Community Civics and Rural Life Part 37

Experiences of your community with respect to railroad rate discrimination.

The work of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The work of the United States Railway Administration during the war.

Advantages and disadvantages of government control of railroads during the war.

The war powers of the President.

Arguments for and against government ownership of railroads.

Electric interurban railways in your county and state. What they mean to the farmer and to the city resident.

The work of the United States Coast Survey.

The history of the American merchant marine.

The development of the American merchant marine during the recent war.

The building of "fabricated ships."

The life of a sailor to-day, as compared with that of 100 years ago.

The dependence of the American farmer upon the merchant marine.

READINGS

County reports relating to road construction and improvement.

Reports of State Highway Commission.

State management of public roads, YEAR BOOK, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1914, pp. 211-226.

Publications of Office of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Write also to Superintendent of Doc.u.ments, Government Printing Office, Washington, for price list of doc.u.ments relating to the subject of roads.

Farmers' Bulletins relating to marketing and transportation facilities, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:

Series A: Lesson 26, Concentration of control in the railroad industry.

Series B: Lesson 27, Good roads.

Series C: Lesson 25, A seaport as a center of concentration of population and wealth.

Lesson 27, Early transportation in the Far West.

Lesson 28, The first railway across the continent.

Consult the public library for magazine literature on the subject of roads, railroads, river transportation, etc. For example, in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS, February, 1918, there are the following articles:

"Uncle Sam Takes the Railroads."

"The World's Greatest Port" (New York).

"New York Ca.n.a.ls a Transportation Resource."

"River Navigation--a War Measure."

Hart, ACTUAL GOVERNMENT, chap. XXVII.

CHAPTER XVIII

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 inst.i.tution, 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 ill.u.s.trate the development of the alphabet from pictures, our letter M represents the ears of an owl, which in Egypt was called MU, and the picture of which, later reduced to the ears, came to represent the sound of M..

EFFECTS OF ILLITERACY AND INABILITY TO USE ENGLISH

The fascinating story of the development of language cannot be told here. It is referred to because we are likely to forget what an important factor it is in making community life possible.

Inability to use a common language prevents intercourse and team work. Large numbers of men drafted in the American Army were unable to understand the English language. Between 30,000 and 40,000 illiterates were taken in the first draft and it is said that there were nearly 700,000 men of draft age in the United States who could neither read nor write. They could not sign their names, nor read orders or instructions. They had to be separated and taught, thus greatly delaying the complete organization of our available fighting forces. Inability to use a common language is equally an obstacle in industrial life, for non-English speaking workmen are unable to understand instructions, or to read signs and warnings. Many accidents are due to this cause. It is said that approximately 5 1/2 million of our population above ten years of age cannot read or write in any language, and that 5 million of our foreign population cannot use English. An active campaign is now being conducted to teach English to foreigners and to eradicate illiteracy. A bill has recently been introduced in Congress to provide Federal aid for this purpose.

If the productive labor value of an illiterate is less by only 50 cents a day than that of an educated man or woman, the country is losing $825,000,000 a year through illiteracy ... The Federal Government and the States spend millions of dollars in trying to give information to the people in rural districts about farming and home making. Yet 3,700,000, or 10 per cent, of our country folk can not read or write a word. They can not read a bulletin on agriculture, a farm paper, a food-pledge card, a liberty-loan appeal, a newspaper, the Const.i.tution of the United States, or their Bibles, nor can they keep personal or business accounts. An uninformed democracy is not a democracy. A people who cannot have means of access to the mediums of public opinion and to the messages of the President and the acts of Congress can hardly be expected to understand the full meaning of this war, to which they all must contribute in life or property or labor.--SECRETARY LANE, Annual Report, 1918, p. 30. From letter to the President.