Friday

Saturday

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 16

Dear Comrade:

We have been tracing the development of written speech in order that we might have a clearer understanding of our own language. We have found how our earliest ancestors communicated with each other by signs and an articulate speech that was probably a little better than that of some animals of today. They gradually developed this articulate speech and then began to have need for some form of written speech. That which distinguishes man from the animals primarily is his power to remember and to associate one idea with another. From this comes his ability to reason concerning the connection of these ideas. Without this power of associative memory we would not be able to reason. If you could not recall the things that happened yesterday and had not the power of imagination concerning the things that may happen tomorrow, your reasoning concerning today would not be above that of the animals.

So man soon found it necessary to have some way of recalling accurately, in a manner that he could depend upon, the things that happened yesterday and the day before and still farther back in time. So that his first step was the invention of simple aids to memory such as the knotted strings and tally sticks. Then he began to draw pictures of the objects about him which he could perceive by the five senses, the things which he could see and hear and touch and taste and smell.