One of the main characters of this story is Winthrop Kellogg, who in the late 20s of the last century became a master of psychology and was thinking about what kind of dissertation to write in order to become famous in the scientific world. A man has always been interested in the topic of interaction between people and animals, especially Mowgli children who grew up in the animal world and as a result could not socialize normally in human society.
Kellogg thought for a long time how to conduct a dubious experiment – to test in practice the interaction of a baby animal and a human child. It is clear that it was impossible to send the baby to the forest or jungle. And then Winthrop decided to act differently – to take the beast into the family. Just recently, he and his wife Louella became parents of a boy Donald. The search for the baby primate was long: it turned out to be difficult to find and get a suitable individual.
In 31, when Donald was a ten-month-old baby, the Kelloggs managed to get a chimpanzee girl named Gua from the Yale Research Center. She was 7.5 months old, that is, she was practically the same age as the psychologist’s son.
Having overcome all differences, the Kellogg couple agreed to raise the chimpanzee and their own son equally, like a sister and brother. Both were allocated beds for sleeping with mattresses and bed linen, clothes, toys, personal hygiene products and items.
Gua quickly adapted to her new family. She slept exclusively in a crib and showed displeasure when she was deprived of a mattress. Winthrop noted that the monkey develops even faster than the boy. She quickly learned to eat with a spoon and drink from a glass, reach for desired objects and open doors.
But accelerated development is normal. Chimpanzees live on average no more than 40-45 years, and reach puberty by the age of 4, while humans overcome this period only at 13-14 years.
Gua, after only six months of the experiment, learned to fulfill simple requests and achieve what she wanted. But she couldn’t master the potty and didn’t understand what to do with a pencil. And, of course, no one expected the monkey to speak in human language.
When Donald turned one year old, he began to demonstrate all new skills, actively mastered speech. Gua didn’t even try to imitate the sounds of words. And then everything went completely wrong as expected. The son of the Kelloggs suddenly began to imitate his «sister»: he made similar sounds, repeated her movements.
And then, ten months after the start of the study, the parents decided to interrupt the experiment, accepting the fact that a person would rather become a monkey than a chimpanzee could «humanize».
Kellogg’s act went down in history, but Winthrop had both supporters and critics. Some believed that the psychologist was extremely unethical with his son, others accused him of inhumanity towards the monkey.
In the 33rd year, the couple published a book about their observations, and they gave answers to many questions that worried researchers. The authors noted that heredity and the environment have a complex effect on development and cannot act separately. There is almost no information about the further fate of the boy. And little Gua, a year after her adventure in the human family, fell ill with pneumonia and died.
