Chapter 25

COMMUNICATION

Roads and other means of transportation are important not only as a means of transporting products, but also as a means of communication among the members of the community. Team work is impossible without prompt and effective means of communication.

Tell what you know about the value of signals in getting team work in a football or baseball team.

Discuss the importance of means of communication in conducting military operations. What means were used for this purpose in our Army in France?

How were military movements reported and directed in the Revolutionary War?

Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans was won a month after the War of 1812 was officially ended. How did this happen?

What were some of the methods used by the American Indians to convey information between distant points?

LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

One of the most interesting chapters in history is that relating to the development of means of communication. Language itself is the most important of these means. It is not altogether clear what the first steps were in the development of spoken language; but we know that among uncivilized peoples conversation is aided, and often largely carried on, by signs made with the hands. Written language certainly developed from the use of pictures, which were gradually curtailed into HIEROGLYPHICS, such as were used by the ancient Egyptians, and finally developed into the ALPHABET, each letter of which was originally a picture.

A story is told of a group of American Indians who some years ago visited an eastern city. They could not make themselves understood, nor could they understand others, and became very lonely. They were taken to visit a deaf-and-dumb institution, where they were quite delighted to find that they could converse freely by the use of a natural sign language.

Uncivilized peoples are in the habit of conveying ideas in the most astonishing ways. For example, among a certain African tribe the gift of a tooth brush carries a message of affection. These Africans take great pride in their white teeth, and the tooth brush carries the message, "As I think of my teeth morning, noon, and night, so I think often of you."

To illustrate the development of the alphabet from pictures, our