Life, 1890-06-19 · page 10 of 14
Life — June 19, 1890 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Bird Who Didn't Get It" - Life Magazine Satire This page contains two separate satirical pieces: **Top Comic Strip:** A man sits under a tree with a bird, progressively moving closer. The caption "The Only Thing He Has to Change" references a dialogue about whether African savages can change their clothes—the traveler's reply that they change their minds instead suggests stubborn inability to adapt. **Bottom Section:** Critiques Harvard's $2,000 annual tuition (then extraordinarily expensive) as wasteful, calling it "ignorance bliss." The accompanying sketch "A Private View" shows what appears to be a zoo or menagerie exhibit with crowds viewing animals, captioned with crude dialect humor about looking "down into its stummick"—suggesting the wealthy education produces people as intellectually developed as zoo animals. The satire targets both class privilege and educational pretension.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: BIRD WHO DIDN’T GET IT. THE ONLY THING HE HAS TO CHANGE. os I AM very curious to know, Mr. Stanley,” said the interested young person, “ what the unclothed savage of the African wilds does when the temperature changes—having no clothes, of course, he cannot change them?” “No, madame ;" replied the intrepid traveler, “ but he changes his mind. That's all he has to change.” W HERE ignorance is bliss ‘twere folly to pay $2,000 a year to send a boy to Harvard. A PRIVATE VIEW. “HURRY UP, BILLY, AN’ TAKE A PEEP, I KIN LOOK RIGHT DOWN INTO HIS STUMMICK.” comicbooks.com