At what point does the training of a captive（俘虏） wild elephant begin? Two main techniques have been used for training elephants, which we may call, respectively（各自地）, the tough（坚韧的） and the gentle. The former（在前的） method simply consists of setting（设置） an elephant to work and beating him until he does what is expected of him. Apart from any moral（道德的） considerations（考虑）, this is a stupid method of training, for it produces a resentful animal who at a later stage may well turn man killer. The gentle method requires more patience（忍耐） in the early stages, but produces a cheerful, good-tempered（使回火） elephant who will give many years of loyal（忠诚的） service. The first essential（本质） in elephant training is to assign（指派） to the animal a single mahut, who will be entirely（完全地） responsible for the job.

  Elephants like to have one master（主人）, just as dogs do, and are capable（有能力的） of a considerable（相当大的） degree of personal affection（友爱）. There are even stories of half-trained elephant calves（[解剖] 腓肠） who have refused to feed and pine to death when by some unavoidable（ 不可避免的） circumstance（情况） they have been deprived of their own trainer. Such extreme cases must probably be taken with a grain of salt, but they do underline the general principle（原理） that the relationship between elephant and mahut is the key to successful training.