study; it is only telling stories which interest the children, and which have no value except in keeping them quiet. The children are not interested in the real birds, for they are not told about them. They are interested in the stories, invented for this end, about creatures which the story-teller calls birds but which are only human characteristics draped on bird forms. Very slight changes would be needed to make the same stories fit any humanized animal. The real nature of the bird is left out of these humanized bird stories and the loss is very great, as always when truth is left out.
To tell of "Mr. and Mrs. Robin" is well enough, for the titles merely mean the male and female. To represent them as talking is well enough, for they certainly communicate with each other and their young, and putting their communications into human speech is merely translating them. But to represent them as uttering highly moral speeches is all wrong, for these are beyond the power of the birds. The moment that the story humanizes them in any such way it becomes of no value, because it is false to nature. The humanizing process is lavishly applied to all sorts of creatures, even to plants.
For instance, in a very popular book occurs the following: —
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