Show WILD BOYS FOUND ON ISLAND IN WASHINGTON Sons of Re Recluse Never Taught to Talk Brought to Seattle N N. N I. I E E. E A. A Special to D Daily ly Telegram SEATTLE Dec 12 If 1 If our greatest granddaddy the caveman were to step up out of his primeval grave he would view modern life lite with no nomore nomore nomore more at amazement than do Ernest an and Herbert Koss 10 and year old boy savages of the Washington wilder wilder- ness Sons of of ofa a recluse isolated on a river Island and product of a strange family life Ute the boys are for the first time viewing and trying to understand understand under under- stand the miracle c of human social Ute life PHYSICALLY NORMAL Although physically normal Ernest and Herbert cannot even talk never have been taught They communicate communicate communicate cate with each other only by signs and cries of wild animals Discovered and taken in charge by bythe bythe the ho juvenile authorities of Seattle the boys have just seen their first city their first auto she streetcar office building school hospital movie movle- seeing tasting and hearing all the commonplaces of community life At the Orthopedic hospital here where slight physical defects are be beIng being being be- be ing corrected the youngsters are learning with keen delight to identify their clothing and belongings by byname byname byname name and under expert guidance to understand that their wants and emotions emotions emotions emo emo- can be expressed in words NOT SAVAGE IN MANNER But although they are as primitive as of dim yesterdays Ernest Ernest Ernest Er Er- nest and Herbert are not savage in disposition On the contrary they ar are affectionate sunny Intelligent and normally quick witted They are merely the natural product product product prod prod- of a strange environment of a restricted life In the solitudes of the Cedar River region and of peculiar family influence The story of the boys' boys plight to together together together to- to gether with the circumstances that explain it ft is told by the father William William Wil Wil- liam Koss who came to America from Germany in 1887 He brought his bride with him They settled on onan onan onan an eighty-acre eighty farm where the family family family ly lives today Herbert and Ernest were but two of the family of eleven children It was the death of their mother Koss said that caused my two poor boys boys' to be what they are My wife had been ill m and nervous for years and our mute daughter Clara had hac most of the tho care and rearing of the youngest boys while I 1 and the older ones worked in the woods TAUGHT BY DUMB SISTER The lads learned a sign langu language ge gefrom from their sister They never talked and I thought for a long time they were dumb It was only lately that thai I learned they were not deaf and dumb like Clara Then I did w wh it t I could for them but I 1 didn't seem to understand how to teach them I even bought a phonograph so they could le learn rn to talk from that I r couldn't send them to school because because because be be- cause the tho other children would be sure to ridicule them and I felt that thai the teacher would lose patience I Ilove Ilove love my boys too well to humiliate them For the same reason I seldom allowed them to go of off the island And so the little savages grew up up learning the cries of animals hunting fishing trapping developing their mute souls as best they could in affectionate brotherhood brotherhood-a a mystery mystery mystery mys mys- tery to their father LIVED ON ISLAND The island home on which the boy boys were virtually marooned is connected with the mainland only by a cable ferry on which Koss and his older sons occasionally went out into a broader world Here in a thicket stands the big house a cabin of shakes where the boys grew up It was a family tradition that as the boys reached manhood each must build his own home and live apart Three of ot the older sons today live In their separate cabins One of the sons or the father occasionally made madea a trip out and purchased the few things they needed For the rest of the time the wilderness hemmed them in In and they were satisfied to have haveit it so Perhaps the strangest family life lite ever uncovered in America Even more Isolated and covert than the life of ot the Cumberland mountaineer And but for the intervention of the juvenile court authorities Herbert I and Ernest Koss might have spent a lifetime In this green silent fastness fastness fastness fast fast- ness knowing and suspecting nothing beyond the roaring river that hemmed them in FIRST CHRISTMAS COMING Now with the pathetic and eager consent of the father they are are learning learning learning learn learn- ing to talk to play like other children children chil chil- dren to understand that the miracles miracles miracles mira cles they see are but the ordinary things of the new world the cave boys bors have hae discovered ered They are looking forward to their first mst Chr Christmas And for that ChristI Christ- Christ I j mas mas the grizzled troubled old ld father I i Is fattening fattening- up his best goose I William Koss who says hes he's tryIng trying try Ing to make up for wh what t the boys have missed seems to understand for tor the first time what his own taciturnity taciturnity taci- taci I his hla easy indifference and his r peculiar ideas of paternal responsibility I ity have done to the lives of his sons o Scientists are keenly Interested In watching the education of ot the forest youngsters undertaken by Miss Nellie A. A Goodhue psychological expert of the Seattle schools |