The Doubleday Pictorial Library;

COMMUNICATION
AND LANGUAGE
NETWORKS OF THOUGHT AND ACTION

Editorial Board

Sir Gerald Barry

with

Dr. J. Bronowski

James Fisher

Sir Julian Huxley

Illustrated and designed by Hans Erni

M >' Ft * t t

Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, New York

 K
7)6

Library of Congress Catalog Card

No. 65-17419

©Aldus Books Limited, London 1965

First published in United States of America 1965
Printed in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori, Verona
Like its companions, this book is a survey of a branch Preface
of human achievement. Perhaps branch is not the word,
for human knowledge and endeavor grows, but not like
a tree with separate branches. The branches of knowledge
intertwine and their stuff intermingles.
This book, embracing all such branches, must itself
be almost impossible to classify. For it is a book about
itself, and every other effort man makes (and alone can
make) to organize his accumulated wisdom so that
anybody can learn it who learns how to learn.
In a very good sense, then, this book is the story of
teaching and learning. What are they? How do they
work ? What is their future ? Such fundamental questions
have presented an entrancing challenge to our inter¬
national team of writers, artists, editors, and designers.
If our team was asked what its members have in common,
it would agree: a mutual stake in communication—the
science of telling. Here we tell you of the telling.
Once more in our series we approach our subject
systematically. Once more a comprehensive index serves
the need of those who desire the quick alphabetic hunt.
Once more the entire book has been planned and pre¬
pared under the guidance of our editorial board, Sir
Gerald Barry, Dr. J. Bronowski, Sir Julian Huxley, and
the writer of this preface. This volume has come under
the particular supervision of Sir Gerald Barry, who, as
editor for over io years of a national newspaper, as
director of the great Festival of Britain, and as a leading
executive (on the educational side) of a television
company, has some acquaintance with the business of
communication. Our special adviser, to whom we are
grateful for much inspiration and clarity of thought, was
Walter Allen, internationally-known novelist, lecturer,
and critic. Under the guidance of our distinguished
artist-designer Hans Erni we have arranged our text and
selected our pictures to give a world-wide view.
Many studies of communication have been offered to
people in separate disciplines—engineers, physiologists,
psychologists, sociologists, linguists, teachers, and so on.
We can fairly claim that this is the first comprehensive
survey of its kind. Its creation is particularly appropriate
for an international publisher, because editions of this
book about communication will be communicated to at
least eight different language communities.
We like to think of this book as a small contribution to
the world’s need for mutual aid. Mankind must turn
upon itself if it cannot fairly share nature’s resources.
No sharing is possible without understandings and no
understanding without unfettered and uninhibited
communication.

4. JO L1966
A r'

4hyj.
 Most animals communicate with their kind in one degree
or another, some by methods unknown to or imperfectly
understood by men. But man alone has acquired the
faculty of communication by speech. This unique achieve¬
ment has been the biggest single factor in the success
of Homo sapiens in developing complex societies. Only
now are we beginning to realize how deeply relevant
communication is to the story of human progress.
Communication theory, as it is called, is now one of
the basic areas of research into human intercourse and
understanding.
Speech was the first great leap forward in the develop¬
ment of human communication. The second was the
invention of writing. By this means, what men thought to
themselves or said to one another could be recorded,
read by others, and stored for the benefit of future
generations. There now existed a communal “memory.”
The third great leap forward came with the invention of
printing, by means of which what was written could be
reproduced and distributed in quantity, thus spreading
information and learning among ever-widening circles
of the community.
Further spectacular bursts of progress have accom¬
panied the development of electronic systems of com¬
munication—the telegraph and telephone, and especially
radio and television. And in recent years the electronic
computer has brought yet other revolutionary possi¬
bilities. Man can now have whole areas of his calculating
and communicating, as well as of his physical labor,
done for him by machine. His ability to move at speed
about the face of the earth, and beyond it, has also
increased prodigiously within the past hundred years.
There are many hundreds of written languages in use
today and thousands more that are only spoken. But
besides these there is, of course, an immense variety of
parallel means of human communication, both visual and
aural, which play an essential role in social relationships—
such as drama and dance, music, the graphic arts,
symbolic shapes and colors, even movements of the face
and body. Most of these are common to all communities,
even the most primitive; others, depending on techno¬
logical devices, are possible only in “modern” or complex
societies. Among such societies people of differing tongues
may have a specialist language in common, for instance
the language of mathematics or of science. It is possible
that other, more subtle forms of communication also
exist which as yet we do not fully comprehend. For
instance, there is the still uncracked code of communica¬
tion which controls the mystery of cellular reproduction;
there is that peculiar phenomenon called extrasensory
perception; there are the complex workings of the sub¬
conscious mind; and there are those rarer levels of
apprehension achieved by highly-developed minds which
amount to something in the nature of intellectual
intuition. But this book is primarily concerned with the
main streams of human communication which have
developed and broadened down the ages, and with the
social and cultural implications of these developments.
Man will soon have previously unimagined oppor¬
tunities for the storing and dissemination of knowledge
and ideas. Such virtually unlimited communication
resources seem likely to place unprecedented power in
the hands of central authority, with the attendant risks
of machine-made culture (regimented leisure, mass-
produced opinion, and a generally indoctrinated society),
of which our social prophets and moralists—outstand¬
ingly H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell—
have been warning us this last half century. One human
requirement in particular would seem to be in mortal
danger under the assault of electronic communication,
and that is the need for privacy.
Understandably, many people feel pessimistic because
of our many failures to communicate successfully in spite
of the refinements at our disposal, and, at the same time,
because of the dangers of our communicating too much.
Certainly there is plentiful evidence in the world today
of unsuccessful communication, both socially and
politically, between races, nations, and individuals.
True, despite ever-increasing opportunities, the com¬
munity-sense of society as a whole is notably weak; all
the same, this pessimism is open to challenge. It is well
within the bounds of modern man’s technical skill and
ingenuity to develop devices that will free us from the
dangers of an over-centralized culture. By enabling
groups and communities to provide their own “entertain¬
ment,” such devices might well foster a popular culture
and a more creative community-sense.
New means and methods of communication offer us
splendid opportunities if we use them wisely. The tele¬
vision picture has provided a new universal language,
invaluable for the spread of knowledge and know-how in
developing countries. Satellite communication will make
possible the rapid exchange of information and ideas
between Western, African, and Asian man, and so can
help enormously to remove the mental and emotional
barriers to harmony, and to advance the prospects of
One World. In these and other ways, despite evident Gerald Barry
disadvantages, the vast impending extensions of human J. Bronowski
communication can lead to the greater emancipation of James Fisher
mankind. Julian Huxley
Special Consultant Contributors
Walter Allen Walter Allen pages 16—31, 126-157
D. W. Davies 322-331
Advisers Dr. David Diringer 106-125
Mervyn Jones 228-245
Donald Berwick
Alec Laurie 80—105, 176-195
Pierre Lavayssiere
John McDaniel 332-341
Malcolm Ross-Macdonald
Dr. G. H. Manley 32-47
Donovan Pedelty 298-319
Professor Alan S. C. Ross 48-79
Paul Sheridan 246-267
Mary Sullivan 196-209
Irving Wardle 158-175
John L. Young 210-227

Editor Art Editor

Donovan Pedelty Victor Shreeve

Associate Editor Art Assistants

Alec Laurie Ian Kestle
Edward Poulton

Researchers
Editorial Assistants Joan Allwork
Ken Coton Beryl de Haan
Dorothy Williams Hazel Harrison
1 COMMUNICATION AND
CIVILIZATION 16
Living together 18
Cultural evolution 20
Small worlds 22
New horizons 24
Manipulation and meaning 26
Quantity and quality 28
Lost in a crowd 30

2 ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 32
Why animals need to communicate 34
How animals communicate 36
Evolution of animal signals 38
Adding impact to signals 40
Cracking the code 42
Animal vocabularies 44
The human animal speaks 46

3 LIVING LANGUAGE 48
Mechanics of speech 50
Describing languages 52
Are all languages related ? 54
Patterns of descent 56
The main language families 58
The Indo-European family 60
Other families 62
Language follows the flag 64
Loan words 66
A much-traveled word 68
Changes of sound 70
Changes of meaning 72
Dialect 74
The art of translation 76
A universal language ? 78

4 VISUAL COMMUNICATION 80
Man and his codes 82
Living gestures 84
Identity and status 86
Symbols of belief 88
Distance and detail 90
What makes a sign clear ? 92
Communication by color 94
Pictures and magic 96
Art as communication 98
Caricature and cartoon 100
Visual persuasion 102
Visual shorthand IO4

WRITTEN LANGUAGE 106

The dawn of writing 108
Pictures into symbols 110
Symbols for sounds 112
Birth of the alphabet 114
Alphabets conquer the world 116
Writing and reading 118
World campaign against illiteracy 120
Teaching India to read and write 122
Is our alphabet good enough ? 124
Scientific shorthand 188
It pays to classify 190
Scientist and layman 192
The influence of science r94

STORED COMMUNICATION 196

What a library is 198
Ancient libraries 200
Libraries for everyone 202
Organizing libraries for use 204
Displaying collections 206
Using stored knowledge 208

LONG-DISTANCE
COMMUNICATION 210
Signals and codes 212
Letters by the million 214
Electric telegraphs 216
Telephony 218
Radio signals 220
Satellite relay systems 222
Communication theory 224
Social consequences 226

MASS MEDIA 1 : THE PRESS 228

Growth of the press 230
How a paper is produced 232
Periodicals 234
Freedom of the press 236
Power of the press 238
Newspaper economics 240
Ownership and control 242
Future of the press 244

MASS MEDIA 2:
FILM, RADIO, AND TV 246
Development of film and radio 248
Language of film 250
The film as a mirror 252
Language of radio 254
Development of television 2 56
Language of television 258
Control and censorship 260
Entertainment 262
Education 264
Social impact 266
13 TEACHING AND LEARNING 268
How do we learn ? 270
Stages of learning 272
Teaching methods 274
Machines that teach 276
Spread of education 278
Education for tomorrow 280

14 ADVERTISING 282
Growth of advertising 284
Language of advertising 286
Who is “the customer” ? 288
Indirect promotion 290
Why advertise ? 292
Advertising and planning 294
Advertising and society 296

15 PROPAGANDA AND OPINION 298

Forming opinions 3°o
Measuring public opinion 302
Persuasion and resistance 3°4
Group propaganda 306
Political cartoons 3°8
Conforming and dissenting 310
Indoctrination and authority 212
Brainwashing 3i4
Psychological warfare 316
Agreeing to differ 3l8

APPENDIX 321
Scientists measure information 322
Translation by computer 332
Literacy and education 342
Literacy and wealth 344
What the world reads 346
Mass communications 348
Development of the alphabet 35°
Index 352
Illustration credits 364
Mo man is an Hand, intire of it selfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, apart of the maine;
if a Clod bee “washed, away by the Sea, Europe is
the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as
if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were ;
any mans death diminishes me, because I am
involved in Mankinde ....

John Donne (1573-1631)

Chapter 1

Communication and Civilization

The word “communication” comes from the Latin verb

communicare, “to talk together, confer, discourse, and con¬
sult, one with another.” It is intimately related to the
Latin word communitas, which means not only com¬
munity but also fellowship and justice in men’s dealings
with one another. Society is based on the possibility of
men living and working together for common ends-—in a
word, on co-operation. But without communication,
co-operation is impossible. Through communication men
share knowledge, information, and experience, and thus
understand, persuade, convert, or control their fellows.
Our means of communication are many. They include
all the possible ways of attracting attention. We com¬
municate by facial expression and gesture, by touch, by
pictures and visual signs, by mathematical and scientific
signs and symbols, by music and dance, and, most im¬
portant of all, by words, spoken and written.
Our range of communication is as varied as our means.
It stretches from simple commands such as “Do!”
“Don’t!” “Stop!” “Go!” (which may be conveyed by
expression or gesture, pictorial signs or flashing lights of
agreed meaning, or by words) to the loftiest expressions of
human thought and feeling, the great works of literature
and drama, of painting and sculpture, of music, religion,
philosopy, and science.
But the first men did not have all these means of
Social life is impossible without
communication at their disposal. Some are very recent communication, and the development
indeed, and in the long history of mankind written of the power to communicate has
language itself dates back only to yesterday. In this played a vital role in the evolution
of societies since the first men banded
chapter we set the scene before discussing in greater detail together. The means of communication
the development of human communication, the ways in in our modern societies are almost
which it has shaped us, and the problems it poses for us infinite, but—just as in simple societies
—most of them depend ultimately on
today. our senses of sight and hearing.

16
Living together

Wc spend much of our waking life sending or receiving

messages of one kind or another. In the morning the
ringing of the alarm clock tells us it is time to get up. We
collect and read our mail letters from friends, demands
for taxes, invitations to parties. At breakfast we read the
newspaper to find out what has been happening in the
world; and, since the news is already several hours late by
the time it reaches us through newspapers, we switch on
the radio to hear of more recent developments.
We leave for school or work, and the steady red or
green signal of the traffic lights tells the driver of our bus
to stop or to go on. The bus is caught in a traffic jam, and I
a policeman takes over control of the traffic, and, by
The written word, whether fact or fantasy, is a
motions of his hands and arms, bids the driver go forward major link with a world outside our own experience.
or stay still. We stare out of the window at street posters in Helped by simple, carefully chosen text, this child
many colors, arrangements of pictures and words that takes the first of many arduous steps toward
literacy, and the richer future it promises.
urge us to buy this, buy that, or to go and see this film or
that play.
At school and in the factory the ringing of bells
announces the beginning of the day’s work. If we do not
clearly understand some aspect of our work, we ask the
teacher or foreman for an explanation; or we turn for
help to a book, the printed record of knowledge.
Back home, we read an evening newspaper, watch
television, or listen to people talking, singing, or making
music on the radio. Or wc read a book; perhaps to learn
about a particular subject; perhaps, if it is a novel, a
volume of poetry, or a biography, to find out how other
people think and feel and live; perhaps simply to amuse
ourselves. Or we may go out for the evening to sec a film
or a play, or perhaps to dine and dance.
All the time, at work, at home, with members of our
own family, with friends, colleagues, strangers, we have
been talking. Sometimes we talk for a particular purpose,
With his baton, this Parisian policeman com¬
in order to acquire or to give information, exchange municates simple accepted signs to busy road
ideas, or win over another to our way of looking at things; users, prevents chaotic traffic jams, and helps to
but often our conversations amount to little more than smooth the flow of vehicles.

making verbal noises. Yet even this kind of communica¬

tion making small talk, as we call it, joking, discussing
the weather, saying “good morning” or “good evening”
is genuine communication, essential to our existence.
By it, we establish the fact that we are human beings
living with other human beings, and we constantly re¬
discover the sense of fellow feeling and mutual interest
without which men could not live together.
Poetry and small talk, religious ceremony and adver¬
tising slogans—the level of communication varies as
widely as the means. In general, the higher the level
the more difficult it is to understand or to use, and
though high-level communication may be quite simple,

In today's complex world, teachers play a major part in

handing on knowledge and assurance to the younger
generation. But however formal the education, most
teachers regard an informal teacher-pupil relationship as
18 essential to this handing-on function.
we may need qualities of character and experience of life,
rather than acquired skills, in order to understand it.
Communication is essentially a social affair. From the
moment of birth, a child learns to adapt himself to his
immediate surroundings by developing his senses. Indeed,
all the many different systems of communications that
make social life possible are, as it were, extensions of the
senses. The newborn baby has feelings: He is aware of
hunger, heat, cold, and light. But it takes time before he
learns to resolve the colored patterns he sees into shapes
he can recognize. He hears sounds, yet it is some time
before he can understand that sounds made by other
people carry particular messages. It is even longer before
he gains control over his movements, and longer still
before his instinctive crying or crowing changes into the
beginnings of speech.
When he is older, the child goes to school and learns to
read. But there is a vast difference between the ability to
read a school primer or the headlines of a newspaper and,
say, a work of philosophy or a poem. These demand
special training, involving in philosophy and the sciences
something almost equivalent to the learning of a new
language and in poetry a knowledge of the way poets use
words. This is quite different from the way in which
scientists use them, as we shall see pp. 150 53, 178 79 .
And we find that all trades and professions have special
vocabularies that must be learned if they are to be
understood. Shepherds and plumbers have their tech¬
nical languages no less than lawyers and biologists.
Workers leaving a factory after the “stop work"
Another factor is the kind of society in which we are hooter at the end of the day's work. All our lives
born. We take in our society’s assumptions about con¬ we are warned, summoned, or informed by bells,
buzzers, sirens, or whistles.
duct, values, manners, man’s relation to the universe and
to God for the most part unconsciously, through our
upbringing and education. But these assumptions may
later become barriers that prevent us from communicat¬
ing with people of different races or religions. Even to
begin to understand one another’s points of view, a
Frenchman and an Indian, for example, or a Jew and a
Moslem, must make a conscious intellectual effort,
which may be compared to the discipline needed to learn
a new language. To some extent, the same kind of effort is
required if we want to understand the views of those
people in our own society who are members of a different
social group, or who have had a quite different sort of
upbringing.
In the end, communication and education are in¬
separable. The more specialized, the more subtle, the
more complex the matter that is being communicated, the
more specialized, the more subtle, the more complex the
education necessary to receive and evaluate it.

Newsstands—like the one pictured right—are a

familiar sight in most towns and cities. Through
the many newspapers and magazines we can buy
from them, we are kept informed of events
happening all over the world.

Behind religious symbols like this Saibai, New
Guinea, mask lie fascinating myths that enshrine
something of the history of a people.
Cultural evolution
The ability to use sounds as symbols for things and
ideas marks the greatest single difference between human
beings and other animals. Because man can speak and
record his thoughts and emotions in writing and pictures,
he alone among animals is able to hand on experience and
knowledge from generation to generation. This means
that in addition to the mechanism of genetic inheritance,
which he shares with all other living things, man possesses
a unique mechanism of cultural inheritance. And it is this
mechanism that has assured him his dominant position on
earth.
As a species, man has undergone little biological
evolution in the last 30,000 years; but the character of his
societies and cultures has changed enormously. This
social and cultural evolution has proceeded at a speed
many hundreds of times greater than even the fastest
changes found in biological evolution; and with every
new development in the means of communication the
processes of change have been intensified and accelerated.
Each generation inherits its social institutions and ways
of life from the previous one, but is nevertheless able to
accept or reject them, or to modify and develop them
with conscious goals in mind. Man has the whole heritage
of ideas from which to choose. Furthermore, he has
developed many ways of acquiring new knowledge and
he has invented increasingly flexible and efficient
instruments for using it. Scientific method is a major
example of the former; the vast range of modern tech¬
nology of the latter.
Libraries and museums act as a kind of collective
memory. They preserve the records of man’s cultural
achievements and so help to abolish the gulf that
separates the present from the past. Similarly, means of
communication like radio and television abolish the
barriers of distance by providing a world-wide network
for the rapid exchange of information. Increasingly,
wherever we live on the earth’s surface, we can share in
everything that man has thought, done, made, and
recorded.
Consider, for example, how such modern means of
visual communication as photography and television have
made remote parts of the world and the life and products
of their peoples familiar to us. So also with the cultures of
the past, as they are unearthed and described by
archaeologists and historians. Thus mankind is offered an
ever-expanding range and variety of inspiration for its
future development.
The most obvious examples of this process are to be
seen in the art of the past 50 years. We find that a painter
like Picasso uses the techniques and visions not only of his
Left: Young visitor to London’s Tate Gallery
looks at sculpture by French artist Hans Arp
{born 1887). Abstract art is part of the cultural
climate in which this child is growing up.
native Spanish traditions and of his immediate forebears
in Paris but also of Byzantine artists of a thousand years
ago, of African Negro sculpture, and of the work of
Polynesian islanders. Similarly, the British sculptor
Henry Moor owes as much to the unknown sculptors of
pre-conquest Mexico and Easter Island as he does to
Michelangelo.
Again, modern poetry, wherever written and in what¬
ever language, is more and more the product of cross¬
fertilization between the literatures of many languages
and ages. A contemporary American poet, for instance,
may number among his significant ancestors a Chinese
poet of the eighth century and a Provencal troubadour of
the Middle Ages, together with earlier poets of his own
tongue.
Modern communications help to make us aware that
we are the heirs of all previous history. They reveal the Above: anatomy students from many lands studying at
Aberdeen University, Scotland. Universities play an in¬
rich variety of human life and the great diversity of
creasingly important part in spreading knowledge to all
human societies; but at the same time they remind us that parts of the world.
mankind is one. They make us realize that every man’s
past is nothing less than the whole human past, and that Below: a ship under construction in a Scottish shipyard.
every man’s present will contribute to the whole human In industries such as shipbuilding, knowledge added to by
many generations of engineers and craftsmen is passed on
future. through an apprenticeship system.

Above: medieval pilgrims, from an early edition
of The Canterbury Tales by the English poet
Geoffrey Chaucer (about 1340-1400). Pilgrimages
were often the only contact medieval men had with
the world outside their own villages, and even so
were rare and risky ventures.
It took three days for news of Napoleon's defeat at
Waterloo in 1815 to reach the British Government,
and another day to reach the public. In the scene
below, painted by Scottish artist David Wilkie
(1785-1841), veterans and war wounded are
jubilant at the four-day-old news.
Small worlds
Those of us who live in advanced technological societies
are linked to a vast and complex network of communica¬
tions. Through radio, television, and telephone, we have
the power, in theory at least, of knowing what events are
happening in any part of the world almost at the moment
of their occurrence.
This annihilation of distance is very recent. After
leaving his army during its retreat from Moscow in 1812,
Napoleon traveled from Vilna to Paris, a distance of
about 1400 miles, in 312 hours. He was the most powerful
man of his day, and so had resources of transport at his
command that were far greater than those available to
ordinary travelers. Yet some 1800 years earlier Julius
Caesar could travel just as rapidly between his army
command in Gaul and Rome.
On June 18, 1815, Napoleon was finally defeated by
the allied armies at Waterloo, one of the decisive battles
of history. Yet the British Government, 200 miles away in
London, did not receive the official news from their
victorious general until June 21. And it was 44 days after
the battle before the news was published in the New York
newspapers. Today, almost everyone in Europe and
America can watch on television the start of an astron¬
aut’s journey into space at the exact moment of blast-off, a
striking example of the development of communications
since Napoleon’s times.
Space flights are merely the latest of a sequence of
technological developments that have made the world one
in a way it has never been before. Some of these develop¬
ments—the railway train, steamship, automobile, and
airplane- belong to the history of transport, but their
influence on human communication has been profound
and far-reaching. Others- the electric telegraph, tele¬
phone, phonograph, camera, radio, and television
belong essentially to communications.
Before the steam locomotive was invented, the fastest
speed at which a man could travel was determined by the
horse. Few people traveled far. Most of them lived and
died where they had been born. By modern standards,
even the largest towns were small, and all communities
were more or less self-contained and self-supporting.
Books were relatively few and, before the invention of
printing, very precious, since the only way to reproduce
them was to copy them by hand.
In Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire until
toward the close of the Middle Ages, two worlds existed,
as it were, side by side the world of the Church and the
lay or secular world. The world of the Church largely
embraced that of learning, and, to a considerable extent,
that of administration too. Its members were specialized
men who belonged to an international organization and
communicated with one another through the medium of
an international language: Latin. They were capable,
Above: 15th-century devotional “girdle book.”
the cleverest of them, of a subtlety of thought in philosophy These tiny books {no bigger than a man’s hand)
and theology that has not been surpassed. were rare possessions, much prized by their
owners, in the days before printing made books
Laymen, on the other hand, whether rich or poor,
cheaper and more plentiful.
nobles or serfs, were generally illiterate. They were
citizens of Christendom certainly, but for the most part
lived in small, often remote, inward-looking com¬
munities that were dominated by mainly local loyalties.
Theirs was a world so slow to change as to seem now al¬
most static. The main medium of communication was the
spoken word, together with pictorial representations, of
which inn signs survive as an example.
These two worlds, the ecclesiastical and the secular,
were not, of course, mutually exclusive. They penetrated
each other at every level, and communication between
them was constant. The churchmen were largely re¬
cruited from the children of the laymen, since in Catholic
countries (at that time all western Europe) the clergy
were forbidden by Church law to marry. And every
village, however remote, had its representative of the
great international world of learning, in the person of the
priest, even though his way of life often differed little from
that of his parishioners. This kind of society was destroyed
by new ideas and by old ideas rediscovered, and the chief
means through which such ideas were spread was the
printing press.

Pictorial communication was particularly im¬

portant in the Middle Ages, when few people could
read. Nobles bore colored symbols and patterns
arranged according to strict rules. Right:
memorial brasses of 14th-century English knight
and wife wearing heraldic markings.
New horizons

The year 1447, when the art of printing with movable

type was introduced into Europe, marks the greatest
revolution in communication since the invention of
writing itself some 5000 years earlier. The Chinese had
devised the art of printing with movable type four cen¬
turies before Europe; but the great number of different
characters in their writing p. 128 made printing a
laborious and costly process. In European countries,
however, where alphabetic writing had long been in use,
only 30 or so different sorts of characters, corresponding
to the different letters and punctuation marks, were
needed.
The effect of being able to copy books relatively
quickly and cheaply was to take learning and the discus¬
sion of ideas out of the narrow confines of the clergy and
to offer them generally to all who could learn to read.
Within a few decades Europe was torn by religious wars
and bitter controversies that lasted well into the 17th
century wars of ideas fought with books and pamphlets
as well as with swords and guns. The Renaissance, the
Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the growth of
science and geographical exploration, the rediscovery of
the classical past of Greek art, literature, and philosophy,
would not have broken up the static outlook of the
medieval world so surely and swiftly without the rapid
spread of printed books.
Admittedly, literacy took a long time to reach the
common people. Even as late as 1830, for example, more
than half the children of England, then the most advanced
Crude anatomical drawing of 1399 (blue) contrasts with
industrial country in the world, received no schooling at the scientific study made nearly 150 years later by the
all. For working people everywhere in Europe illiterac) Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514-64).
was still the normal condition. Below: Dutch artist Adriaen van de Velde (about 1636-72)
During the long period from the arrival of the printing depicts the Netherlands divided into Catholics (right) and
Protestants (left) during the 1609-21 truce in the religious
press in Europe to the spread of universal education in the
wars. Opposing clergy fishing for souls (center) continue
late 19th century, knowledge derived from books and a verbal war for men's minds.

Above: 17th-century engraving of an English
pedlar. These “traveling salesmen” helped to
break down the isolation of remote towns and
villages by bringing news as well as goods.
[V •
Vs*, • w v
1
SiIIP*
In the 19th century education gradually came to
be considered a universal right instead of a
privilege few but the wealthy could afford. Even
so, as this engraving of 1831 shows, conditions in
the free primary schools were poor and harsh.
newspapers did, of course, filter down to the ordinary
people from their social superiors, often through ser¬
mons, as well as from the few people of their own class
who had learned to read. But the impact of printing on
the upper classes and the newly arisen middle class of
merchants, manufacturers, and professional men was
much more immediate. It gave them new forms of com¬
munication. During the 17th and early 18th centuries,
for example, Europe’s first real novels and newspapers
appeared. With them came new industries- publishing
and bookselling and new professions- authorship and
journalism, all concerned with satisfying the curiosity of
readers about life in the widest sense.
The coming of railways and steamships during the
middle years of the 19th century suddenly speeded up the
whole tempo of life in Europe and North America. Books
and the ideas they contained were carried everywhere;
people became more mobile, and as they were able to
move about with an ease, freedom, and rapidity un¬
known to any class before, the old differences between
capital and provinces, town and country, began to
disappear. Regional cultures, dialects, even minority
languages, such as the Celtic tongues, Gaelic and Breton,
dwindled and decayed. These great changes were
accompanied by a rapid rise in the rate of literacy, for the
more machines took over work formerly done by hand,
the more necessary it was for the men who managed them
to be able to read, write, and do simple arithmetic in
order to keep pace with technical developments.
This enormous leap forward in literacy brought with it
what were in effect new forms of communication. The
mass-circulation newspaper and the mass-circulation
magazine, numbering their readers in hundreds of
thousands and later in millions, were born.
What the railway and steamship began, later develop¬
ments have continued at an ever-accelerating pace. The
railway displaced the local town and regional capital and
made the metropolis the center of communications and
culture. Today, modern communications are displacing
the merely metropolitan by the international. The films
we see in our cinemas are as likely to have been made in
another country as in our own. The same popular songs
are whistled in the streets of the world’s capitals, and they
may have originated anywhere in the world. We can
travel right around the world and see the same television
program in every country we pass through. Even the
books we read are almost as likely to have been written by
a foreign author as by one of our own countrymen. The
very word “foreign” is beginning to have a strange, old-
fashioned sound.
25
Manipulation and meaning

By definition, the object of communication is to promote

mutual understanding; but the historical record shows
that this has seldom been achieved and not often seriously
attempted. Control of the media of communication has
always been a political weapon no less important than the
control of armies and police forces.
The communication media most characteristic of our
age are the mass media radio, television, films, and
newspapers. Because they are directed at vast audiences,
they place enormous power and responsibility in the
hands of those who control them. All too often this power
is used for political ends or financial gain, to manipulate
less educated or less thoughtful minds. Such manipula¬
tion works by the partisan selection and presentation of
facts, by plain lying, or by exploiting the fears and hopes
of the audience. These are old methods; what is new is
the sheer scale on w hich, by using mass media, manipula¬
tors can operate.
We are rarely in a position to check what they tell us.
Even the speed of modern communication, in itself a
blessing, can be turned against us. Lies can be made to
stick before the slower process of discussion and con¬
sideration has had time to make us have second thoughts
about their validity.
To get a clearer understanding of how one kind of
manipulation works, we must consider the nature of
words, the principal raw material of human communi¬
cation. Words are not things; they are simply signs and
sounds representing ideas. They are useful indeed,
Events of national importance, like this convention of the
indispensable as indicators of our thoughts; but un¬
U.S. Democratic party, are covered by mass media (press,
fortunately people tend to employ them as though they radio, TV—here, high up in the lighted boxes). Political
were actual substances. Some words especially those rallies have other things in common (right).
concerned with religious and political beliefs, patriotism,
and sex can therefore become highly emotionally
charged. The very word “freedom,” for example, has a
sort of explosive force in countries that have not yet won
independence from foreign rule. Such words can stimulate
the emotions so powerfully as to be almost magical. We
may consider the ideas they express to be either poten¬
tially beneficial to the community in which we live or
utterly harmful; but in either case they can be used by the
unscrupulous or the fanatical to turn ordinary people
into mobs and to provoke, for example, racial riots.
We may flatter ourselves that we are not taken in by
this kind of manipulation. Yet how often does a politician
or writer define the “loaded” words he is apt to scatter
around so freely words like communism, capitalism, free
world,free enterprise, doctrinaire, and a great many others?
And how often do we ask ourselves what they mean ?
Words of this kind make such excellent smoke screens for

Schoolgirls watch a television lesson (right). Most

television networks now provide a variety of
programs that are planned in conjunction with
educational authorities to form an integral part
26 of regular school courses.

Marching with banners and slogans —the familiar
apparatus of demonstrations all over the world—Russians
crowd into the Red Square, Moscow (above), to celebrate
the 45 th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917.
foyth'. wrteiOiaHvuft.
y>i}fn die jiiOijdic
" t^reoefpropaganda, ^ pond to criticism.
. M* m.
hut Uci 3eutfd)cn! f§|
\l' Germans defend
yourselves against jewish '
atrocity propaganda
deeds that we might otherwise recognize as hostile to our
own ideas.
Manipulation is one thing, misunderstanding another.
Words change their meaning or have local or purely
personal meanings. This applies especially to abstract
words, just because the ideas they stand for are not in
themselves concrete and may therefore be interpreted in
different ways by different people. A good example is the
word “democracy,” which is part of the stock in trade of
almost every politician, for the obvious reason that it
evokes a favorable emotional response from most people.
But deliberate deception is only part of the explanation
for the confusion its widespread use causes; we must also
examine our own idea of what the word means.
“Democracy” comes from the Greek words demos (“the
people”) and kratos (“rule”). It was originally used to
describe states like Athens, in which every adult male
native could speak and vote in the Assembly, and thus
take a direct part in deciding by what laws the state
should be governed. It is now generally applied to what
would be more accurately described as representative
government. It has become a sacred word one of the
words men can be persuaded to die for. It is a sacred
word, for instance, both in the United States and in the
Soviet Union; but it means something different in each,
so that honest men in each country often believe that
citizens of the other are cynically lying when they use it.
Misunderstandings arise because the same word is used
to describe different conditions and different institutions;
so we must first examine these before we can begin to
learn what “democracy” means to a present-day
American, Russian, African, Indonesian, or whoever it
may be.
To guard ourselves against the dangers of manipula¬
tion and misunderstanding, we must strive for clarity of
thought and expression all the time. There is some safety
in the very diversity of our media of communication pro¬
vided they are not concentrated in too few hands. We are
free to choose between them, and, because they are
competing for our approval, their controllers may res¬
Furthermore, however rigidly communications may be
controlled, the nature of such media as broadcasting
makes it almost impossible for any government to isolate
its subjects completely from the world outside. And, as in
the fable of the boy who cried wolf so often in jest that no
one believed him when he was in earnest, the ultimate
tendency of lying propaganda is to make people distrust
all statements that come from sources suspected of with¬
holding or distorting the facts.
During the 1930s Nazis picketed Jewish shops in
Germany with slogans like this. The use of English
underlines the fact that part of the mass-propa¬
ganda campaign was planned for international as
well as for domestic effect. 27

Top: modern audience at Delphi watching one of
the ancient Greek plays. The quality of these
plays, which made them famous in their time
more than 2000 years ago—has ensured their
survival. Lower: native of Montenegro (Yugo¬
slavia) with a guzla—a kind of one-stringed
violin —once used by wandering ballad singers.
Such localized forms of entertainment are rapidly
disappearing in the face of mass entertainment.
Quantity and quality
Although our means of communication grow more com¬
plex year by year, there is no necessary connection
between the quantity of communication and its quality.
We can trace steady progress in the technology of com¬
munication, but in the actual content of communication
in, for instance, the masterpieces of art and literature and
religious utterance^ there is really no such thing as pro¬
gress. The greatest single body of drama we possess, for
example, was written by a handful of Greek poets and
produced in the city-state of Athens, with a total popula¬
tion of between 300,000 and 400,000 people, almost 2500
years ago. It is also significant that any audience of
Athenian citizens, watching, say, Sophocles’ tragedy
Oedipus Rex or Aristophanes’ comedy Hie Birds, represen¬
ted a cross section of society craftsmen and shop¬
keepers, as well as students and aristocrats. It was one of
those rare ages when a strong sense of community was
expressed in a common culture. In most periods of
history in most countries, however, it is possible to make a
distinction between high culture, on the one hand, and
popular culture, on the other.
High culture has been defined as the pursuit of the
best that has been thought, said, and created. In most
societies such culture has in the past been the property
of small elites of educated men. The popular culture of
ordinary working people provides a contrasting his¬
torical thread. This culture has always been slow to
change. It is scarcely literary at all, its heritage being
handed down from one generation to the next by word of
mouth. Many folk songs were passed on in this way
until, 40 or 50 years ago, men like Cecil Sharp in America
and England and Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly in
Hungary began to write them down. High culture re¬
mains, and is constantly being added to. Popular culture,
in the old sense, is dying throughout the Western world,
mortally wounded by mass communications.
Its place has been taken by mass entertainment films,
radio and television programs, national and inter¬
national sporting events, and so on. This development is
often deplored. Traditional popular culture, in its songs,
games, and proverbial speech, expressed vividly the
people’s common experience of life in terms of work and
play, joy and sorrow, and the natural rhythm of the
seasons. Admittedly, the mass-produced culture that
has taken its place is often shallower and less meaningful,
sometimes cheap and nasty; but this is by no means
always true.
Greater quantity of communication need not mean
lower quality. If it too often docs, this max be either
because most people really prefer lower standards or
In the 19th century, before the days of mass enter¬
tainment, middle-class families often entertained
themselves, as here, with intimate musical parties.
Usually each member of the family tried to
cultivate his or her own specialty.

Centers of mass entertainment, like the Stadium
and Bull Ring at Mexico City {top), tend to force
the spectator into a passive role that, some say,
contrasts unfavorably with more active folk enter¬
tainments of the past. Lower: Japanese poster for
an American “spectacular” movie shows that
what we may think of as an exclusively Western
mass culture is developing a world-wide appeal.
because those who control the channels of mass com¬
munications believe this to be so. Or again it may be that
the stress of modern life makes people want to turn away
from homely pastimes into “escapism.”
More serious is the tendency of mass media to reduce
people to the role of more or less passive spectators.
In countries where most people can afford radio or tele¬
vision sets, for example, those who once would have
contributed something to a common culture are often
content simply to be entertained. In this respect both
popular culture and high culture have suffered, most
notably perhaps in the decline in amateur music making.
But it is silly to sentimentalize about “the good old days”
when popular culture flourished, for they were also times
of widespread ignorance and superstition, which mass
communications have done much to sweep away. Folk
art is still a living tradition in many relatively un¬
developed countries. But the people who live in these
parts of the world want to acquire as fast as they can all
the material benefits that only advanced technology, and
the modern industries dependent on it, can give them.
Yet it is just this advanced technology that, seemingly,
always leads to the destruction of popular culture.
If the disappearance of popular culture means an im¬
poverishment of the spirit of ordinary men and women,
against this loss must be set a gain of at least equal
significance: For the first time in history in many parts of
the world, ordinary men and women now have access to
high culture. Many take advantage of this new oppor¬
tunity, as is shown, for instance, by the number of
listeners to programs of classical music broadcast by the
radio stations of the world and by the numbers of books of
cultural and scientific value issued by the world’s
publishers.
People in general now have a much wider knowledge of
the world than the people of earlier generations had.
Knowledge has become wide open to all of us as it never
was before. But it may be that the majority of men and
women will never appreciate great art and literature;
that the work of creative artists like Sophocles, Beethoven,
and Rembrandt will always remain the province of a
minority gifted with special sensitivity and intelligence.
Or are most of us born with the seeds of these qualities
within us, only needing the right soil in which to ger¬
minate? Whatever the answer, education and environ¬
ment are clearly of the utmost importance in their
development. Society expresses itself—and so, consciously
or unconsciously, teaches its members through the
totality of its communications. Their quality as well as
their quantity is, therefore, of vital concern to us all.
Left: Young aeronautics student who is also an
amateur poet gives a talk on poetry in a Moscow
bookshop during a national “Poetry Day” in
Russia. This century has seen an increasing
interest in so-called^high cultureoften aroused
by such mass media as radio and television. 29
Lost in a crowd

How far are we successful in communicating with one

another ? The increase in the number of media of com¬
munication available to us, and in the speed at which
they function, has not solved the problems of under¬
standing what is being communicated. A high degree of
communication is possible between people working in the
same field. Nuclear physicists, for example, whatever
their nationality or political beliefs, have a very good
chance of understanding one another on questions of
nuclear physics, for the mathematical language they use
contains no ambiguity, no element of the personal and
subjective.
Moreover, they are specialists, and communication is
easier among people with common interests. The kind of
special interest shared is irrelevant; it may be animal
genetics, pelota, stamp collecting, or Chinese ceramics.
And it is worth noting that all men and women are to Above: finance officers from the World Bank
Economic Development Institute meeting in
some degree specialists in something; football fans Washington, D.C. Representing many nations,
communicate their passion to one another with perfect they are able to work together because they have
certain common interests.
ease. Knowledge of their particular subject provides
them with a sort of universal vocabulary that they can use
in discussions with fellow enthusiasts.
But such specialized jargons are of little value where
people of widely differing interests wish to communicate
with one another. When communication is necessary
between specialists and laymen, or between one kind of
specialist and another, serious problems arise. These
are seen in acute form when we consider the relationship
between what we may call the international society of
experimental physicists on the one hand, and the rest of
mankind on the other.. The physicists, who are very few in
number, use such a specialized language that most of us
cannot really understand their findings, still less the
consequences of those findings. The problem here is in
translating the language of mathematics into words. We
have enough good popularizations of science to know
that approximate translations can be made; but the only
real solution lies in a much more widely diffused know¬
ledge of the special languages of science.
It is at the personal level, however, that we find the
most serious failure in communication, and this appears
to be particularly a problem in highly industrialized
societies. We saw at the beginning of this chapter the
close connection between communication and com¬
munity. Communications help to make community but
are not in themselves community. Rather, community,
the sense of sharing an active, purposeful life with one’s
fellow men, is itself a form of communication. One of
the attractions of the big city is that it offers an abundance
of communication; it is a center of ideas and culture. But

Mass communications have given us all an unprecedented

awareness of the size and complexity of the world. A
common reaction, symbolized above, is to feel lost and
perhaps bewildered in a vast crowd. Bewilderment, in turn,
may lead to boredom and a sense of aimlessness {symbolized
30 by youths on facing page).

The eternal struggle against the harsh conditions
of their environment, the need for protection, and
intermarriage all help to produce a sense of kin¬
ship in the otherwise fiercely independent Tuareg
tribes of the Sahara.
compared, for example, with life in a medieval town or
village or in a tribal settlement of the present day, the
community life of a modern city is weak. Life for many
city dwellers of today can be one of appalling loneliness
and boredom. To these unhappy people the synthetic
cheerfulness of many films, television and radio pro¬
grams, and advertisements with their jolly invocations
of “togetherness” must seem either a deliberate glossing
over of the facts of life or like a desperate whistling in the
dark to keep one’s courage up.
There is a paradox here. Today, when the channels of
communication are more numerous and complex than
ever before, many people wonder if communication in a
deeply personal, meaningful sense is possible at all. This
doubt would have seemed absurd in earlier times. In most
past societies there has been broad agreement, at least
among the educated, on the assumptions by which men
live. Despite conflicting religious and political beliefs in
Europe and America during the 18th and 19th centuries,
most people took it for granted that men could be
persuaded by reasoned argument to accept a point of view.
But the overriding theme in recent imaginative writing is
precisely the impossibility, in the last analysis, of meaning¬
ful communication between human beings.
The reasons for such pessimism are complex. Some
derive from our greater knowledge of human psychology
(especially the charting of the subconscious by Freud and
others, including the novelists and poets themselves).
Others derive from a new understanding of the nature of
language (such as the problems discussed on pages 26 27)
an understanding that owes much to the work of
modern philosophers. And these ideas of scientists and
thinkers seem to be all too fully borne out by the cataclys¬
mic history of our times by world wars, dictatorships,
and the threat of total annihilation. All these things have
resulted in a change in our notion of the nature of men.
But there is no reason to think the change will be lasting.
Though we know we have to die, we still have to conduct
our lives on the assumption that our death is not im¬
mediate. In the same way, even if we doubt our ability
ever to make real contact with our fellows, we must still
behave as though it were possible, using the tools we have
for communicating as skillfully as we can. Here a curious
situation has arisen: Writers make use of the complex
forms of communication, such as poems, plays, and
novels in order to tell us that real communication is
impossible. The more forcefully they convey their message
the more they contradict themselves, because their very
success at once proves the opposite of what they are trying
to say.
31
Chapter 2

Animal Communication

Like ourselves, animals need some means of communicat¬

ing information to be able to co-operate or interact with
other animals. From the association of primitive single-
celled organisms to the complex societies of bees, social
birds, and monkeys, animal relationships rely on good
systems of communication—indeed, the very survival of
the species depends upon them.
Animal signals and the systems or codes into which
they are organized resemble our own communication
systems in various ways because both must meet the need
to convey information efficiently. The codes themselves
are sometimes simple and easily understood. But in other
cases it is as difficult to decipher them as it is to unravel an
unknown script. And there is the added difficulty that, as
human beings, we can never hope to penetrate fully into
the animal’s mind.
But even though many animal communication systems
prove to be complex structures that are rich in meaning,
they stand well below that developed by man. The lan¬
guage of animals—like the sounds made by a baby or the
non-verbal expressions of fear or anger common to all
races of man—is essentially an emotional one. Man’s
language has a capacity for describing an infinitely wider
variety of experience. It can deal with abstract ideas as Communication between animals is
well as with things and feelings. In writing, man can essential for their survival. Signals
may be made to threaten enemies or
communicate with future generations and, by such rivals, or to warn of approaching
inventions as radio and television, with audiences far danger. Most prominent of all are the
signals that bring male and female
beyond his unaided reach.
together for mating and breeding.
Nevertheless, many of the features of human language The antennae of the male Luna moth
itself have their counterparts in one or another animal in the picture contain scent-receptor
organs so sensitive that the moth can
communication system, and it is only against this back¬ detect and track down a female, in the
ground that we can truly assess man’s achievement. dark, over a distance of seven miles.

32
Why animals need to communicate

Relationships of some kind are indispensable to the

survival of most animal species. Our own experience of
human relationships tells us that these would be impos¬
sible if we lacked the ability to communicate with one
another. The same is true of animal relationships.
For the majority of creatures the most fundamental
relationship is the bond formed in the breeding season
between male and female when they mate. For some
animals (many insects, frogs, and toads, for instance) this
may be the only true association they have. Indeed, many
animals live more or less independent lives. To bring such
animals together in the breeding season, a form of
“advertisement” is often used that is, the animals make
signals that will attract a mate. The song of a male bird
not only attracts females (by identifying the singer as an
unattached male of the correct species) but it also drives
away rival males.
Having met, the pair will stay together and mate only
if further signals, the courtship displays or sexual signals,
are exchanged. Generally speaking, it is while animals
are courting that they use their most spectacular signals.
But, vivid or inconspicuous, such signals perform a
number of vital tasks. In the first place, they reduce the
fear and hostility that might otherwise be the reaction to a
stranger. Secondly, they bring male and female into the
right mood and physical condition for mating. Thirdly,
because each species’ courtship behavior is unique
(rather like a sequence of passwords), it prevents inter¬
breeding between members of different species. Various
ceremonies may also help to keep the pair together for
long periods when, as is the case with the higher animals
in particular, their co-operation is essential for looking
after the offspring.
Different signals are needed when parent animals bring
up their young. Sometimes the male alone carries out the
parental duties, sometimes the female; but among birds
and mammals of many species, both parents play a role.
And even among young animals themselves—whether
they be insect larvae, nestling birds, or groups of juvenile
monkeys special signals may be needed for special
relationships that are formed between them then but at
no other period in their lives.
Looking after the young may involve warning them of'
danger by using alarm signals. Such signals are a part of
what zoologists call agonistic behavior behavior that
involves fleeing, fighting, and threat. Threat signals are
used because in real fights the contestants may be injured
and so be less likely to survive. These signals often drive
away opponents without any bloodshed. Some animals
i shrews are one example have so perfected this kind of

The magnificent display of eyed feathers in a

peacock's tail, part of the male's courtship
before the dowdy hen bird, is one of the most
spectacular of animal signals. The fan folds back
when not in use so as to enable the bird to walk
34 through undergrowth without breaking feathers.
communication that actual fights among them are rare.
Social animals, whether they live in groups per¬
manently or only at certain seasons of the year, show all
degrees of co-operation. In a sea-bird colony, for instance,
each pair defends its own little nesting area, but the
members act together to find food or make massed attacks
on enemies. Again, there are signals that trigger off.such
action.
Co-operation is closer still in ant or bee colonies, in
monkey troops, and in groups of prairie dogs. Here the
group as a whole owns and defends one lerriton.
The more tightly knit the society is, the more it will
depend on communication devices to hold it together. In
the most complex societies (monkey troops, for example Parental care may include transport, as in the
there are not only alarm and food-finding signals, but also case of this Australian flying phalanger. Trans¬
port of this kind is a delicate co-operative venture
signals that help members of the group to keep in contact
between parent and offspring.
with one another. And because too much hostility inside
the group would tend to break it up, we find greeting-
ceremonies, appeasement or surrender signals (by which
a beaten animal stops the victor from making further
attacks , and reassurance signals, which are used by a
powerful animal to reassure or soothe a frightened one.
So far we have talked about relationships between ani¬
mals of the same species; but animals of different kinds
also associate with one another to mutual advantage. We
see this in mixed flocks of birds and in the mixed game
herds of Africa. The different species making up such
groups may have similar contact or alarm signals that are
understood by all.
One of the best and most unusual examples of mutual
aid between animals of different species is provided by
the honey guide, an Afriean bird, and the ratel or honey
“Advertisement”: Male natterjack toads gather
badger . The bird leads the ratel to bees’ nests, where, the at pools in the spring and attract females by
mammal having broken open the nest to eat the honey, their nightly choruses. The inflated throat provides
the air for each croak.
the bird can get at the wax on which it feeds. When
guiding, the bird has a distinct call and a dipping flight The exchange of signals between young animals
that shows off white tail feathers; the ratel, following, and their parents is an important part of animal
communication, whether its purpose is warmth,
answers the calls with regular grunts. Men may also be protection, food, or.play. Nestling birds, like
led by the bird, and the native in search of honey knows these spotted flycatchers, usually signed hunger
by stretching their necks and gaping widely.
that the best way to summon a honey guide is to imitate
Their brightly colored mouths make the action
the grunting signals of the ratel. even more conspicuous and stimulating to parents.
How animals communicate

When an animal eats or when it flees from a dangerous

enemy, its behavior may cause its fellows to look for food
or to run away too. In this way, information can pass
between one animal and others as a sort of by-product of
its actions. At other times, however, animals use signals,
whose main purpose, like that of our own language, is to
transmit information.
Signaling by producing chemical substances that are
broadcast through air or water is perhaps the oldest form
of animal communication. It is very widespread in the 4000
animal kingdom, and is found from the microscopic,
single-celled protozoa upward. Some fish, newts, .and
many insects use such signals during their courtship.
3000
Mammals, too, may produce chemical signals, such as
scent, either as urine or from special glands, in order to
court a mate or to threaten an enemy. Often mammals
use particular odors to mark out their territories. Perhaps 2000
the best-known example of this kind of signaling is the
urine-sprinkling of posts, stones, and other objects by
dogs.
One advantage of scent signals is that they may last 1000

for some time. As a result, the messages they convey can

be “read” by others even when the signaler is no longer
around. However, scent language has two great draw¬
■1
backs: (i) it is difficult for animals to exchange scent
1-6
signals rapidly; (2) only a very limited number of scents
seconds
can be produced, so that only a small vocabulary is
possible. Audible signaling is less restricted in these ways,
The toadfish opsanus (drawing, top) makes a
and it is for that reason that so many creatures, including hooting sound by forcing air past a diaphragm in
ourselves, use the medium of sound to communicate its swim bladder. The noise is loud enough to be
heard outside the water. The spectograph in the
information.
illustration shows the sound separated into its
The songs and calls of insects, frogs, birds, and mam¬ different frequencies. The range of frequencies
mals are all familiar examples of sound signaling. Less covers the entire keyboard range ofa grand piano.
well known is the fact that even aquatic animals such as
fish and dolphins communicate by sound. Many animals
have a relatively large vocabulary of sounds. For instance,
the chaffinch, the American song sparrow, and the howler
monkey all have at least 21 distinct calls. Besides such
vocal signals, there are some mechanical signals that are
produced by snapping the jaws together, drumming on
the ground, and so on. The cricket’s chirp, made by
brushing its forewings across one another is a well-known
example of this kind of signaling.
Among animals with well-developed eyes, like man
himself, visual signals play an important role in com¬
municating information. Typical of such signals are the
striking poses that many animals adopt, particularly
during courtship and threat poses that often show off
adornments of color or structure (p. 40). Animals as
different as crabs and crows, beetles and baboons, signal

The grooming of these young chimpanzees is a

tactile signal first and foremost. It has little
to do with searching for fleas, as many people
36 believe; it is a signal of friendliness
by means of special movements and postures the so- Many antelopes mark
twigs with a scent
called “dances” or “displays” . And in the more ad¬ secretion produced by
vanced species, fine differences in meaning can be con¬ glands situated in front
veyed by subtle changes in movement or posture. In the of the eyes.

same way slight changes in our own facial expressions can

register pleasure, disgust, indifference; and so on.
Naturally the conditions in which communication is
necessary partly determine the forms it takes. Thus some
animals that live in the dark, such as fireflies and deep-sea
fish, use light signals. Certain deep-sea fish show complex
light patterns, probably as a means of identification in the
abyssal darkness.
Tactile signals (those received by the sense of touch) are
common among animals. For instance, the female
stickleback will spawn in the nest of the male fish only if
the latter gives the correct tactile signal by vibrating his
snout against her back. And on any day in the zoo you can
see monkeys grooming one another a signal that helps
to keep the animals together.
Finally, there is the problem of communicating over
long distances. In the course of a few thousand years (a
very short time in terms of evolutionary progress) man
has graduated from smoke signals and talking drums to
radio and television. Animal communication, however,
is comparatively limited in range. Even so, some animals
can transmit messages over considerable distances. The
powerful wails of a coyote or of a monkey troop, or the
woodpecker’s drumming on a hollow, resonating branch,
are examples of such signaling. Similarly, the aerial dis¬
plays of some birds can be seen over long distances. But
the long-distance record might well be held by the moth
Actias selene: Using a scent signal in a favorable wind, The male ruffed grouse makes a drumming signal,
which carries long distances, by beating its wings
females of this species have been known to “call” males rapidly. The sound arises from the air that is
from as far as seven miles away. forced between the stiff wing feathers.

Uca marionis

Uca annulipes

Each species of fiddler crab has its own pattern

of signaling with one enlarged claw. Here, from
two species, are males performing a complete
sequence of movements to attract females.

The crested bush rat's ridge of especially long
hairs is raised and opened out like a flower as a
threat signal toward other animals.
Above picture of a mandarin duck shows the en¬
larged orange wing feather that the duck preens
in a courtship display (see text).
Many animals have an ability to change pattern,
which they use for signaling. Upper: cuttlefish at
rest. Lower: the striking pattern of dark and
light bars that cuttlefish assume when they meet
and threaten a potential rival.
Evolution of animal signals
The signals of animals are, as we have already seen,
specialized types of behavior. But why have certain kinds
of behavior rather than others become the means of
communicating information, and what adaptations,
during the course of evolution, have turned these respon¬
ses into signals ? In other words, what are the origins of
signals and what refinements have made them efficient
tools for their particular job ?
When we study animal display movements and pos¬
tures closely, we find that many of them come from what
zoologists call intention movements small preparatory
movements that can indicate what the animal is about to
do. We ourselves use such clues in anticipating what
other people (or animals) will do. When mammals bare
their teeth or when birds point their bills directly toward
their opponents, these threat signals are based on inten¬
tion movements of attack.
Many situations in which signals are used, especially
those of threat and courtship, are filled with conflict and
indecision. The animal may be torn between the desire to
attack and to flee from its opponent, to behave sexually
toward its mate, or attack it, or to run away. It is not
surprising, then, that many of the signals that have
evolved are based upon the symptoms of this kind of
conflict. During emotional stress the body prepares itself
for action. Part of such preparation comes from the
autonomic nervous system (over which we have little control),
which produces such well-known changes as a faster
heartbeat, faster and deeper breathing, circulatory
effects such as blushing, and making hair or feathers
stand on end. From such reactions a number of animal
signals have evolved. Thus, signals involving changes of
color (such as we see in some fish, in monkeys that have
bare skin patches, or in turkeys and vultures with their
colored combs and wattles) have evolved out of stress
behavior. Displays in which all or part of an animal’s*
body hair or feathers are raised come from similar in¬
voluntary behavior. Sweating a common reaction to
emotional tension was probably the origin of signaling
methods that use scent glands, which are really only
specialized sweat glands.
When you get very annoyed with someone, instead of
hitting him, you may.vent your anger on a door by slam¬
ming it violently behind you. Redirection, as this kind of
behavior is called, is another source of animal signals.
Thus a herring gull that does not dare to attack an
adversary has a special threat signal: It tugs at the sur¬
rounding grass, as much as to say, “This is what I will do
to you if you come any closer.”
But, whatever the origin of a signal, if it is to work
 properly it must be not only fairly conspicuous, but also
easily distinguishable both from non-signaling behavior
and from the signals of other species. The evolutionary
process by which intention movements and other kinds of
behavior are turned into efficient signals is called
ntualization.
Ritualization involves the stereotyping of sounds,
gestures, and so on, by fixing them into constant and
characteristic forms. Too much variation makes signals
hard to interpret. It is for this reason that our traffic lights
are stereotyped the world over to give simple, sharp
“stop-go” instructions rather than an imperceptible
change from red to green.
Complex sounds or movements can be ritualized by
being made much simpler. One of the courtship displays
of ducks, for instance, is preening the wing. Some ducks
still preen their wings in the normal way during court¬
ship. The mandarin duck, however, has simplified the
movements to a single gesture of touching an enlarged
orange wing feather.
Some animal signals are distinctive because rituali¬
zation has exaggerated a part of the original movement.
Examples of such signals are the conspicuous tail move¬
ments made by many animals, the deep bowing of some
birds, and the exaggerated raising of fur on the shoulders
and backs of some mammals.
Movements can also be ritualized into signals either by
slowing down or speeding up the original action. The
mandarin duck’s single preening movement is slow and
ceremonial; and some species of birds, such as the ringed
plover, have a marvelous, slow “butterfly flight” in their
courtship. Often we can discover what the original action
was only by studying other species closely related to the
animal in question. For example, the gouldian finch
courts his female by standing erect, head tilted only
slightly downward, vibrating his bill very rapidly from
side to side. Although the bird’s beak is high above the
branch, we know that this signal is really a greatly
accelerated and elaborate form of bill-wiping, because, in
similar circumstances, close relatives of the gouldian
finch actually wipe their beaks on a branch during the
courtship ritual.
Finally, the original action can be ritualized by giving
it a rhythmic quality. Lizards, for example, may threaten
by making regular head-nodding gestures. Some scent
signals and many animal calls have definite rhythms.
Such rhythms help to make signals clear to other animals,
just as the rhythmic flashing of lighthouses or beacons
makes possible instant and unmistakable recognition
from ships at sea.

These frigate birds on the Galapagos Islands

provide us with a wonderful example of an
“inflationary” display: During the breeding
season the males signal by blowing up their
scarlet sacs and drooping their wings. 39
Adding impact to signals
Pyractomena
borealis i
When you wave at someone, your signal becomes much
Pyractomena
more emphatic and conspicuous if you hold a hand¬ lucifera

kerchief or flag in your hand. This same principle operates

in the case of animal signal movements and postures.
Many striking areas of color or pattern and many special
structures have been evolved primarily to add visual
Photinus
pyralis i
impact. Two well-known examples are the cobra’s Pyractomena
bespectacled hood and the sulfurous crest of a cockatoo.
In fact, throughout the animal world, wherever visual
communication is employed, we see adornments of this Photinus

kind in action. Here are a few further examples taken at marginellus i

random: The fish Astronotus has a tail-flickering signal,
and, exactly where it shows up best, the tail bears a large
eye-spot; the American chameleon, when threatening,
Photinus
consanguineus A A
expands a flat throat-pouch, unexpectedly revealing
bright crimson streaks that are normally hidden; birds of
paradise are noted for the brilliant plumes that they dis¬
Photinus
pennsylvanicus It'; 4
play in courtship; and finally, among mammals, the
roloway monkey has one threat posture in which it Charted above are the relative intensities (vertical
scale) and durations (horizontal scale) of light
squats, always facing its opponent, with its legs spread
flashes made by different firefly species (see text).
wide to show off a conspicuous yellow V-marking on the Male's flash code is on the left; female's right.
insides of its thighs.
Often different signal movements made by the same
individual are emphasized by different colored areas,
just as a ship may fly various distinctive signal flags, each
carrying a specific message.
One of the strangest forms of animal signaling is that
of the bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea. Their
courtship takes place in and around a specially construc¬
ted bower. Sometimes this bower is a most elaborate
structure, which the male decorates with carefully
selected flowers, berries, and shells, and which he may
even paint. Whereas with other creatures the signal
adornments are part of the male himself, with the bower-
bird they mostly consist of colorful objects that he collects
and displays to the female. Moreover, those species of
bowerbird that build the most ornate bowers are them¬ Special muscles have been evolved in the prong¬
selves the most dowdy and inconspicuous. In this case, all horn to raise the long white hairs of its rump
patch for signaling.
the signal colors and structures are transferred to the male
bird’s constructions.
Signals may have to be clear and striking to do their
job properly. But conspicuousness spells danger to most
animals: Their enemies find them all too readily. For this
reason signal adornments are often hidden from view
except when actually needed for signaling, and some calls
have acoustic properties that make them easy to hear but
very difficult to locate. As we show in the diagram at the
top of the opposite page, such signals are pitched at a
high frequency that we can barely hear.
The need for clear and distinct signals is obviously

A male great grey bowerbird (lower right) displays

to a female (top left) attracted to his bower. The
owner of this bower has collected white stones,
porcelain, bleached bones, and the top of a
bottle. As many as 1000 such ornaments may be
40 found at one bower.

Kilocycles per second
Danger signals can be risky since they attract attention.
Some small birds (and rodents, too) use a short high-
pitched whistle (frequency and duration shown above)
that is easily heard but difficult to locate.
Many animals signal by gaping. In the display below,
which can be either agonistic or sexual, the bearded
lizard opens its mouth, which is brilliantly colored.
great in the breeding season, especially when several
closely related species inhabit the same area. Sometimes
even closely related species use entirely different signals;
but in many cases their signals are very similar. How,
then, do members of different species distinguish them¬
selves from one another? Two ways are for the animal to
rely either on a different timing or on a different sequence of
the same basic signal units. We know that with the katy¬
did (an American grasshopper), as well as with the
firefly Photinus pyralis, the male signals first by making
ticking sounds and by flashing, respectively and the
female, if she is of the correct species, replies after a very
exactly timed pause. Here the quality of the signals them¬
selves is less important than the precise interval between the
male’s “call” and the female’s answer. Again, many
ducks employ the same basic display postures in their
courtship; but each species arranges the units in its own
characteristic sequence. Although single signals might be
confused with one another and so fail to keep the species
separate, the chance duplication of a complete series of
units fixed in a particular order is most improbable
 Cracking the code

It is often comparatively easy to reach a general under¬

standing of many animal signals; but it may take years to
make a detailed and exact translation of whole codes
systems of signals i that involve subtle differences of
expression and fine shades of meaning. The zoologist
faced with this task must get his answers by patient
observation followed by careful experiment and analysis.
He must note the effects that different signals produce
perhaps by making recordings of calls and then playing
them back to the creatures, perhaps (especially with
lower animals such as insects or fish by using controllable
The avocet conveys precise information when it models of animals to imitate visual signals. By such pains¬
utters a special warning call reserved for the
approach of large egg-stealing gulls. taking methods, zoologists can eventually unravel an
animal’s language and learn what each signal is intended
Aggressiveness increases
to convey.
Research shows us that much animal communication is
of an emotional kind, concerned with immediate events
and situations (those existing “here and now”) rather
than with remote, past or future happenings. In addition,
many animal signals give only very general or unspecific
information. For example, many creatures, when they
themselves are alarmed, make signals that warn others
only of the presence of danger; the signals do not indicate
what that danger is or where it comes from. Again, many
threat signals indicate only that the signaler is in the
mood to attack if it is provoked. Similarly, the begging
calls of young birds carry only the information that they
are hungry. But even such general signals can say quite a
lot if there are enough of them in the code. Various
creatures have more unusual signals of this sort. For
example, sandhill cranes and prairie dogs not only give
warning cries when danger approaches but also give “all
clear” calls when it has passed, just like an air-raid
warning system among humans.
Many animals, however, have signals that convey more
precise information. The American ground squirrel, for
instance, has three distinct warning cries, one for hawks,
one for snakes, and one for large mammals.
The information level of general signals (that is, the
amount of information they carry) is obviously not very
high: The signals simply say “Danger!” or “I am
hungry!” rather like our own exclamations. The level
becomes higher when the information is more precise, as
in the specialized alarm calls or in some threat codes that
have a whole range of distinct signals, each ofwhich con¬
veys exact information as to the mood of the combatants;
and these moods can vary from moment to moment.
There are two common ways in which animal lan¬
guages increase their information level without increasing
the number of separate signals. Both involve continuous

The German zoologist P. Leyhausen drew these two

diagrams to show how a cat can signal its moods by
changes in facial expression and body posture. In both,
fear increases from top to bottom, aggressiveness from
left to right. These contrasted moods blend to make signals
with a wide variety of appearance.
changes of a kind we ourselves use in communication. An Three phases of an encounter between a pair of
animal call, like the human voice, can become louder, male leatherfish show threat signals in action.
The right-hand fish is the dominant one of the
or a sound or gesture can be prolonged, or it can be pair, being the first to raise the dorsal spine,
repeated again and again, when the urgency of signaling to expand the ventral sac, and to assume the
increases. Similarly, as one mood changes to another,
“head-stand” posture. All these actions, and
color changes too, act as aggressive signals.
a call, a posture, or a facial expression may gradually
transform itself into another. We can see this transfor¬
mation when an aggressive dog or cat slowly loses
confidence and becomes afraid.
Certain signals have a very high information level.
When a male bird sings, he tells the female not only that
he is a male, but where he is, that he is of the correct
species, that he is in the right condition for breeding, and
that he owns a suitable territory. His song probably even
identifies him as a particular individual, because in many
species each male’s song differs in some small detail from
those of other males. To convey that much information in
human language would need a whole series of phrases or
sentences.
Though animal languages may be rich and complex, it
would be wrong for us to suppose that when an animal
makes a signal it is always conscious of what it is com¬
municating, or that the receiving animal is aware of the
signal’s meaning in the sense that we are aware of
meaning in our speech and writing. Much animal lan¬
guage is instinctive. The signaler may have no notion
whatever of the goals of its actions; and the receiver, too,
may react in a purely automatic, unthinking manner.
Nevertheless, the effects that the signals produce make it
clear that information does pass from one to the other.
When we understand the meaning of animal signals, we
can, to a limited extent, “talk” to animals in their own
languages. That is what the hunter does when he' lures
a creature toward him by imitating particular calls. Cer¬
tain species of monkeys use rapid lip-smacking move¬
ments in greeting, a social signal we too can imitate.
Communication of this nature between man and beast
is, of course, completely different from the kind that we
establish when we train an animal to respond to signals or
commands from us. Such commands are not part of the
animal’s natural language, but are taught it by using the
animal’s natural capacity to associate correct responses
with rewards and incorrect ones with punishment.

The slow loris is related to the monkeys and apes,

and like them it uses grooming as a tactile
signal to indicate friendly intentions. We can
often reassure a timid loris by gently grooming
it, an act that, in effect, communicates with it in
a language it can understand.
Animal vocabularies

How are complete animal codes constructed, and how

much precise information can animal signals convey?
Our knowledge of the language of gulls and the dances of
the honeybee gives us some answers to these questions.
Gulls : Adult black-headed gulls, sea birds that nest in
dense colonies, can transmit at least 30 different mes¬
sages in their language. In addition, they can convey
shades of meaning by small changes in their posture, by
the vigor of their calling, and so on. But their language
has only about 17 distinct signals. How, then, can they
send so many different messages? Or, to put it another
way, how have thev succeeded in enlarging their
vocabulary ?
This enlarged vocabulary has been evolved in various
wavs. Firstly, several basic display postures, which are
used as separate signals in one kind of situation, have been
linked together in a fixed sequence to create a new and
more elaborate signal for a different situation. For in¬
stance, displays known as the Oblique (O), Forward (F),
and Upright (U) displays are used as separate threat sig¬
nals in disputes. But in the courtship Meeting Ceremony
these displays are joined in a rigid sequence f OFU to
make a new signal that helps to keep male and female
together. The gulls have made this courtship signal even
more distinctive by using the three displays in stereotyped
forms p. 39 and by adding a few features that are not
found in the original fighting behavior.
Secondly, the ability to interpret a signal in terms of
the context in which it is made can also broaden the scope
of any language without increasing the number of basic
signaling units. The English words “bough” and “bow”
sound identical; but we interpret the meaning of each
from the context in this case the sentence in which it
occurs.
The Choking display of the black-headed gull also has
different meanings in different contexts. Choking was
originally a display given by the male gull to lure the
female to his nest during their courtship; it could be
roughly translated as, “I am attached to this spot: a good
nesting place.” Now, however, it is used also as a defensive
threat signal (“I am attached to this spot, and will attack
if you try to drive me from it”) and as a signal by which a
bird that is sitting on its eggs can inform its partner that it
is unwilling to be relieved ( “I am attached to this spot, and
am not prepared to give up incubating just yet” .
Though the three messages are only partly similar, the
signals for each are identical. To understand the full
meaning, then, the receiving gull must take account of the
circumstances in which it sees another gull make the
Choking display.

Black-headed gulls in the breeding season per¬

form four of their displays (see text): (A) the
Oblique, in which the bird utters a characteristic
call; (B) the Forward; (C) the Upright; (D) the
Choking, in which the head is jerked up and down
44 and a rhythmic call is given.
Bees: Among the stingless Meliponini bees the finder of
food marks a scent trail on the vegetation on the way back
to the nest, and also leads the others to its find. Among the
more highly evolved honeybees, however, we discover a
remarkable and perhaps unique feat of animal com¬
munication : the bees5 dance. By this dance, the returning
forager who neither marks the trail nor acts as guide—
informs its hive-mates of the whereabouts and quality of
the nectar it has found.
When a bee finds nectar fairly close to the hive, it per¬
forms the Round Dance, turning in circles alternately to
the right and left. Neighboring bees follow the move¬
ments of the dancer and learn that the food source is
nearby. From the scent clinging to the dancer’s body they
know what kind of flowers they must search for. And,
from the vigor and duration of dancing, they learn
whether the source is rich or poor.
When the food supply is beyond a certain radius, the
bee does the Waggle Dance instead. This dance indicates
the kind and quality of the food in the same way as the
Round Dance. But it also gives the precise direction and
distance of the nectar. In the Waggle Dance, the bee
first does a short straight run, waggling its body as it
goes. It then turns off to one side and returns in a semi¬
circle to its starting point. After the next straight,
waggling run, it returns in a semicircle on the other side,
making a kind of figure-of-eight pattern. The nearer the
food is, the faster the bee dances and the shorter are the
bursts of low sound that it emits during the straight runs.
Of the methods used to indicate direction, that of the
Indian dwarf honeybee is the simplest. This species has
an open-air comb with a horizontal dancing platform.
The straight run of the dance is simply pointed in the
direction of the food source. The bees gauge the angle of
the run by using the sun’s position as a reference point.
Domestic honeybees, however, usually dance on a vertical
surface inside a dark hive, where they cannot see the sun.
In this case the dancer converts the angle between the
direction of the nectar and that of the sun into an angle
with respect to the pull of gravity. For example, if the
nectar lies directly toward the sun, the waggling run
points straight upward; if it lies 45 to the left of the sun’s
direction, then the run makes an angle of 45 to the left of
a vertical line. Thus, at whatever point of the compass the
nectar may lie, it can be located with great accuracy from
the dance inside the hive.
In these dances we have an astonishing example of
descriptive signaling, for they give detailed instructions
for finding something remote, both in space and time,
from the signaler.

When bees find nectar at A, B, or C, (top diagram)

they perform dances so labeled in remaining
diagrams. Dances are fully described in text.
A is the Round Dance; B and C are variations of
the Waggle Dance to indicate direction of nectar.
Other bees act on these signals.

Animals with mobile faces (the cat and dog
families, and particularly monkeys and apes) can
employ facial expressions to communicate infor¬
mation—as this angry orangutan shows.
Man, too, despite his complex language, depends
a great deal upon facial expression. This portrayal
of disgust comes from Darwin s The Expression
of the Emotions in Man and Animals, one of
the first important attempts to describe and
interpret non-verbal communication.
The human animal speaks
Two main features best distinguish human language from
animal language. In the first place, human language can
deal with past, future, and distant events (a property
called displacement, shown too by the bees’ dance p. •
Secondly, human languages form what are called product¬
ive or open systems of communication. Closed systems,
such as animal languages tend to be, use a fixed and
generally rather small number of distinct signals. Our
languages, on the other hand, although they are based
on a limited number of vowel and consonant sounds, can
combine those sounds in innumerable ways so as to yield
different words. And words, in turn, can be joined to form
countless new sentences. These two features give man’s
language its great range and power of expression.
When a very small child first learns to speak, it uses
words and whole sentences as indivisible units of com¬
munication. At a certain point, however, it takes the
decisive step toward productive language when it begins
to create new messages by combining and rearranging old
ones.
The child, of course, has to learn a language; animals,
in general, do not. Although learning does enter into
some animal communication (some bird songs, for ex¬
ample, are learned:, much of it is inborn or instinctive, so
that the correct signal is produced the very first time
it is needed. Learning is therefore another striking
feature of human language. Man is able to do this
because, compared with most other animals, he has a very
long infant and juvenile life in close contact with adults
before he becomes independent of them.
When and how did man, during the course of his evo¬
lution, acquire a kind of language that is so different from
that of other animals? What factors played a vital part in
this development? We can do no more than speculate
about such questions, basing our theories on fossils of
man s ancestors, and on comparisons between ourselves
and living monkeys and apes.
The fossil evidence shows us that, about a million
years ago, our ancestors were already walking upright on
the ground. Like ourselves, those ancestors had small
canine eye teeth, in contrast to the powerful teeth of
male apes and monkeys. They caught other animals for
food, and, even though their brains were little larger than
those of present-day apes, they were already making
pebble tools.
All these facts about early men are important from
our point of view. Because they could walk on two legs,
their hands were free for many new tasks, including the
making, carrying, and using of tools And once tools
were employed, large canine teeth became unnecessary.
 Left: Use of tools needs nimble hands {and the
appropriate brain control). Monkeys and apes
can manage the “power grip” (A), but only man
is able to oppose finger and thumb for the
“precision grip” (B).

evolution of man. Though it is true that chimpanzees may

make and use very simple tools, man’s forerunners took a
great step forward when they began not only to make
tools and weapons regularly, but also to carry them
around in anticipation of their use. Creatures capable of
such behavior, and possibly of co-operative hunting as
well, must have had a system of communication that was
superior to that of any animal alive today. Their lan¬
guage may have been very imperfect compared with
ours; but for all that, it probably had some of the features
of full human language, particularly those of displace¬
Above: Chimpanzee uses short stick to reach
ment and productivity. longer one, until, with the longest of the four, it
In the later phases of human evolution, men developed can get the apple. This is a primitive example of
skilled hunting methods and (about 300,000 years ago the ability to use tools that was to become so
important in human evolution.
learned how to use fire. A rapid increase in the size of
man’s brain was associated with the fashioning of more
complex tools, and with well-established and wide¬
spread industries of toolmaking. Early man was now well
and truly involved in a pattern of life that would have
been impossible without methods of communication
that we would recognize as essentially human.
Many people have thought that man’s vocal appara¬
tus, which is certainly an extremely versatile and efficient
mechanism, has given him an extra advantage in develop¬
ing a complex language. The truth is, however, that many
animals have competent sound-producing organs, which
might also be capable of something close to our speech
if those animals had a controlling brain of man’s caliber.
Man has a relatively big brain, but more important
than sheer size is the fact that certain areas have been
enlarged and elaborated. This applies particularly to
that part known as the cortex (the layer of grey matter
that covers most of the surface of man’s brain). Those
areas of the cortex that are associated with speech and
with memory the essential storehouse of information
without which there would be little to communicate are
especially large. So too is the part that enables man to
perform delicate manipulations of fingers and thumbs a
skill that takes us back to man’s beginnings as the maker
and wielder of tools, and forward to comparatively
recent times, when he first gripped a writing implement
and inscribed his testimony on stone, clay, and papyrus
for future generations to read.

Man learns language, and, through the medium of

language, a great many other skills. These young
aborigines are playing a spear-throwing game
while an adult {far right) watches and gives advice
on technique, thus handing on his own experience
to the next generation.
Chapter 3

Living Language

One outstanding difference between man and other

animals is man’s ability to invent and use almost limitless
combinations of sounds. Moreover, because of his
relatively large brain, man is able from infancy to
assimilate and recognize the sounds made by his parents:
He gradually learns to attach meanings to them and
finally to reproduce them himself. The sounds that man
thus makes deliberately we call speech, and the sum total
of the sounds normally uttered by humans is language.
Speech is the most immediate and flexible way that we
have of communicating with one another. Once we have
learned to speak we need no external apparatus, no
implements, in order to convey a message to another
person who speaks the same language. The necessary
equipment for speaking, hearing, and understanding is
“built in” and ready for instant use.
Another remarkable feature of speech is its variety. In
the animal kingdom each creature has a limited
“language,” a repertory of sounds that are exclusive to
each species and very often confined to one sex. But
humans have no such limitations. Although the entire
human race consists of one species- Homo sapiens man’s
repertory of sounds is enormous, and from that repertory
thousands of complete languages have been invented.
Many of these have disappeared without trace, but even
so, there are about 10,000 languages in use in the world
Each person in this picture speaks a
today. language that belongs to a quite distinct
Language, as we shall see, is ever changing, flexible, language group. We cannot ever know
and mobile; Words, like the air on which they are borne, if these groups had a common source;
for written records go back only 5000
drift across national boundaries; history is embalmed in years, whereas man has been com¬
our vocabularies, and the accepted speech of today may municating by speech for some 100,000
years. Of the many languages that have
contain the slang of our ancestors.
been devised through the centuries,
By looking at our own and other peoples’ languages, about 10,000 remain in use today.
wc can learn much about our past, and also perhaps find Many of these are now so firmly
established that it seems unlikely that
a fresh approach to the problem of language in inter¬ they will ever be replaced by one com¬
national communication. mon language.

48
 \J 4* ■' -. —
H j »^fe;;; ^'fSraggg _ i
c" > *-]& \ wTfY JR
Mechanics of speech

The act of speaking is so much a part of our daily lives

that most of us are hardly aware why we do it, and still
less aware of how we do it. First of all, why do we speak?
Because speech is the principal way in which we can
convey a thought in our own mind to another person.
Direct communication is impossible; anything we want
to communicate must first be turned into a code- —in this
case, a sequence of complex sounds that are transmitted
through the air.
How do we make speech sounds? Mainly, of course,
by moving our tongues. (Interestingly enough, many
peoples use the same word for “language” and “tongue.”
But that is not all; in man, many organs of the head,
throat, and chest that in animals are concerned simply
with breathing, making simple noises, eating, and smel¬
ling have been harnessed to produce an almost infinite
variety of sounds.
Like a church organ, the human speech system needs
a supply of compressed air. The lungs provide this; we
breathe in by pulling the diaphragm down, at the same
time lifting the ribs upward and outward. When we are
not speaking we breathe out at almost the same speed as
we breathe in. But when we speak we start with the lungs
at least half full of air, and we expel it slowly through a
sort of vibrating gate in the windpipe that we call the
vocal cords. We compress the air in the lungs by letting
the diaphragm and the ribs fall back into position.
The vibration of the vocal cords in the airstream pro¬
Section through center line of human chest and head shows
duces a singing note, which we can vary both in loudness the complex speech apparatus: (A) diaphragm, (B) lung,
and in pitch (or frequency). Everybody has an individual (C) windpipe, (D) vocal cords, (E) tongue, (F) soft palate,
(G) nasal sinuses. The part played by these organs is dis¬
way of producing sounds, and this is why we can recognize
cussed in the text.
the voice of someone we know. These sounds called
voiced sounds -are only the beginning of the speech
process. They must be modulated (varied in strength
and otherwise altered before they can carry information.
They have three possible outlets through the mouth,
through the nose, and through both at once. The “gate”
that switches the airstream is the soft palate, an arched
membrane at the back of the mouth. If the sound passes
through the nose alone (as in the sound “nnn . . .”), it
runs past a network of channels and sinuses hollows
that act as resonators. This gives the sound an entirely
different quality from that of sounds that pass through
the mouth only (like the “plosive” consonants b, d, and
g . Many other sounds vowel sounds, for instance pass
through both mouth and nose.
The airstream that passes through the mouth is modi¬
fied still further by the tongue. This extremely flexible
organ changes the shape of the mouth cavity, and hence
the quality of sounds that come out (compare ah with ee).

English, French
The sound t is made by compressing air between the tip of
the tongue and roof of the mouth, then letting it go sud¬
Danish, German
denly. But the sound is not the same in all languages.
Picture shows the tongue position immediately before
Swedish release of air, in five languages.
The tongue also restricts the flow of air through the
mouth by pressing up against i the back of the front
teeth (the sound th in the ; { 2 the front of the roof of the
mouth (z and d); (3) the center of the roof of the mouth
(g). In th and z the airflow is only partly stopped; in d
and g, completely. The lips, too, act as modulators to
make b and m.
If the lips, tongue, and soft palate make the movements
described above but with no voiced sound from the vocal
cords, we get unvoiced consonants. The movements that
make b (voiced make/? (unvoiced . Other similar pairs
are th in the and th in thick; z and s; d and t; g and k.
This deaf child can hear a little with an aid. She listens to
But making sounds is only part of the speech process. the teacher and watches her mouth; then she watches her
There is intonation, too. Consider, for instance, the own mouth in the mirror while she imitates the lip move¬
ments made by the teacher.
difference between these sentences: Can you tell me the
time, please? (rising tone); It’s six o'clock falling ; Six
o'clock! i rising-falling-rising ; “I must run!” he shouted
over his shoulder as he left (level and low . Then there is
stress, which makes the difference between “an £.\port”
and “to export”; and between “photograph," “photo¬
grapher,” and “photographic"; and between the Ameri¬
can “detail" and the English “detail." There is also
emphasis, in which different stresses and intonations give
different meanings to the same words as, for example, in:
Ton did that, and: You did that.
All that has been said so far refers to the sounds of
the English language alone. There is German with its
guttural rs and deep, open vowels; French with its trilled
rs and front-of-the-mouth vowels; Swedish with its
sing-song tones; Chinese with its nasal vowels and rising
stresses, Afrikaans with its throat-clearing g sound, and
Acutely deaf children have to be taught how to make
so on. sounds by indirect methods. In this case the child is learn¬
The many muscles in our speech organs are controlled ing to make the p sound by puffing a table tennis ball out
of an eggcup.
by a part of the brain called the speech center. Here the
thought that the speaker wishes to voice is coded into
nerve impulses (p. 83 that actuate the muscles. We know
that the speech center is a definite department of the
brain because, if that area of the brain is damaged for
example, by an injury or a tumor , the patient suffers
from dysphasia and is unable to speak correctly; he under¬
stands a question but uses wrong words in his answer.
The sound waves of speech cause the hearer’s eardrum
to vibrate to the same pattern. The vibrations are trans¬
mitted through a linkage of tiny bones to the inner ear
or labyrinth. This contains a membrane with some
24,000 hair cells that pick up and sort out the received
sounds, and pass them on to the brain. The brain
decodes the signal in some way that we do not under¬ This very deaf child learns to speak by feeling vibrations
stand, so that if the hearer is familiar with the speaker's when the teacher speaks close to a balloon. Then he
imitates the teacher's mouth movements and pushes air
language, he “knows” what the speaker is saying.
through his vocal cords until he feels the same vibrations.

m m, A poster {left) produced by primary school children shows

the shape of the mouth when speaking {f rom left to right)
o say, see, sigh, so, soo. The position of the lips plays a big
pan in vowel sounds.
 Describing languages

There are over 10,000 spoken languages in the world

today, and there is no doubt that many more have grown
and died without leaving a trace. If we are to understand
the structure oflanguages we want a method of describing
them that works for all of them, and not just for a small
group.
We Westerners are almost unconsciously committed
to a particular way of looking at language. We talk about
the parts of speech nouns, adjectives, verbs, and so on
as if there were only one way of dissecting a sentence.
Our system of grammar was originally devised by the
ancient Greeks to explain the structure of Greek sentences.
It was adopted by speakers of Latin, and finally came to
be used in our own schools. That is why we have rigid
rules such as “the verb agrees with the subject” and “an
adjective agrees with the noun it describes.” Such rules
take us some way toward analyzing the structure of a
sentence, but even in our own languages they do not
always work. Take, for instance, the road sign SLOW:
What part of speech is it ? The dictionary says that “slow”
is an adjective. Is it so here? Does it mean “be slow!” or
“drive a slow car!” ? Most people would say that it means
“drive slowly!” and that “slow” is a shortened form of
the adverb “slowly” a form that many grammar books
frown on. In short, as motorists we know perfectly well
what the sign means, but as linguists we may disagree
about its grammar.
The moment we stray outside our own group of
languages which at least have some common framework
we run into bigger difficulties, and our grammar system
breaks down. In Hungarian, for instance, hdz house,
vdr to wait, and unk we. But hdz-unk means “our
house” and vdr-unk means “we are waiting.” The word
unk has been tacked on to a noun in one case and a verb
in the other in a manner that is baflling to anyone trained
in classical grammar.
So if we are to describe languages intelligently we
must have a series of ideas or concepts that apply equally
to all languages. First we must find a new way to define
tU ' I the basic units of sound a way that goes deeper than
the familiar division into vowels and consonants. These
new units are the basic building blocks of present-day
linguistics ( study of language . They are called phonemes.
The phoneme has been defined as “the minimum
distinctive sound feature into which any given flow of
speech can be divided.” Some linguists, however, prefer
not to define it at all but to show what it is by examples.
For example, a man who lisps will say “thad” for “sad.”
Yet when you hear a lisper saying “thad,” you understand
“sad.” In other words, the lisper’s th-sound and the

The Greek philosopher Aristotle {384 322 B.C.), one of

the first linguists to make a study of the parts of speech.
He laid the foundations of the system of grammar by
which most European languages are still taught.

In Morocco, language is taught through
religion: Children learn the Koran by
heart, repeating it after the teacher, at
the same time trying to follow the
Arabic text.
Below: the Grammar School at Strat¬
ford-upon-Avon, England, w/zere
Shakespeare {left) is said to have
learned “small Latin and less Greek
16th-century education was largely
concerned with teaching grammar.
standard j-sound though vastly different- are the
same phoneme. Again, there are differences between the
k of king and the c of cup in the word ‘‘kingcup.55 But, in
fact, most speakers of English cannot hear the difference
between the two because they are one phoneme: No
pair of English words is distinguished solely by these
two sounds (as, for instance, k and t distinguish “kin”
and “tin”). Again, the h of the Japanese word hana
flower and of Norwegian Iwre (to hear ) is more or less
the same as the h in “house”; the h in Japanese hito (human
being and the kj in Norwegian kj0re (to drive) are both
like the ch in German nicht (not . No two Japanese words
are distinguished solely by the difference in sound, so that
in Japanese the two sounds are one phoneme. But in
Norwegian the sounds are the only things that dis¬
tinguish Iwre from kj0re; in Norwegian, therefore, the
two sounds are two phonemes. So two different sounds
may be one phoneme in one language and two phonemes
in another.
It is only when we have broken a given language down
into its phonemes that we can study that language’s
alphabet intelligently, and perhaps suggest changes or
additions. A perfect alphabet is one that has a single
letter for each phoneme. The Welsh and Finnish
languages have almost perfect alphabets. The English
alphabet is one of the worst in the world (p. 124); the
phoneme f is represented by f in knife, ff in off, gh in
cough, and ph in phoneme. While it is difficult to intro¬
duce changes into existing alphabets, there is a good
opportunity to strive after perfection in creating new
alphabets for, say, African languages that have hitherto
been spoken only and not written.
 Are all languages related?

Have all languages a common origin? Was there once

a basic language from which all the past and present
tongues have descended? Unfortunately there is no way
of knowing whether there was a basic language in the
distant past; and the reasons for saying this are fairly
straightforward.
First, if we had a written specimen of every language
right back to the beginning, and if we could decipher
them all, we could certainly decide for or against a
common origin. But although man has been talking for
at least 100,000 years, the earliest known writing (p. 108)
is only something over 5000 years old, so that there is a
huge gap about which we know nothing. And although
there may have been writings (now lost ) that were even
older, there seems to be no doubt that man was talking
tor many tens ot thousands ol years before he started
writing.
Also, we know from our study of present and past
languages that there is no connection between sound and
meaning. (Onomatopoeic words found in every language
illustrations opposite- are exceptions. We also know
that sound-changes in words occur with the passing of

Ancient rock paintings from Mashona-

lanci, Central Africa- the tantalising
relics of a people who did not write. We
shall never know what {if any) language
theirs was related to.
time, and that these are random changes. And since man
has been talking for many thousands of years, there must
have been so many random sound-changes that it is
now impossible to decide whether all languages have a
common source.
Some linguists have felt so strongly about this that they
have considered it a waste of time even to speculate about
the origin of language. A celebrated minute of the
Societe de Linguistique of Paris, recorded as long ago as
1866, actually forbade forever any discussion of the
subject.
However, this does not mean that we cannot study
the relations of one language to another; indeed we can
gain a great deal of interesting information from such
studies, provided that we do not expect to trace languages
right back to their origin (or origins). And the more we
learn about the structure of languages, their similarities
and differences, the better is our understanding of how
they work.
When we start comparing languages with one another,
we begin by studying the relationship between words in
two or more languages. Such a study, called etymology,
is a complicated science, but a simple example will show Onomatopoeic words imitate the sound of the thing they
how it works and that we can get out of it results that are describe, but the words are not the same in all languages.
For example, the word for a cock crow is: English
useful for showing relationships between languages. What " cock-a-doodle-dooFrench “cocorico," German
we do is this: “kikerikiDanish •“kykeliky," Swedish “kukeliku."
We take, for example, a number of English words Similarly the word for ringing bells is: English “ding
dong," German “bimbam," and Spanish “dindan." The
beginning with t, and we also take the German words word “whisper" effectively represents the action, and is
that correspond to them in meaning. Now there is no easily said without using the vocal cords. In French it is
“chuchoterin Spanish “susurrar," and in German
reason why one of these German words should begin
“wispern."
with one letter rather than another. The English word
“ten” corresponds to the German word zehn; the initial
letter is t in English and z (pronounced ts) in German.
This means nothing by itself. Next we take the English
word “tame” and its German equivalent zahm. Again
t in English equals z in German; this could be no more
than a chance coincidence. But when we find a third pair
of linked words with the same initial letters, we may
begin to wonder if it is just coincidence. By the time
German and French dogs barking at each other {below).
we reach 10 or 15 such coincidences we can be reasonably An English dog's bark is “bow-wow," but the Italian
sure that they are not due to chance, and that there is a onomatopoeic equivalent is “bau-bau."
genuine connection between the two languages. They
are in fact related, and further research shows that there
must have been at one time another language—which
we call Primitive Germanic—that was the “parent” of
both German and English.
In this and similar ways we can explore the relation
or lack of relation between languages, and so build up
v\jau-
a family tree in much the same way as we construct a
srenealosdcal table of our ancestors. »*u, /
Patterns of descent

In linguistics we may call a family tree a c‘pattern of

descent”; but the same rules apply as if it were a real
family tree. The basic rule of all is that two languages are
said to be related if, and only if, they have both evolved
from the same language. Thus French and Italian are
related in the closest way because they both came directly
from Latin.
Latin

I |
Italian French
In this diagram Latin is the “parent” and French and
Italian are sister languages. Actually the complete pattern
of descent from Latin is much larger, and contains io
sister languages. These are: Italian, Sardinian, Provencal,
French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance,
Dalmatian, and Romanian.
These relationships give us a good example of how
linguistics ties up with history. The big Latin family
coincides with a very large part of the Roman Empire
at its greatest extent, round about a.d. ioo. The parts it
does not cover are those such as Greece and Asia Minor
(where Greek was an alternative language in general
use and Hungary, North Africa, and Britain, which,
after the collapse of the Roman Empire, were overrun

This aqueduct (right) at Segovia, Spain, recalls

the expansion of the Roman empire through the
conquests of the armies of Julius Caesar (above)
and others, which implanted Latin-based languages
56 in many parts of Europe.
 by invaders who imposed their own languages on the
conquered lands (p. 64 .
We can say definitely that Latin is the parent of this
family, because, quite by chance, Latin has also survived
both as a spoken and a written language in the Roman
Catholic Church, although it is no longer in use anywhere
as a native tongue. But more often the parent of a
language family dies out, and one can only presume the
parent’s previous existence because of the close relation¬
ship that we find between certain existing languages.
For example, we have said that German and English are
descendants of Primitive Germanic. But of this language
nothing survives. Therefore in making a pattern of
descent we have to write it like this:
X

English German
Once we start to give a family a name, we can then
take out the X and substitute the name itself. We call
this family the Germanic family, and instead of X we put
Primitive Germanic. A list of some of the languages that
belong to the Germanic family is shown in the tree on
page 61.
But the pattern does not stop there. We can find
enough similarity between Latin (a parent) and Primi¬
tive Germanic (also a parent) to take the pattern a stage
further. We then have this:
Y

Latin Primitive Germanic

French Italian etc. English German etc.

Now we have a new family in which Y is the parent;
we call it Indo-European. Y becomes Primitive Indo-
European and the Latin and Germanic families are
down-graded into sub-families. Actually, the Indo-
European family of languages has 10 sub-families, of
which Latin and Germanic are but two.
Not all families are the same size however. They vary
in size from Japanese, which is in a family by itself, to
the Indo-European family, which contains about 1000
members.

Da nobis hodie panem nostrum quotidianum.

Gib uns heute unser tagiich Brot.

Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain quotidien.

This gold horn found in Denmark bears an inscrip¬
tion in a Primitive Germanic language. Right: Geef ons heden ons dagelijksch brood.
The sentence “Give us this day our daily bread”
translated into Romance languages {Latin, Danos hoy nuestro pan cotidiano.
French, Spanish—blue) and into Germanic
languages {German, Dutch, Swedish—black). Giv oss idag v&rt dagliga brod.
 The main language families

Some examples {left) of speakers of

different language families:
(A) Indian Indo-European
(B) Moroccan—Afro-Asiatic
(C) Bushwoman Bushman or Click
(D) New-Guinean Malayo-Poly-
nesian
(E) Japanese woman— Japanese.

By working backward from the branches of related

languages toward the roots of family trees, linguists have
established io main families of language. This map
shows the distribution only of the predominant language
families. In North and South America, for instance, the
local languages have been largely smothered by the
incursion of Indo-European languages (English, Spanish,
and Portuguese as a result of conquest and colonization
(P. 64).
There are 13 languages that are spoken by 50 or more
million speakers each. The approximate numbers in
millions are as follows: Chinese 700, English 250,
Hindustani 160, Russian 140, Spanish no, German 100,
Japanese 90, French 75, Malay 60, Bengali 60, Portu¬
guese 55, Italian 55, Arabic 50.

58
 o

Indo-European Bushman or Click

Uro-Altaic Malayo-Polynesian

Burmese and Tibetan Afro-Asiatic (including Semitic) Not certainly classified

mm
mm
mm
Chinese Japanese

59
The Indo-European family

Today the most important family of languages is the

Indo-European. It contains most of the languages that
are used in the Western world, as the family tree on the
facing page shows.
Some of the branches of this tree are more important
than others. For instance the Indo-Iranian branch
includes most of the languages spoken in India, but not
Tamil and Telugu in the south. But on the opposite side
of the tree trunk is the Hittite branch, which comes to a
full stop since the language is now dead.
Farther up the tree on the right we see a group of
languages in the Italo-Celtic branch, which have traveled
a long way from their original home near the Volga.
Irish, Welsh, Breton, and Gaelic are still spoken by
small numbers of people living in the extreme west
of Europe: The Celtic people who spoke these languages
were pushed by successive waves of invaders and
migrants into the extremities of France and Britain.
The branches that are of the greatest importance today
are, on the left, the Germanic, and on the right, the
The Hittite language, now extinct, was spoken in
Italo-Celtic. From these come all the languages of the what is now Turkey. The idol above is one of the
industrially advanced countries of the West, and some of few remnants of Hittite civilization.
Speakers of the Italo-Celtic group migrated to
these, too, are the languages that have been spread all
Ireland. Early converts to Christianity, they
over the world, by colonization and conquest fp. 64 . carved elaborate crosses like the one below.

1 ¥ JfA , A
1*'"*-#//im
■>% cJgmi m
■l*' v -‘FyHiff

<?# J

Here an Urdu-speaking family in Pakistan are

learning to read and write in their language. Urdu,
Hindi, and a mixture of the two known as
Hindustani are the most widely spoken languages
60 of the Indian sub-continent.
 Provencal

French

Italian

Spanish

Portuguese

Catalan

Romanian

Russian

Polish

Bulgarian

Serbo-Croatian

Czech

Lettish

Lithuanian

Avestic

Persian

Hindustani

Urdu

Bengali

The Indo-European family of languages. Only

major branches and their main lines of descent
are shown. Chart takes no account of the many
ways in which languages affect one another; these
are discussed on pages 64-67. 61
Other families

The Indo-European family does not, in spite of its name,

contain all the languages spoken in Europe; there arc
some languages that have a different origin. For instance
there are a few in Eastern and Northern Europe that
come from the Uralian family. These are Finnish, Hun¬
garian, Estonian, and Lapp, the last spoken by nomadic
people spread out over the north of Finland, Sweden, and
Norway. Several languages of this family are also spoken
inside the Soviet Union.
Another large family in the' Soviet Union is the
Caucasian, one of whose languages, Georgian, is import¬
ant in the southern part of Russia. A mystery surrounds
the Basque language of the Pyrenees; it has no connec¬
tions with the languages on each side of it French and
Spanish and the only affinities that can be detected are
with the Caucasian family. In other words the people who
speak it are separated by a great distance from any other
people with a similar language. It is just possible that,
like Japanese, it is a language on its own a family of one.
Farther south there is a big family called the Hamito-
Semitic, which gets its name from the Bible story of
Noah, two of whose sons born after the flood were called
Ham and Shem. The Berber dialects spoken all along the
north coast of Africa and in the Sahara Desert belong to
this family, as did also ancient Egyptian. This is a par¬
ticularly interesting language; although it is no longer
spoken, the written record goes back some 5000 years
p. 111 , thanks to the elaborate methods of preservation
of relics and records in Egyptian tombs. Coptic, a
descendant of ancient Egyptian, was spoken by early
Egyptian Christians, and although its general use ceased
about a.d. 1700, it is still used in Coptic churches and
monasteries, like Latin in the Roman Catholic Church. This ultra-orthodox Jew and his ancestors pre¬
The most widely spread language of the Semitic group served the ancient Hebrew tongue over the
is Arabic, which, as a result of the expansion of the Islamic centuries as an essential part of their faith; now
it is revived as the official language of Israel. Dead
Empire in the seventh to tenth centuries a.d., is spoken Sea Scrolls (background) were written 2000 years
all the way from Mauretania to Iraq. Another Semitic ago in a dialect of Hebrew. Below: The warlike
Berbers of Morocco speak a language of their
branch is Hebrew, kept alive for 1800 years as part of the
own; it is of the Hamito-Semitic family, but is
religious faith of the descendants of Jews exiled from distinct from the more widely spoken Arabic.
Palestine, and now the official language of modern Israel.
Farther south, in Africa, there are languages that
seem to be isolated, without family connections, such as
the languages of the Bushmen and Hottentots in the
south, and the tongues of the western “bulge,” spoken in
Nigeria and Ghana. Apart from these, the rest of Africa,
from Kenya to Cape Town, is covered by the great Bantu
family, which includes Swahili and Zulu.
Vast numbers of Asiatics in the U.S.S.R. speak
languages of the Turcic-Mongol-Tungus family a sub¬
family of Uro-Altaic), but only one member of that
family gained and kept a foothold further west, and that
is Turkish. And at the extreme eastern edge of the Far
East we find another language—Japanese that has no
relations. Also in the Far East is the Sino-Tibetan group.
This family includes one of the world’s major languages,
Chinese—which is spoken by over 700 million people
as well as Tibetan, Thai, and* Burmese.
The languages of Indonesia and the Pacific Islands be¬
long to one of the most widespread families, the Malayo-
Polynesian. Members of this family are to be found all
the way from Java and Sumatra in the Indian Ocean to
Easter Island in the South-East Pacific, and from the
Hawaiian Islands to New Zealand, where the first
inhabitants spoke Maori. The relationship of these
languages shows that the Polynesian Islanders probably
came from Indonesia, in contradiction to Thor
Heyerdahl’s “Kon-Tiki” theory that they came from the*
American continent.
Also in the Pacific is the Melanesian family, located in
New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, and the New
Hebrides, among other places. The aborigines of
Australia speak languages that are, it seems, unrelated A language family that has spread over vast
distances is the Malayo-Polynesian. Starting in
to any major family. The same is true of the now extinct S.E. Asia, it was carried by seaborne migrants as
language of the natives of Tasmania; and in New Guinea far as Easter Island in the S.E. Pacific, famous for
there are a number of languages that have not been its statues {aoove). Below: A Lapp herdsman.
Most of Europe speaks languages of the Indo-
properly investigated, partly owing to the extreme European family, but the Lapps, as well as the
difficulty of getting about in the mountainous jungles of Hungarians, Estonians, and Finns, speak
languages belonging to the Uralian family.
that island.
The American continent has or did have no less
than 2000 languages, most of them unrelated. Attempts
to classify them have resulted in the listing of over 100
families, some'of which, like Eskimo, have only a single
member. It is possible that the American Indians
originated in Asia, crossing in successive waves from
Siberia to Alaska. If we are right in thinking this, it
shows how far a language can change from its ancestral
source, and how, as we said on page 54, it is impossible to
decide whether all languages came originally from a
common source.
Language follows the flag

Once we have determined the origin of a language we

can work backward, so to speak, and deduce where it
came from. But we must never forget that language is
people talking, and therefore if a language spreads over
a particular area of the globe, it is because people took it
with them. We know for instance that the Indo-European
family originated on the steppes of Southern Russia and
has traveled thousands of miles, changing all the time, as
people migrated in various directions (p. 59 .
We are unlikely ever to know in any detail how the
Indo-European family spread over such a vast area, nor
shall we be able to count how many languages were
swallowed up in the process. But we can look at what has
happened in the past 2000 years, and thus get some idea
of how the process works.
Along with migrations that carried a language with
them, there was, we must assume, some degree of
conquest, in which the language of the invader very
largely displaced the old one.
We saw (p. 56 ; how the Latin branch of the Indo-
European family tree expanded with almost explosive
force during the time of the Roman Empire, leaving its
mark on the languages of the countries on the north
side of the Mediterranean basin.
A thousand years later the Portuguese and the This 16th-century map of Tenochtitlan, the island capital
of the Aztec Empire, now part of Mexico City, recalls
Spaniards conquered Central and South America. But Cortes's conquest of Central America, where native
there was a peculiar feature about the way they limited tongues were superseded by Spanish.
their zones of influence. A papal decree in 1494 allocated
all lands east of longitude 47 50 W. to Portugal and
all lands west of it to Spain. As a result the Portuguese
annexed the coast of what is now Brazil. But, because the
eastern coastline slopes away to the west, the papal line
cut the coast again near what is now Santos. The
Portuguese claimed no land west of this line. That land
was taken up by the Spanish. The result of the papal
ruling was that Brazilians now speak Portuguese, while
the people of every other Central and South American
republic speak Spanish. These were forcible con¬
quests, and consequently the local languages tended to
be forced back into the forests. However, two native
languages in South America Guarani in Paraguay and
Quechua in Peru still survive as important national
languages.
Farther north the Spanish colonized Mexico, whose
boundaries extended well into what is now the United
States, as well as along the coast of California. California
was overrun by settlers from the central and eastern states
of America, to such an extent that the Spanish language
disappeared except for place names, such as San Fran¬
cisco, La Jolla, and San Diego. Part of Mexico, now called

In the mountainous regions of Bolivia and Peru the

language of the former Inca Empire, Quechua, is still
spoken by country folk like this Bolivian woman. Both
Spanish and Quechua are recognized as official languages
64 in both countries.
The Mongol cavalry of Genghis Khan swept across Asia
and into Europe and Asia Minor in the 13th century. One
reminder of the extent of their conquests is Turkish, which
belongs to the Turcic-Mongol-Tungus sub-family.
&nt fwnat+Vqvt.C md.
4J& cm£ Ami, & Ant dJU
New Mexico, was absorbed into the Union in 1848, but
the local language survived. Thus in the State of New
Mexico to this day both Spanish and English are officially
recognized languages.
Similarly in Canada, much of the territory was origin¬
ally conquered by France. But when Britain finally
annexed the whole country in 1763 (the end of the Seven
Years’ War between her and France), the only territory
still in French hands was what is now the Province of
Quebec; this has remained bilingual, with both French
and English as official languages.
A similar situation exists in South Africa, where the
original colonists in the 17th century spoke Dutch, which
has become modified into the present-day Afrikaans. But
South Africa was later colonised by the British; and
after the Boer War, when the Union of South Africa
(now the Republic was formed in 1910, both English
and Afrikaans were equally common. So the country,
like Quebec, is bilingual.
French is still widely spoken in Cameroun, which used to be a French
protectorate. In this letter to a French boy a Cameroun boy describes
and illustrates the antics of monkeys. The letter says: The monkeys do
gymnastics in the trees; when they have finished they make faces to
frighten me.
Loan words

Languages change on their own account with the

passage of time, even in isolation. They change in another
way, too: by taking in words from other languages and
incorporating them. Linguists call these “loan words.”
Sometimes a loan word comes in to fill a real need, to
describe something that has not existed before like
the word “castle,” borrowed from the French to describe
a new kind of fortification that came into England with
the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxons built fortified
earthworks but no real castles. Sometimes too there is
an interesting bit of history embalmed in loan words.
For instance, after the Norman Conquest in the nth
century, the ruling class of England was primarily
Norman French; and although the Normans or North
Men) originally came from Scandinavia, they had
adopted a substantial part of the medieval French
vocabulary. As aristocrats in their new country, they
were not concerned with the details of farming; this was
the job of their Anglo-Saxon underlings. But they took a
healthy interest in eating farm produce. As a result we
still have the Anglo-Saxon word “cow” or “ox” for the
living animal, and the loan word “beef5 (French boeuf)
for the dead or cooked animal. Similarly “sheep” (from
Anglo-Saxon becomes “mutton” (French mouton), and
a cooked calf becomes “veal” French veau .
The earliest use of a loan word is often tied up with
increased trade between countries, or with exploration
and discovery. The word “buffalo,” for example, comes
from the East Indies via the Portuguese. First used in Left: The "twist” was invented in Ameriea in
1961; modern communications have helped this
English in 1588, it is evidence of the extensive explora¬
word to move into many languages already.
tions that the Portuguese made in the 15th and 16th Right: The tulip is a Eurasian plant; its name
centuries, particularly in the Far East. (The word comes from the Turkish “tulbendmeaning
turban. Below: “Caravanwhich originally
applies to a kind of bullock used for haulage in the Far meant a group of traders banded together for
East; its use in America to describe the bison is a safety, is a loan word from Persian.

1
 secondary borrowing. And die word “moose” 11613
PACKAGE AND
comes from American Indian languages as a result of
*EPE ORiG
early British exploration of North America.
The influence of the Portuguese navigators also shows
up in the word “binnacle,” the housing for a ship’s
compass, which came from the Portuguese word bitacola
originally Latin habitaculum a small house). And
there are other maritime words like “buoy” (1466) and
“dock” (1500) that were borrowed from Britain’s
seafaring neighbors the Dutch.
Both “hammock” 1555 and “hurricane” (1555)
come to us from the Caribbean by way of the Spanish
conquistadores. On the other side of the world the word
“bungalow” (1676), a corruption of “Bengali,” was
coined by the British East India Company to describe
a single-storied country dwelling that was common in
India.
Among more recent loan words we find “tycoon”
1863 , a Japanese word for a great lord, that has been
borrowed solely for describing leaders of big business.
“Goulash,” a Hungarian dish, was unknown in England
until 1900. One of the most recent loan words is “sputnik”
1957 , a Russian word that means simply a travelling
companion.
The word “carnival” (1549) comes from Italian
words meaning to put away meat; originally it referred to
the beginning of Lent, but its present meaning bears
much more heavily on the festive side of Shrove Tuesday,
which is in many countries a day of high living.
We can assume that when a loan word enters a language
it will not be long before it appears in literature, and the
best dictionaries give the date on which a word is first
found in a publication. Occasionally this can help to
solve a problem. For instance there are two different
accounts of the dying words of Lord Nelson at the battle
of Trafalgar. One is that he said to his friend, “Kismet,
Hardy.” “Kismet” is a Persian loan word meaning
“destiny”; it does not appear in English writing until
1849—44 years after Nelson’s death. It therefore seems
much more likely that the alternative version is true,
and that Nelson said, “Kiss me, Hardy.”
There are thousands of loan words in most European
languages. We should look at them as words that have
“moved in” with a ready-made meaning from foreign
sources, if only to distinguish them from a great and
growing group of borrowed words that are used in science.
These words (p. 182) have been built up from Greek and
Latin in order to describe newly discovered substances
and properties that could not be described accurately
by using existing words.

Top: The necklace is made of amber, a fossilized

resin, and the name comes from the Arabic
“anbar.” Ketchup is a loan word from Chinese.
Below: The extinct woolly mammoth, found in
Siberia, gets its name from Russian. 67
A much-traveled word

Sometimes a word can travel thousands of miles during

many centuries, becoming adopted by the countries
through which it passes; and after many changes it can
still be identified with its source.
Linguists call such a word by its German name—
Wanderwort. Words of this type tend to keep their
identity if they describe something new and rare for
which there is therefore no equivalent word in the
countries into which it is imported. The best-known
example is “ginger,” the name of an oriental plant
(picture top left), the preserved root of which is well
known to us in old-fashioned wicker-bound jars left
below).
Starting from a parent word in the now extinct Middle
Indian (marked Z on the map on the facing page),
etymologists have traced this word from one country to
another. Some of these journeys are shown by the arrows
on the map. Interestingly enough, the Greek source of
most of the European words for ginger took a tremendous
jump direct from India to Greece, perhaps as a result of
the campaigns of Alexander the Great.
In the key that follows the modern words for ginger
are given; these are not necessarily the exact words that
were used at the time when the Wanderwort first passed
into or through a given country.

A inkivaari Finnish
B ingefara Swedish
C inbir Russian
D gingsear Irish
E ginger English
F gember Dutch
G ingwer German
H imbier Polish
J gingembre French
K gyomber Hungarian
L ghimber Romanian
M gengivre Portuguese
N jengibre Spanish
O zenzero Italian
P zenxhefill Albanian
0 zencefil Turkish
R janjapili Georgian
S zingiberis Greek
T skenjebbir Kabyl
U zenghebhil Hebrew
V zanjabil Arabic
w tangawizi Swahili
X zanjabil Persian
z singivera Middle Indian
69
Changes of sound

The changes that produce two or more related languages

from a parent are continuous. The process does not stop
when a new language has been “born.” It goes on con¬
tinually, and yet so gradually that we are hardly aware
of it. But it is probable that the language of this book will
in a few hundred years seem strange to a reader who
may happen to dig it out of one of the national libraries
that contain a copy of every book published. The con¬
struction of sentences and the general style will appear
old-fashioned; some of the words we use will have a
slightly different meaning, and others will have dis¬
appeared from the reader’s vocabulary, so that he will
have to look them up in a dictionary.
These changes, however, are only those that a reader
of a printed text would notice. If instead of finding an
old book our reader were to come across a recording of
English speech in the 1900s, he would notice an even The conversation of these Canterbury Pilgrims, im¬
mortalised by Chaucer in the 14th century, would be
greater difference, because sound-change is the most unintelligible to an English speaker today. Many of the
important way in which a language alters in the course words they used are very similar to modern English, but
the pronunciation was very different.
of time. This sort of change has happened in the past, and
we see qo reason why it should not happen in the future.
Thus we can compare the sound of a number of Anglo-
Saxon words with their present-day equivalents:
Anglo-Saxon: stan, rad, bat, ham a as in cart .
English: stone, road, boat, home.
We have enough examples of this sound-change to
make a sound-law: Anglo-Saxon a changes to English o,
(that is a long o, which can be shown by different An enlarged flake of snow. From an Indo-European root
“snoig” it becomes “sneeuw” in Dutch, “schnee” in
spellings). But even as we apply the new law we at once German, “sneg” in Russian, “snjo” in Norwegian. Another
find an exception. For example, fidlig dag should become branch, through Greek (“nipha”) in which the s is dropped,
leads to “nix” in Latin, “niege” in French, “neve” in
“holyday,” but it doesn’t; it becomes “holiday” with a Italian. and “nieve” in Spanish.
short o. Why? Because a word containing a long-short-
short arrangement like “arbiter” is not popular in
English speech.
A change like this, which affects one particular
phoneme by itself, is called an Isolative change. There
are other changes that are called Combinative, and
some of them have special names —“umlaut,” for ex¬
ample. The German word Umlaut is used to label the
kind of change that occurs when the vowel of one
syllable is affected by the vowel of the next syllable.
For example the Old High German word kraft means
“strength”; but the word for “strong” is kreftig (in
modern German kraftig not, as you might expect,
kraftig.
Another kind of change is called Intrusion. An extra
sound creeps into the word, like the Old French escole,
from the Latin schola. In modern French the original 5
is dropped but the e remains, and we are left with ecole.
Then we have Assimilation, where two consonants have

70
been made alike. The Old French cerchier, to seek, The English word “dough,” raw material of bread,
comes from an Indo-European root “deigh,”
becomes in time c her dm. If you try these two you will meaning to smear or mold. The word also became
find that the shape of the mouth that produces the first ch connected with molding mud walls to make an
sound is kept unchanged through the middle of the enclosure, and it reappears in Greek as “para-
deisos,” a park. From there it is a short step to
word, and is ready for the second ch. It is, in fact, less
trouble to speak the word in its new form.
applying the word to the Garden of Eden (below
left) or “paradise.” 4
Opposite to Assimilation is Dissimilation. Again, this
process makes the word easier to say. The French word
peleriti (“pilgrim” came from the Latin peregrinus. Here
the two rs have been dissimilated by turning the first
one into /. Yet another change, called Metathesis, turns
the consonants round, from, for example, Anglo-Saxon
waps to English 4'wasp.'1
So we see that almost anything can happen to the
sounds of words in the course of time.

71
Changes of meaning

In many languages the meaning of some words is fairly

simple and obvious, especially if the word describes
something “concrete” like a dog or a hat. There can
be no doubt what these words mean. But more often
than not words do not have just one meaning; in fact
they often do not even have one principal meaning, with
other less important meanings as well; they usually have
several groups of meanings. For example the English
verb “think” has three groups of meanings. The first is:
to form in the mind or to conceive a thought or idea, as
in “think what you should do”; the second meaning is:
to call to mind, as in “thinking of someone”; and the
third meaning is: to be of an opinion, or to judge, as
when we say “I think so.” And under each of these sets
of meanings there are a large number of expressions in
each of which the word “think” means something a little
different.
Even so, “to think” is simple compared with the verb
“to set.” As laid out in the world’s most comprehensive
dictionary of the English language, the Oxford English
Dictionary, “to set” has no fewer than io groups of mean¬
ings with a total of 126 different meanings. And the Until 25 years ago the word “jet” meant either
a stream of gas or liquid, or a black mineral. Today
curious thing is that we use words like this without any the word, by itself is usually taken to mean a jet-
difficulty, because the words that go with the word group propelled aircraft.
automatically steer us into giving it the right meaning.
For example we set eggs under a hen or in an incubator
for the sole purpose of hatching them. You have only to
say “I am going to set some eggs” for your hearer to
know not only what you are going to do, but how and
why, too. On the other hand, if you say “I am going to
set the table,” knives and forks, plates, and glasses
immediately come to mind.
The varieties of meaning that one word can have vary
from one language to another. In practical matters such
as farming we use a number of words to describe a single
animal because it is important to know what state the
animal is in, whether for breeding or for beef. Thus we
talk about a bull, a steer (in Britain a bullock), a cow,
a heifer, or a calf. In Tahiti, where fishing is an essential
part of people’s livelihood, there are no less than 14
different names for a bonito-fish, according to its weight
and size. We are not so interested in these fine differences
of bonito, and so we have no equivalent words.
Words that have a similar meaning are called synonyms ;
but such is the flexibility of language that there are very
few words that mean exactly the same thing. The word
“sort” and the word “kind” are true synonyms, and in a
sentence such as “I don’t like this sort of cake,” we could
just as well use the word “kind.” But if we take the
synonyms father, papa, dad, daddy, pa, and pop, each

72

The word"holiday” was originally holy-day. This
16th-century picture shows that even in those days
a holy day was thought of by many people mainly
as a day offun and freedom from toil.
of them would be used when addressing a father in a
slightly different relationship. We call this a difference
of connotation; often it is a very subtle thing.
To sum up so far: We have single words with multiple
meanings, according to the context, or surrounding words;
and we have synonyms whose meanings are only roughly
the same. But as if these complications were not already
enough, we also have to adjust ourselves to changes in
meaning in the course of time. Here is an example of
such a change. The Anglo-Saxon for “dog” was hund, the
same as the word for “dog” in present-day German. But
its meaning changed in English, where there was an
alternative word - “dog.” Hund became “hound,” a
meaning now confined to dogs that are used in hunting;
the word “dog” describes all the non-hunting members
of the species. Another word, “presently,” has two mean¬
ings in America- “now” (its original 16th-century
meaning) and “soon”; in England it has only the
meaning “soon.”
There are in fact no hard and fast rules that can
guide us to the correct meaning of a word. The Austrian
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1899-1951) put the
matter in a nutshell when he said “the meaning of a word
is its use.”
73
Dialect

So far wc have talked about languages as if each country

spoke a single language. But in fact there are many
variations of a language inside even the smallest of
countries, so that the definition of what is a language is
sometimes not easy to make. In fact when we say that
two people speak ihe same language we cannot be sure
that they really understand each other.
Two people can understand each other completely
only if they share a similar education and social environ¬
ment. If two people come from a different background
they may well have a different vocabulary, though the
more educated of the two will have the advantage because
he will probably know all the words used by the less
educated person. So that language and its use is to some
extent a matter of social class. This Belgian lace-maker lives in Gent. She speaks
Then, to make matters more complicated, there is the Flemish, a dialect of Dutch. Because of the strong
Flemish-speaking element in Flanders, all public docu¬
question of regional variations of a language. Dialects ments are published in Flemish as well as French.

In Spain there are three main dialects—Catalan, Andalu¬

sian, and Castilian. Here Alphonso X, who in the 13th
century established Castilian as the court language,
74 dictates a book of games.

Inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, here
seen with a catch of albatross, speak an English dialect
that is strongly influenced by 19th-century Cockney the
dialect of their forebears.
Even a tiny principality of 370 acres like Monaco,
symbolized by this statue outside the royal palace, has its
own dialect, Monegasque, which distinguishes local speech
from neighboring French dialects.
are not, as many think, only those variations that are
spoken in country districts. What is usually known as the
standard language of a country, that spoken by educated
people in the country’s capital and used in most national
broadcasting, is itself a dialect. But it is one that depends
more on social standing than on locality, so that one finds
educated people both in provincial towns and in the
countryside who speak the standard dialect. Dialects
often differ from one another in the pronunciation of
words and in the intonation of whole sentences.
English has many dialects. Not only does it change
from city to city, and from county to county throughout
England, but three other nations, the Scots, the Welsh,
and the Irish, all have a variety of English dialects within
their borders. To these we must add all the dialectal
variations of North America, Africa, Australia, and New
Zealand. These dialects are essentially English in
origin, without much admixture of other languages; but
theie is also a group of dialects called Creoles- forms of
English that were originally learned by speakers of
very different languages, such as those of West Africa.
Creoles are widely spoken in parts of Africa, in the
West Indies, and in the Southern states of the U.S.A.,
and on the lonely Pitcairn Island, in the South Pacific,
where the substrate, or original language, is Tahitian. A
substrate language, in which the order of words was
different from English, sometimes shows through in the
Creole, as for instance in Jamaican, where “My poor
girl” becomes “Poor my gal.”
Sometimes, too, a language that has emigrated re¬
bounds in a new form onto its country of origin. This is
particularly true of American English, which has in
the past 50 years had a very great influence on British
English. The influence is not so much one of accent and
intonation, but of hundreds of words and slang expres¬
sions of American origin that have traveled back and
become incorporated into the original tongue. This
migration of words has been almost entirely in one
direction, for modern British English has had very little
influence on America.
In medieval times most languages had a number of
dialects that were not only spoken but written, and
spelling was very much a matter of personal choice.
But with the coming of printing p. 126 and dictionaries
(p. 134 the dialect of the ruling class became the standard
for written language all over the country. The result of
this is that while in English there are many spoken
dialects, the spelling does not always agree with the pro¬
nunciation, and apart from American variations, English
spelling is standardized throughout the world.
75
The art of translation

Translation is the act of converting the meaning of a

sentence in one language into the equivalent meaning
in another. It is not enough simply to supply equivalent
words; they must be arranged so that the meaning is as
nearly as pos'sible the same. This is often much more
difficult than it might seem. Where the two languages
are of the same family, the construction of a sentence is
very similar. Thus “Je parle frangais” and “I speak
French” are identical in meaning and construction. But
if you ask a Tahitian who speaks both his own language
and French perfectly what is the translation of “ Voudriez-
vous line cigarette?” [“Would you like a cigarette?”] he
will reply, “Puhipuhi i te ava a va?” Translated literally
from Tahitian, this means “Puff-very-bitter-thing?”
Rough-and-ready translations like this are probably
older than civilization itself. The idea that translation
can be a literary art belongs exclusively to civilized
societies or groups of people with a fairly high standard
of education.
In European history we can see several stages in this
developing “art.” In the days when Latin was the
language of scholars, people who understood Latin used
to write into the manuscripts translations or glosses in
the vernacular (their own language) of difficult words.
Next, lists of glosses, called glossaries, were compiled
from manuscripts and arranged in alphabetical order.
It is from these medieval glossaries that we get our modern
dictionaries. The glossing of actual manuscripts was A linguist's staff from Kumasi, Ghana, capital of the
also carried a stage further, so that every Latin word was former kingdom of Ashanti. The linguist acted as a link
accounted for. This gave a translation into vernacular between the people and the king (who was not allowed to
communicate directly with his subjects) by interpreting the
words, but not into vernacular sentences, because the king's pronouncements in the language of the people.
order of words in a sentence usually differs in different
languages.
Some 60 highly skilled interpreters translate speeches
A word by word translation of the Lord’s Prayer from simultaneously at the General Assembly of the United
Hungarian will illustrate the difficulty of translation Nations. Each of the interpreters in this picture is trans¬
from one language into another: lating into one of five official languages: English, Russian,
Spanish, French, and Chinese.
 Mi Atya - nk, ki vagy a menny-ek-ben, szentel-t -essek meg a te nev-ed. Jojjon el
Our Father-Our, who is the heaven-s -in, hallow-ed be the Thy Name-Thy. Come

Hand Fire Extinguisher (Carbon dioxide)

Extincteur a main (acide carbonique) a te orszag-od, legyen meg a te akarat-od, mint a menny-ben ugy a fold-on is, A mi
Handfeuerloscher (Kohlensaure) the Thy Kingdom-Thy; let be the Thy Will-Thy, as the heaven-in so the earth-in also. The our
Extinguidor manual de incendios (anhidrido
carbonico)
minden-napi kenycr-iink-et add meg ndkiink ma. Es bocsasd meg a mi vetk- eink-et, mik£pen*
Extintor manual de incendios (dioxido de
every-day brcad-our give to us to-day. And forgive the our trespasses-our, as
carbono)

<•> mi is meg-bocsatunk azoK-nak, a kik ellen-iink vdtkeztek. Es nc vlgy minket kisertet - be, de
Hand Fire Extinguisher (Water) we too forgive those-to, those who against-us trespassed. And not lead us temptation-into, but
Extincteur a main (eau)
Handfeuerloscher (Wasser)
Extinguidor manual de incendios (agua) szabadits meg minket a gonosz-t61. Mert tidd az orsag ds a hatalom ds a dicsfi -sdg
deliver us the evil-from. For Thine the Kingdom and the Power and the glorious-ness
Extintor manual de incendios (agua)

mind brdk - ke.

Emergency Transmitter
all eternal-unto.
Emetteur de secours
Notsender
Transmisor de emergencia It is obvious that, although the word-for-word gloss
Transmissor de emergencia more or less conveys the sense of the original Hungarian,
there is a good deal of work to be done before the transla¬
Emergency Transmitter/Receiver tion becomes complete; the word order has to be changed
Emetteur/R6cepteur de secours
Notsender/Empfanger
and each sentence reorganized so that it reads as we
Transmisor/Receptor de emergencia would naturally write it in our own language. In this
Transmissor/Receptor de emergencia
case the wording of the prayer in the vernacular is
already familiar, but it is easy to see how much attention
Flashlight an unfamiliar text would need.
Lampe de poche
Taschenlampe Nowadays translation has become a big profession.
Linterna Numerous international meetings and conferences bring
Lanterna de bolso
people of many nations together, and it is essential that
+ everyone should understand what is being said. This
First-Aid Kit
Pharmacie de secours
need has led to an elaborate system of simultaneous
Notapotheke translation whereby each delegate can listen through
Botiquin de primeros auxilios headphones to what is being said, in any of three or four
Estojo de primeiros socorros
of the world’s principal languages. The translators per¬
form extraordinary feats of instantaneous conversion,
Crash Ax
Hache taking in part of a spoken sentence at a time, absorbing
Beil the meaning, and reproducing it in another language;
Hacha
Machado
meanwhile they listen to the rest of the sentence, and
prepare to give it the same treatment.
But apart from instantaneous translation of the spoken
Escape Slide (Inflatable)
Glissoire de secours (modele gonflable) word, there is an increasing demand for rapid translation,
Rutschbahn (zum Aufblasen) particularly of technical and scientific papers, and this
Rampa de escape (inflable)
Rampa deslizadora (para encher de ar) has become acute in recent years with the remarkable
output of research that is taking place in the Soviet
Union. Russian is a language that few people outside
Escape Slide (Normal)
Glissoire de secours (modele normal) Russia have learned until recently. The resulting shortage
Rutschbahn (normal) of translators has led to the development, still in its early
Rampa de escape
Rampa deslizadora stages, of translating machines, a full account of which
begins on page 332. Although these machines arc
o expensive, the rate at which they will be able to work on
Life Raft
Radeau de sauvetage two languages, like Russian and English, that arc of the
Gummiboot
same family will more than compensate for their cost.
Bote salvavidas
Balsa de borracha

4
Explanation of symbols
Emergency Exit
Explication des signes
Sorti de secours
Zeichenerklarung
Notausgang Like all international airlines, Swissair carries passengers
Salida de emergencia Explicacion de los signos of many nationalities. Each passenger is supplied with a
Saida de emergencia Explicapoes dos simbolos leaflet of safety instructions in five languages. 77
A universal language?

The story of the Tower of Babel, with the penalties of

the multi-lingual world that resulted, reflects a condition
that has been a bar to communication for thousands of
years. For centuries now, men have dreamed of a
universal language. Today the need is greater than ever,
because people move about more rapidly and easily
from one country to another. We can get some idea of the
need for such a language by looking at the suggestions
that have been made in the past.
One suggestion has been that there should be an arti¬
ficial language based on existing languages. One of these
has been fairly successful. It was invented by a Polish
Jew named Lazarus Zamenhof (1859 1917 , who was
nicknamed the “Hopeful Doctor,” or in the new language
“Doktoro Esperanto,” hence its name Esperanto.
Esperanto is essentially a mixture of various well-known
European languages, with a strong background of Latin.
Consider, for instance, “Distanco donas ravon al vidajo”
“Distance lends enchantment to the view.” Although
there have been other attempts at a universal language,
Esperanto is the best so far, and it has been very useful
at many international gatherings. However, it suffers
from being too rigid, and while it is quite suitable for
talking about day-to-day subjects such as food, dress,
travel, and sport, it cannot cope with the shades of mean¬
ing that are needed in discussing politics, religion, or
philosophy.
Another suggestion has been to construct an entirely The decline of Latin as an international language prompted
thinkers such as RenX> Descartes (1596 1650) to propose
new language that has no connection at all with any making a new universal language, hut nothing was done
existing language. This is afar more difficult undertaking; about it until the 19th century (see text).
it is not easy to invent thousands of new words, and still
less easy to memorize them. Actually, the thought that
lies behind this suggestion is already in use in commercial
code books used for telegraphing messages from one
country to another: Each “idea” is given a number, and The Suez Canal has been owned by the Egyptian state
that number represents the same idea in every language. since 1956; but it is used by ships of all nations, and the
Egyptian pilot seen leaving a ship below gives his orders
For example, if “I” is 126, “speak” is 3489, and “Ger¬
in English the international language of sea and air.
man” is 2176, the “sentence” 126-3489-2176 means
“I speak German” in any of the languages for which the
code has been compiled. This system is of no use for
speaking. It is quite suitable for sending commercial
messages that have a limited vocabulary; but to have a
different symbol for each idea takes us back to the enor¬
mous complexity of ideographic writing p. no .
The third suggestion is that an existing language should
be promoted to the status of a universal language. The
question then arises, which language should it be? Ob¬
viously it must be one.that is already widely spoken as a
second language. Then, too, we must think of the problem
in terms of the needs of the underdeveloped countries.

78
World population is increasing at such a rate that if
mass starvation is to be conquered, the technical skills
of the West must be imparted as quickly as possible to
less favored nations. This means that a universal language
should be one that is already linked with the technical
and scientific progress of the past 200 years. In effect this
means one of the European tongues.
If we had been discussing the possible candidate for a
universal language in 1765 instead of 1965, we should
not have hesitated to say that French was the most likely
choice. Two hundred years ago French was the leading
European language, and the expression “lingua franca”
is still used to denote a universal language. But today
English is the leading European language. It is spoken
by 250 million people, and partly understood by many
millions more. Indeed, if we except China, the Soviet
Union, and South America, its “scatter” is virtually
world-wide.
Possible rivals to English are Chinese, which is spoken
by 700 million people, and Russian 140 million . But
Chinese is a very complicated language. And Russian is
a self-contained language, little used outside the
boundaries of the Soviet Union. Moreover the Russians
have made no effort to promote the use of their language
abroad except in the Soviet-dominated states of Eastern
Europe, where Russian is a compulsory second language
in schools. On the contrary a substantial part of Russian
propaganda in foreign countries consists of offering- This poster is advertising courses in Esperanto, an inter¬
national language invented by the Pole, Lazarus Zamenhof
courses in English, and the Russians distribute many and spoken by some 8 million people. The text discusses
millions of books in English every year in the former the virtues and drawbacks of Esperanto for this purpose.
British colonies.
English has been adopted, temporarily at least, as
the official language of India, and here we see one of
the advantages of an imported language. It settles the English, the most likely universal language of the future,
problem which of several languages used in a large takes a number of forms. A New Testament in simplified
“pidgin” English (below left, the opening verses of chapter
country should become paramount by giving the answer: 2 of St. Mark's Gospel) has been written for missionaries
none of them, use a foreign language instead. to read to natives of New Guinea (below right).

Yesus lainiin beten long ol.

18. Yesus i rausim sik bilong wanfelo boi

bilong kiap.

Yesus i no lone Kafarnaum. Em i faimlim hik hoi bi-

Chapter 4

Visual Communication

Of man’s five senses—touch, taste, smell, hearing, and

sight—the two most highly developed are hearing and
sight, and it is these that he uses most in communicating
with the world around him. In Chapter 3 we saw how
the sense of hearing, coupled with man’s ability to invent
and utter an enormous variety of sounds, has led to the
successful verbal communication of even the most com¬
plex ideas. In this chapter we study the ways in which man
has harnessed his sense of sight, and his ability to make
patterns and images, in order to convey facts, explana¬
tions, feelings, commands, and so on.
The earliest systems of visual communication between
humans (almost certainly earlier than speech) must have
resembled the gestures and displays of animals (which
are studied in Chapter 2). And even when men had
developed speech, there would have been many occasions
(hunting and raiding expeditions, for instance) when
talking was impossible.
From such simple beginnings men have developed a
system of visual communication that is probably a bigger
feature of our lives than any other form of communica¬
tion. We may lack the acute eyesight of the hawk, but our
eyes, backed by a retentive and interpretative brain, are
our major link with the outside world.
One of the commonest media of visual communication Mans ability to communicate with
is, of course, print. The subject of printing is so vast in his fellows depends in the first place
on his being able to receive impressions
itself that it is studied in a separate chapter (p. 126) of and messages from others, either by
this book. In this chapter we are mainly concerned with hearing or by seeing. In this chapter
two kinds of visual communication. On the one hand, we concentrate on the powers and
limitations of the human eye as a
we study signs and symbols whose informative content means of maintaining contact with
would need many words to express. On the other hand, the outside world. The eye’s import¬
ance is emphasized by this picture.
we examine visual images that convey what cannot easily
The image in the center is of a man
be expressed in words at all. communicating by gesture.

80
•- -

Below: Working model with thousands of flashing lights
mimics the visual and auditory activity of the brain during
an operatic performance. Nerve impulses (blue from eyes,
red from ears in diagram above) travel to activating center
(large circles) and alert brain: impulses then travel back
andforth to memory cortex (top and sides), where patterns
form for comparison with stored patterns. Brain now
becomes “conscious” of singer, symbolized on model by
screen with singer (above) and image of another singer
(below) drawn for comparison from memory center.
Man and his codes
Apart from telepathy (communication between one mind
and another that does not pass through the channels of
the senses there is no way in which information can be
transferred directly from mind to mind. Every piece of
information has to be turned into a code in order to
bridge the distance between two people.
Speech (Chapter 3) is an obvious example of such
codes; it is something that each generation must learn
afresh. You might think that the simplest forms of visual
communication gestures of threat or friendship, say
are examples of direct, uncoded communication. Actually,
even the simplest of gestures involves quite complex
codes. Let us examine in detail a simple situation in which
gestures are used.
Two men are moving along a lake shore during a duck¬
shooting expedition. They are old friends and have gone
out shooting together many times. One of them knows
that ducks often gather in the creek just around the next
bend, and he wants to tell the other to keep low and move
slowly. To talk might unsettle the ducks. Almost without
thinking he makes a special downward gesture with his
arms, fluttering each hand like a wing. Long ago, the two
men agreed on the meaning of this signal; it is part of a
code that they have devised between them. In other
words, they carry in their brains the knowledge of what
signals to make when they are out shooting.
But that is not all. When the man makes a signal, his
body uses yet another code in order to carry the message
from his brain to the muscles of his arm. This nerve code
consists of short bursts i or impulses of electrochemical
energy that travel along the nerve fibers at a fixed speed
of about 400 feet per second. Each impulse lasts only one
thousandth of a second. The only variation in this code is
in the frequency of the impulses. If the hunter signals
gently and slowly, the nerve impulses leave his brain at a
slow rate; if he signals violently, the rate is much faster.
Of course, this codification of signals between brain and
muscle is quite unconscious; the signaler need have no
knowledge of just how his desire to make a gesture be¬ Testing fitness for the road: This cycle trainer measures
comes transformed into a series of muscular movements. a rider's reactions to changing traffic signals and imagin¬
ary emergencies. A number of situations that the cyclist
When the other hunter sees the signal, another complex may encounter on the road are illuminated on the screen.
process begins. A miniature moving image appears upside This visual information prompts cyclist to act; the time
down on his retina the screen of nerve endings that she takes to react to a situation and, when braking, the
distance she would have traveled before stopping, are
forms the back wall of his eye. The million fibers of the measured on the dials.
optic nerve carry a coded report of the image to his brain.
Again, this message travels from the eye to the brain by
a nerve-pulse code of which the receiver is unconscious.
The signals from the optic nerve form a pattern in the
brain’s memory center. Now we come to the critical
moment in the whole process. Does the pattern match
up with an existing pattern? If it does, we say that the
receiver recognizes the signal and understands its purpose.
But if the pattern cannot be compared with an existing
pattern, it has no meaning; the signal has failed in its
purpose.
In short, even the simplest forms of visual communica¬
tion rely on complex codes. We understand a signal only
if we know the code on which it is based. This partly
explains why the human animal takes so long to reach
maturity. He has to memorize a vast number of pieces of
coded information, many of them visual. In fact, his
brain becomes a sort of filing cabinet that contains billions
of “bits” of information, against which incoming signals
are checked and compared every second of his waking life.
Moreover, the brain’s memory patterns are affected to
some degree by every new impression received, so that
the basic pattern is continually revised and brought up
to date, and with it our attitude to events. Compare for
instance a child’s alarmed reactions to a thunderstorm
with that of an adult, who may regard it simply as an
interesting display.
Living gestures

The hunter’s gesture to his follower is a very simple form

of sign language. Human social life is full of such signs.
We use them all the time, usually to emphasize our
words, sometimes to replace them entirely. Gestures
emphasize words by conveying the same information in an
extra way. By adding a sight to a sound, we make an im¬
pact on the brain of the person who receives the message
through two of his senses at once.
From one point of view, gestures are a poor substitute
for words. Suppose that someone is talking to you during
a meal, and that you disagree with what he is saying. If
your mouth is full, you can only shake your head. But the
odds are that, when you have swallowed, you will back
up your gesture with words. The visual communication
the gesture states a fact (“I disagree”) though it
cannot give details. But because gestures are so short and
simple, they are often extremely vivid. Pictures on these
pages illustrate some marvelously expressive gestures that Three gestures of worship deeply significant to their
people use in different countries. makers. Top left: A Sikh prays with palms pressed to¬
gether in a gesture of supplication. Right: A Christian
A gesture may begin by being one thing and end up as
priest raises his hands to heaven in adoration (from a 7th-
something different. The handshake began as a gesture of or 8th-century tombstone). Below: A praying Moslem
peace: “See, I have no weapon in my hand; I invite you, prostrates himself as a sign of submission.
also without a weapon, to take hold of it.” Since most
people are right-handed, to disarm the right hand
proclaimed friendliness. Nowadays no one thinks of the
handshake’s origin. But though its meaning has changed,
its value as a signal has not diminished. Gestures vary
widely from one part of the world tb another a fact that,
forgotten, can lead to embarrassing situations. Take the
“thumbs-up” gesture. In ancient Rome this sign was
used by emperors at gladiatorial contests; it signaled to a
victorious gladiator that he was to spare a plucky loser
(“thumbs down” meant “kill him”). In America, this
gesture has no meaning; Britons use it as a sign of en¬
couragement or of success; in parts of India, however, the
same gesture is so offensive that to make it could actually
cause a fight.
Gestures of respect range from the extreme of crawling
on all fours to the everyday raising of the hat. Sometimes
such gestures become abbreviated or stylized. In a Photo above shows British statesman Winston Churchill
military salute, for instance, the hand is raised to the hat making the “K for Victory” sign, which he popularized
during World War II. The painting, from a 14th-century
but does not remove it. Bowing is a mark of submission Mexican manuscript, depicts a Mixtec warrior making a
because it reduces a person’s physical stature. By contrast, similar gesture as a sign of triumph.
a person of power and authority makes a visual sign of his
superiority by raising himself above other people
occupying a high throne, or a seat on a platform, or a
pulpit.
In modern life visual signals of command are confined
to situations where there is little chance of their being
misunderstood. Examples are: traffic control signals.

This slogan supporting the British Labour Party

incorporates the thumbs-up gesture—widely used
among Britons as a sign of encouragement. Here
it is a vivid, economical wav of saving “ Your
84 country would prosper under Labour rule."
signals made to crane operators, and those made to air¬
plane pilots at airports or on the Right decks of aircraft
carriers.
In all forms of visual communication as in long¬
distance signaling, p. 210 , the sender and the receiver
must use the same code if confusion is to be avoided. This
is especially true of deaf-and-dumb people, who, if a
gesture gives a misleading impression, cannot correct that
impression by speaking. Such people make full use of
visual communication; they have developed a complete
code of manual gestures, some of which represent letters
of the alphabet, while others stand for whole words and
even phrases.
People in the West use gestures far less than do those in
the Orient. This is particularly noticeable in dance and
drama, which, in many Far Eastern countries arc highly
complex, with hundreds of formal gestures of both hand
and body (p. 1721. Most such gestures are like a foreign
language to the uninformed Westerner. Much oriental
dance and drama has a religious background, with the
result that the gestures of the performers are ‘‘charged”
both with information and with an emotional power that
is communicated to the audience. Of course the spectators
have seen this kind of drama since childhood, and the
brain of each one of them is already stocked with memory
patterns and associations that are called up by the stage
performance.
Compared with Eastern practice, the use of religious
gestures in the West is extremely limited. Even so, gestures
play an important part as a reinforcement to prayer. The
act of crossing oneself, for instance, is a gesture directed
toward God, and may be part of a request for a blessing
or for help in a particular situation. Very often the gesture
can serve as an abbreviation of, or even a substitute for, a
spoken prayer. In Malta, for example, when a bus moves
off from a stop, its passengers cross themselves without
interrupting their conversation. They are, in effect, Four manual gestures with precise meanings.
praying for a safe journey. Above: A child expresses defiance by putting his
thumb to his nose. Below {left): To show that he is
To sum up, then, all gestures have this in common: being threatened, a man draws his hand across his
They express economically and often vividly what would throat. Center: He says “All's well” by making a
circle with his thumb and index finger—a gesture
usually take longer to put into words. We shall see in this
that originated in the U.S.A. Right: He stabs
chapter that many other visual signs and symbols also downward with his index and little fingers a
condense information into an extremely compact form. gesture used in Italy to ward off a curse.
 Identity and status

One distinguishing feature of a complex society like ours

Examples of three visual clues to identity:
signature of 18th-century American statesman
John Hancock on the Declaration of Indepen¬
dence; check issued by a U.S. bank, bearing
drawer's photo; fingerprint the surest means of
identification because it cannot be forged.
hy
is that we subdivide our activities. All the jobs that a man
in a simple society would expect to do for himself house¬
building, making household goods, judging disputes, etc.
are done by different people, most of whom are
strangers to one another. In our kind of society, therefore,
it is often more important to know what a person does
than who he is. Who a person is we call his identity; what
he does determines his status.
There are three visual clues to a person’s identity. The
first is his fingerprint, which is unique and does not
change throughout his life. No two people in the world
have the same arrangement of lines on their fingertips- -
a fact that, since its discovery about 75 years ago, has
helped to identify and arrest countless criminals as surely
as if each had left a letter for the police with his name and
address on it. The second clue is a person’s signature.
Again, no two signatures are alike. And though signatures
are sometimes forged, the forger has to be very adept to
get away with it. The third visual clue to identity is facial

appearance. Here, too, apart from some identical twins,

m

no two people have quite the same features and ex¬

pressions. These three clues throw an interesting light
on the uniqueness of each person in a world population
that has now topped three thousand million.

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Throughout history men have used visual symbols that
indicate their status. Coats of arms are such symbols. In
the Middle Ages noble families used such devices to pro¬
claim their identity and their prestige (which they
measured in terms of their ancestral connections). In an
age when even the nobility were mostly illiterate, heraldry
was an important form of visual communication. Without
using any words it was possible to display on a single coat
of arms a person’s identity, rank, and ancestry. With the
These colorful emblems, displayed on the facade growth of literacy on the one hand and a leveling out of
of a Swiss hotel, convey valuable information to class distinctions on the other, heraldry ceased to be im¬
passing travelers. They mean that the hotel is portant among individuals. But states and cities still
especially recommended by the automobile clubs
of six different nations. display coats of arms and symbolize their identity with
flags. This type of visual message is, in some respects,
similar to early forms of writing such as pictography and
ideography (p. 110 .
In modern society there is still an enormous variety of
ways in which a person can proclaim his status to anyone
who knows the code. Take, for instance, the way he
dresses. Sometimes, of course, the way that a man dresses
is directly concerned with his job. Sometimes clothing is
suited to needs that are long past. For example, Anglican
bishops in Britain wear gaiters and an apron. Nowadays
such clothing simply distinguishes them from lower
ranks of the Church. In times past, however, this was a

A crouching figure supports this throne, made over six

centuries ago in Mancibi Province, Ecuador. Though far
less elaborate than the thrones of many Western monarchs,
it is an eloquent visual symbol of the owner's status,
prestige, and power.
practical way to dress. A bishop’s main duty was to super¬
vise the clergy in his diocese. This involved a great deal of
horseback-riding, for which gaiters were more suitable
than trousers. The apron, a shortened version of the
priest’s cassock, was also convenient on horseback. When
society contained more obvious class distinctions than it
does now, richness of dress served to distinguish an
aristocrat from a laborer. Some features of aristocratic
dress have been retained to add dignity to, for example,
judges in Britain, whose wigs and robes set them apart
from their fellow men and symbolize their role as
interpreters of the law.
But even in the most egalitarian of modern societies
there is a tendency for people to draw attention to their
success and wealth by buying and displaying to their
neighbors something that is exceptionally expensive and
preferably not really necessary . Appropriately enough,
we call such purchases “status symbols” and we recognize
that their owners are trying to win our admiration.
Other kinds of symbols play a large part in the smooth
running of military organizations, in which every man
has a rank that carries duties toward those above and
below him. The emblems on a soldier’s sleeve or shoulder
convey a great deal of condensed information. His rank
is only part of that information. A soldier’s emblems
Upper: a design denoting maturity which was tattooed on
express (or at least imply a mass of background informa¬ the faces of Maori boys at initiation into manhood. The
tion about his years of service, good conduct, reliability, custom survived until the early 20th century. Lower: a
former Lord Chief Justice of Ghana, whose dress dis¬
and special abilities or qualifications. Here is the in¬
tinguishes him as a representative of the law and sym¬
formative symbol at its best as a conveyor of terse and bolizes its majesty. The costume is the same as that of
precise information that can be taken in at a glance. British judges, and dates from the late 17 th century.

This unusually designed, lavishly furnished living room in a

California home clearly indicates the owner s wealth and
success. Other status symbols—expensive luxuries that
define their owner's standing include cars built to the
customer's order and hand-made shoes.
 So far wc have looked mainly at symbols that merely
convey information. But there is another class of symbols
that both carry information and also stand for a body
of thought or belief that is not easily expressed in any
other way. Just as a simple word can in the course of time
gather around it a mass of associations and a variety of
meanings that are not easily explained by using other
Irisovs = Jesus words, so, too, a symbol can stand for much more than its
basic meaning in the original code. In other words,
Xpioro$ = Christ symbols can become “charged’' with meaning and with
the power to evoke emotions.

©con = of God We compare everything we see, usually unconsciously,

with what is already stored in the memory centers of the
brain (p. 83 . This comparison can recall to mind every¬
Yio$ = Son thing that has been associated with an image in the past.
A symbol can thus become impressive because it reminds
IwTr|p = Saviour the viewer of a complex of thoughts and emotions without
the need to go into details. Such a symbol goes much
further than a purely informative emblem, such as the
stripes on a sergeant’s arm; and, curiously enough,

*
Top: the fish sign used by early Christians. Center:
Initial letters of the Greek description of Christ
spell out the Greek for fish. Bottom: ancient
Christian monograms—{left) first two letters of
Christos superimposed; (right) the “Tan" cross
with Greek letters from the beginning and end of
alphabet -“/ am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end."
mankind seems unable to do without them.
Among the most important of such symbols are
symbols of belief. In Christian countries the major symbol
of belief is the cross. To early Christians it was a reminder
of Jesus’s execution; it carried the same grim overtones
as a symbol of the gallows, garrote, or guillotine would
carry today. If, after nearly 2000 years, the cross still
served merely to remind us of a brutal and lingering death,
its meaning would be extremely limited. In fact, the cross
symbol has come to stand for all aspects of Christianity.
It stands not only for the historical parts of the Christian
story but also for the Christian message, including its
moral code and its promise of immortality.
As a constant reminder of all these things, the symbol
of the cross appears as a solid object on church altars,
walls, and spires, as an imprint on Bibles, prayer books.
 priestly vestments, and even in the ground plans of man)
church buildings (where the nave and choir form the
upright, crossed by the “arms” of the transepts . Historic¬
ally the shape of the cross has varied at different times and
places. There was, for instance, the eight-pointed Maltese
cross of the crusading Order of St. John (founded about
1070 . But none of these variations has such widespread
authority as the familiar simple cross.
Earl\ Christians used many other symbols of their faith
that have become less common. There was, for instance,
the symbol of the fish, derived from the initial letters of the
Greek description of Christ. Then there was the mono¬
gram based on the first two letters of Christos in Greek
see illustrations opposite .
The triumph of the simple cross over these more com¬
plex symbols points to something that is fundamental in
constructing a symbol: To be acceptable and enduring it
must be simple and easily recognized. For example, the
Fascist parties that came to power in Italy and Germany
betweeri the world wars had as their symbols the fasces
and the swastika, respectively. The fasces a complex
emblem has disappeared; the swastika, because of its
simplicity and geometrical form, is still a universal symbol
of Fascist ideology. Similarly, the original Communist
emblem of the hammer and sickle, symbolizing the A Sikh wears four of the “five K\s" of his cult. Uncut hair
triumph of the manual worker, is beginning to look dated {kes) wound on springs (beneath turban) for protection,
dagger (khanda) for militarism, bangle (kara) for
in a mechanical and automated age; and the simple, reverence, knee-length drawers (kadi) for restraint. He
brightly colored, geometrical pattern of the red star is also carries a comb (khanga) for purity.
taking its place.
Thus even symbols of great antiquity can survive Below: Nazi rally in Berlin, 1934. The
swastika—a form of the cross widely
almost any social change, provided that they gain new
used in pre-Christian times—was
meanings to fit new circumstances. And the simpler the adopted by the Nazis, the German
symbol like the cross, the star, and the swastika the fascists. The word “fascism” comes
from the Latin fasces, a bundle of rods
easier it is for new meanings to become attached to it. tied to an ax (right) which was carried
Complex symbols like the fasces and the hammer and in front of Roman magistrates as an
sickle are less adaptable, and so less likely to survive. emblem of authority. It became the
symbol of the Italian Fascist Party.

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1
Distance and detail

When we say that we look at an object, the form of words The widespread belief that the eye is an active instrument
that can influence its surroundings is shown in this picture
suggests that we actively do something to the object.
of an Afghan bus. The eyes painted on the front are in¬
Actually, when you look at something, your eyes auto¬ tended to out-stare misfortune, i.e. to avert the “evil eye”
matically focus on the object and adjust to the amount of
light that enters the eye (adjustments that are very similar
to those we make to a camera before taking a photograph .
From then on the process of seeing is passive. Light from
the object falls onto the retina and generates nerve im¬
pulses, which, as we saw on page 83, are relayed by the
optic nerve to the brain.
A close examination of the retina reveals that it has two
distinct parts. One part (98 per cent of the whole area
is equipped with nerve cells called “rods.” Rods are
extremely sensitive to light and movement, but they are
not able to transmit an accurate, detailed image. The

Simplified section of the human eye. Part colored blue is

the retina, consisting mainly of “rods,” which are sensitive
to light but incapable of transmitting a clear image to the
brain. The yellow spot {,mostly “cones”) is the part we
90 use for studying detail, as in reading printed words.
remaining two per cent of the retina is filled with nerve
cells called “cones.” These are not nearly so sensitive to
light as are the rods, but they can transmit to the brain an
image that is extremely clear and well defined. This small
area of the retina is called the macula lutea, or yellow spot,
and through it all our perception of detail passes. (The
yellow spot is also sensitive to color differences. If you
turn for a moment to a new page and immediately fix your
eyes in a steady gaze on a single word of seven or eight
letters in the middle of the column, you will see that word
clearly; but all the words around it will be blurred. The Projecting advertisement is 2 feet wide. Seen from
image of the word you are looking at is projected onto the 60 feet it can be taken in by-the yellow spot without
moving the eye, once focused.
yellow spot; the surrounding words are vaguely seen, but
not identified, by the rest of the retina.
Your eye is, in fact, two instruments in one. First it
notices things over a wide angle of vision; then if you
want to examine something more closely, both for detail
and for color, the eye focuses the object onto the yellow
spot so that your brain receives a detailed impression.
How does all this tie up with the use of symbols for
conveying information quickly and easily? We saw on
page 89 that the best symbols have simple, clear-cut
outlines. The attention of the wandering eye is more
likely to be drawn to a clear-cut image, even though the
White lettering on red {warning) background is 10
details may need further examination. This is one reason feet high. Sign, which says “Reduce speed now,”
for using uncomplicated symbols. The second reason is is clearly readable to a motorist at 300 feet.
connected with the size of the image that can be projected
onto the yellow spot. Out of the 180 degrees of the “angle
of vision” that is open to the human eye, the yellow spot
can take in only two degrees.
To put this geometrical statement into actual sizes and
distances: The largest object that can be perceived and
understood at a glance measures at most o • 8 inches at a
distance of 2 feet, 2 * 5 inches at 6 feet, and 25 inches at 60
feet. Since the yellow spot cannot help taking in every¬
thing that falls within the 2-degree angle, the most
effective symbols are those that cover (though not, of
course, uniformly as much of the spot as possible. The Road-fork sign {right) is 8 feet high and can be
distinguished at 240 feet. Big direction signboard
designer must thus take into account the distance at which {top left) is 20 feet across, and will be in full view
the symbol is normally viewed. of driver of truck {right) at 600 feet.
These principles have been applied by a kind of un¬
conscious rule of thumb for centuries. They can be seen in
military badges of rank, which only need to be seen close
up, as well as in the distinguishing stripes on the smoke¬
stack of an ocean liner, which are visible several miles
away.
In the following pages we study signs that tell us what to
do. Here questions of size and color are of vital import¬
ance, since our safety may depend on our interpreting a
sign quickly and correctly.

Prehistoric white horse on chalk hillside is over

350 feet long, too big to be taken in at a glance
from the distance at which it was photographed
1500feet. It would form an image inside the yellow
spot at 9000 feet, and would still be discernible
at twice that distance.

Signs in the window of a San Francisco store. The thick
shadow numerals are fairly effective, hut would stand out
better against a light background. Tone of “Closed”
lettering is too weak to contrast well with surrounding
white; “Out" sign is stronger. Lower sign is so faint that
it can be seen only at close quarters.
What makes a sign clear?
Whatever purpose a sign or symbol may have, it must be
clearly and quickly recognized. This is true whether the
sign consists of a simple shape like a symbol or a traffic
sign, or whether it consists of a group of shapes that convey
a meaning, like a word. (How written words came into
being is described in the next chapter. What we are
concerned with here is the conditions that make a shape
easy to recognize.
Firstly and most obviously, the shape must differ from
its background in color or tone (or both color and tone).
The greater this contrast, the easier it is for us to see and
analyze the sign.
We are all accustomed to reading black words on white
paper. You might think that there could not be a better
contrast than that between black and white. Actually,
experiments have shown that black and white is not
always the best combination to use. Firstly, black is not a
color at all; it is an absence of color. It does not stimulate
the nerve ends of the retina (p. 90 any more than it
causes a chemical change on a photographic plate. White,
on the other hand, is a mixture of all the colors in the
spectrum. Now the one part of the retina that is especially
equipped to register color is the yellow spot (which we
also use for perceiving shapes accurately). Its many
thousands of nerve endings respond to all the colors of the
visible spectrum, from violet through indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and finally red.
In short, as you read these words, all the color-sensitive
nerve endings are working full time taking in the white
paper around the words; the words themselves, being
black, have no effect on the retina. Thus the reading of
black print on white paper turns out to be a process of
recognizing letters and words that are, in terms of the
body’s chemistry, gaps in white paper.
And that is not all. One of the eye’s drawbacks is that
the cells of the retina that are stimulated by white light
tend to stimulate neighboring cells that have nothing to
do. The result is that the sensation of white “overflows”
slightly into the idle areas where no color is being regis¬
tered i.e., the black of the print. The result is that a
black letter on a white background has to be thicker than
the same letter on a colored background, otherwise the
sensation of whiteness will invade the black and make it
difficult to recognize. Typeface designers overcome this
tendency by making the arms of letters to be printed in
black ink thick enough to withstand the invasion of the
surrounding white. Conversely, a white letter on a black
background tends to overflow into the black. In this case,
the limbs of the letters to be printed in white ink on black
arc made a little thinner than they would otherwise
Road sign at a highway intersection in California, bv day
and by night. Lettering is white against a colored back¬
ground—a far clearer combination than white on black
{sec text). Such signs, illuminated at night, greatly reduce
the risks of high-speed driving; they have also been intro¬
duced on many European highways.
have been, so as to compensate for this overflow effect. Below: The wrought-iron sign outside the Blue
These considerations may make the difference between Duck, a 17th-century inn at Zurich, Switzerland,
stands out sharply against a bright sky. Support
life and death on a multi-lane highway, where a driver, and frame, though elaborate in design, do not
moving at, say, 90 feet a second, must be able to read a detract from the signs clarity.
road sign correctly, by day and by night, in all weathers.
Here we find that the best signs (and there are still many
that are badly designed give instructions in white
lettering against a colored background, usually blue or
green. Color is better than black because it gives the idle
nerve cells something to do. This prevents the white
letters from “overflowing,” and thus preserves their shape
and legibility.

93
Communication by color

A bright and attractively colored sign or symbol will

obviously catch our attention more effectively than a
drab one. But the uses of color in visual communication
go far beyond its ability to catch the eye. Many colors take
on a meaning through an association with natural objects.
The commonest color in nature is green. This is the
color of leaves and growing things, and thus of life, safety,
and normality. Green is therefore the natural color for
indicating a situation that is normal and uncomplicated,
and it is the obvious color to use for signaling permission
to cross a street intersection. By contrast, the color red has
strong associations with blood and with fire. It is therefore
a color that is coupled with emergency and with danger.
We see it as a warning of danger in rail and road traffic
signal lights. Things that are used to cope with dangerous
situations fire extinguishers, alarm-bell pushes, emer¬
gency-stop buttons in elevators, and fire engines are
also colored red.
The combination of color and shape to make an effec¬
tive symbol is well illustrated by the emblem of the Inter¬
national Red Cross in Christian countries. The centuries-
The medieval Church laid down a color symbolism for
long associations of the cross, here taken to signify mercy, religious pictures. In this Assumption by Giusto, the Virgin
and the blood-red color combine to make a powerful wears white to signify holiness. Golden background
symbol that is universally recognized and respected. signifies God: sky and angels'1 wings are blue the color of
heaven. Brown habits of St. Francis and St. Jerome
Color is also widely used in industry to identify objects signify renunciation of worldly things.
that could otherwise be mistaken for one another. In
factories and engine rooms, pipes are colored according
to an agreed code, so that a pipe that carries, for example,
high-pressure steam can easily be traced and distinguished
from pipes that carry, say, cold water, fuel, and lubricat¬
ing oil. Complex color codes are similarly used in multiple-
wire telephone cables.
There is some evidence that different colors have
different effects on the nervous system. To most people
green, for instance, is more restful than red. It is impossible
to be more positive on this point because different people
use color in symbolic ways that seem to have no con¬
nection with its physical effects. In the Far East, for
example, yellow is the imperial color, and white the color
of mourning. In the West crimson or purple is the royal
color, while the color of mourning is black. It is difficult
for us today to appreciate the mysterious power of color
symbolism in ancient times— the kind of symbolism our
forefathers saw in stained-glass windows, for instance.
We think of color more as a natural phenomenon than
as a mysterious power, and this is because we know a
great deal more about the nature of light. We are now
familiar with the fact that what we call colors are simply
the result of having the eye stimulated by electromagnetic
waves of varying length; these range from the shortest

Above: Radio resistors are color banded for recognition.

By rotating dials of color card to match resistor {A) we
find resistance is 560 ohms. Left: British standardfor pipe
carrying methyl chloride (grey and green). Red band means
flammable, while the yellow and black stripes indicate
other hazards such as poison.
 Small blob of blended color from artist's palette
on left. Look at it through a magnifying glass and
you will see that the printer gets the same result
as the artist by using dots of ink in three primary
colors and black.

A painter mixes any color he wants by combining other colors. The

colors on the left side of the palette shown above have been used in
quantities indicated by thickness of arrows to make the blended color
on the right.

By varying the concentration of dots, the same

(violet) to the longest (red wavelengths to which the colors can be reproduced in a variety of tones,
retina is sensitive. from strong to faint.
The scientific study of color has had far-reaching effects
on visual communication, particularly in the production
of colored illustrations like the ones on this page. When a
painter makes a picture he takes colors from any number
of tubes and mixes them in different proportions. Illustra¬
tions on this page show how the printer, using only three
primary colors and black, can create a similar variety of
color tints and shades. Such fine gradations are possible
only because we have learned how to apply our knowledge
of optics and of the physiology of the eye.

The “pointilliste" school of painting achieves

color effects by a method very similar to that used
in printing. This detail from a woman's face by
the French artist Georges Seurat (1859 91)
consists entirely of colored dots applied with the
tip of a fine paintbrush.

Cave drawing from Mashonaland, Southern
Rhodesia, indicates a hunter s hope that he will
succeed in killing an elephant with spears.
Motor-cyclist, by wearing a tiger image on his
crash helmet, assumes the tiger's qualities of
speed and aggressiveness and hopes that other
people will credit him with these qualities.
Pictures and magic
Long before man had learned to write, and perhaps even
before he had developed a proper spoken language, he
was painting pictures. Deep in caves in the Dordogne
region of France and in the Pyrenees, we have quite
recently discovered animal paintings that are at least
20,000 years old. They have survived only because they
are far from the cave entrances and therefore unaffected
by weather conditions. Their remoteness also makes it
certain that these parts of the caves were not lived in, but
only visited for special purposes.
As the illustration above indicates, these rock
paintings were executed with skill and care. Moreover,
since the only light must have come from a primitive
stone lamp with a wick of moss and animal fat for fuel,
they were painted under extremely difficult conditions.
What was their purpose? The question is important
because these paintings are the earliest known attempts
by man to represent the world in which he lived. They
are the beginnings of art a major form of visual com¬
munication. In questioning their purpose, we are asking:
“With whom was the artist communicating?” Naturally,
after 20,000 years we can give no certain answer. But the
fact that many of the primitive peoples of recent times
African Bushmen, American Indians, and so on have
made similar paintings enables us to make a plausible
guess.
The skills that have gradually made us masters of the
earth were and are unknown to primitive man.
Primitive man is a weakling in the world of animals, and
yet he has to gain mastery over them or die. One way in
which he can build up his courage against animals bigger
and stronger than himself is to make pictures of them. In
 this way he gets to know them better, and, in a way,
identifies himself with them. (Curiously enough, in
World War II, Britain’s Field Marshal Montgomery
always kept a portrait of the German commander, Field
Marshal Rommel, in front of him so that he would not
forget his opponent’s powers, and thereby run the risk
of underrating him when in battle.
By making these pictures, Neolithic man was talking to
himself, thinking about his coming combats. In effect he
was saying: “This is the animal that I have to kill. He is
part of me and the world I live in; by painting this picture
I am that much nearer achieving my object.” He believed
that the act of picturing the animal magically ensured
that it would be killed. (We have modern evidence of this
belief: In the early years of this century a Sioux Indian
explained a poor hunting season to the French social
anthropologist Levy-Bruhl by saying that a white man
had “put many of our bison in his book . . . since then we
have had no bison.” The white man had simply sketched
the bison.
The very fact that it is difficult to explain clearly the
meaning of these cave paintings demonstrates that
pictorial art sometimes expresses thoughts and emotions
that cannot be readily put into words. It is interesting
that this method of self-expression reached such a high
level of development at a time in man’s history when the
principal alternative means of recording expression
writing was still unknown. To some extent, then, the
works of primitive artists are a substitute foi what might
nowadays be expressed in different ways. But this is
obviously not the whole story; otherwise picture making
would have died out with the advent of easier and quicker
means of expression. Today, as in earliest times, art
communicates information and feelings that cannot be
expressed adequately in any other medium.
Incidentally, the cave paintings illustrate another
interesting fact, quite unrelated to their purpose or
content. Many of the paintings were done on top of
existing older ones, presumably because the available
area of wall was limited and had to be used over and over
again. And yet we have no difficulty in concentrating on
the newest image on the wall. Our eyes and brains have
together developed a faculty for seeing only what we wish
to see. Material that is irrelevant to the image that
interests us is pushed into the background while we con¬
centrate on the image itself. This “visual censorship,” as
it is called, is of great value to us in our everyday lives. It
helps us to sort out what is significant to us at the moment
in, say, a view of a street that is cluttered with signs,
instructions, and advertisements.

Figurehead on a Solomon Islands war canoe

symbolizes the intended victims of a raid. A canoe
used for fishing has a figurehead of a frigate
bird with a fish in its mouth to bring luck. 97

Upper: This vivid landscape of 1909 by Poland's Wassily
Kandinski was among the early expressionist paintings
that introduced the public to mixtures of strong colors.
Lower: A modern textile whose vivid colors owe much to
the pioneer works of artists like Kandinski.
a exemplifies a new approach to the division of a rectangular space. A
98
Art as communication
We who live in a technological world are so used to
thinking of communication as the communication of jacts
that it is perhaps difficult for us to think of painting and
sculpture let alone crafts such as carpentry and em¬
broidery as relevant to the subject of communication.
In most earlier times it would not have occurred to
men that art was for the most part anything else but
a kind of communication. Then, works of art had a
number of clearly defined purposes. As embellishments to
temples, shrines, churches, and so on they communicated
religious knowledge to illiterate people. Great men com¬
missioned portraits as visible records that would enrich
the family home and remind their descendants of their
lineage. Cities and private patrons alike bought paintings
and sculptures in order to enhance their prestige. Such
works showed their patron’s taste and culture.
With the exception of this last function, few works of
art are now made for such reasons. The work of most
modern artists appeals to—i.e., communicates directly
with a very limited public. Illustrations on these pages
show works by such artists. They represent two important
movements of the 20th century: expressionist (top left)
and abstract (bottom left and facing page).
But the fact that these and other movements have a
very limited appeal does not mean that their influence
is similarly negligible. Though the artists’ names are not
household words, almost every household object
indeed, almost every object - that we would call
“modern” owes something of its appearance to such artists
and the movements they represent.
Left: Abstract painting of 1927 by the Dutch artist Pieter Mondriaan
similar effect appears in the layout of two pages {right) of a magazine
published in 1963; these designs would probably have been rejected
if they had appeared forty years ago.
For hundreds of years artists have pioneered new
styles and tastes. Their work has set standards that
others accept and follow. For example, when a 19th-
century poster designer used a naturalistic picture to
carry his message, he did so because all the painters of his
time painted naturalistic paintings. When early 20th-
century architects built banks, they often used the
architectural style of imperial Rome, which suggested
tradition, strength, security, and wealth all desirable
features in a banking fyouse.
The question we began with, then (what is it that works
of art convey?), has at least two answers. To a very
limited public, a work of art communicates its maker’s
personal outlook, reaction to the world, sense of design,
feelings about material (such as paint, wood, and marble 1,
and so on. For the much larger number of people who
have little interest in such things, works of art provide a
new language of taste and style a language that others
can borrow. Illustrations on these pages show how
widespread is this practice. The architects and designers
who do the borrowing have found this an effective way of
communicating with modern people in a modern idiom.

:. ki t; n k I l
. r»lULIvALj

Working Model for Internal and External Forms (1951,

above) by Britain's Henry Moore introduces a sense of
the fitness of rounded solids. The rounded planes of the
doorknob {left), a style that emerged during the last
decade, may have been influenced by earlier sculpture.
Caricature and cartoon

Painted portraits are seldom purely representational. Above: an Egyptian painting (about 1200 B.C.)
in which people are portrayed as animals —a form
Whereas the camera may catch some of the sitter’s of caricature that is often used by modern
personality in a photograph, the portrait painter uses all cartoonists. Below: a famous caricature of King
his skill to produce an image that expresses as much as Louis Philippe of France (reigned 1830 48).
Drawn by the French newspaper editor Charles
possible of the sitter’s whole character, and in so doing he Phil ip on, it provoked a law-suit, because it
reveals something of his own character. That is why, depicted the King as a pear, which in everyday
French slang means ‘ fathead.”
even in an age of advanced photographic technique,
many people still prefer a painted portrait to a photo¬
graph. When this process of characterization goes a stage
further, when, that is, the artist deliberately exaggerates
certain features of a person, the result is a caricature. The
exaggerations invite the viewer to laugh at the person
portrayed, either affectionately or scornfully.
We saw that communication depends on the use of a
common code by both sender and receiver. In caricature
part of the code is an image, already in the viewer’s mind,
of what the person caricatured normally looks like
either from personal acquaintance or from photo¬
graphs. The viewer immediately recognizes the subject
or victim of the caricature, and, at the same time, gets
some amusement from seeing prominent features exag¬
gerated. Because of the need to know who the victim is,
caricature is mostly confined to well-known public
figures, usually politicians. Such caricatures can tem¬
porarily symbolize a political party, generally as seen by
an opposed party or group. The most powerful carica¬
tures are almost always hostile, showing individuals (and
sometimes recognizable classes of people communist
“butchers,” capitalist “wolves,” etc. in the worst possible
light.
In the past, caricatures were often published as isolated
distortions of a person’s appearance. Today we see them
mainly in the form of political cartoons in which the
attitudes and policies of personages or political parties
are derided p. 308 . A single cartoon may contain
several caricatures.
The modern cartoon is particularly interesting because
of the extraordinarily large amount of information that
can be suggested by a very simple drawing. The cartoon
is perhaps the most economical code that artists have ever
devised. A person or an animal may be depicted so
economically as to be only hinted at; the viewer fills in the

This cartoon on a playing card depicts British Prime

Minister Joseph Chamberlain signing the Munich treaty
of 1938, by which part of Czechoslovakia was ceded to
Hitlers Germany. Behind are Mussolini and French
Premier Daladier. The artist acidly conveys his opinion
100 by making all participants appear equally ridiculous.
A 19th-century French print showing Academi¬
cians, including scientists and mathematicians,
meeting to discuss an exhibition of paintings. The
artist seeks to show their ignorance of the subject
by substituting symbols that represent their own
spheres of knowledge for their heads.
The Impressionist Painter, a pen and ink drawing
by French writer Jean Cocteau (1891 1962).
Modern caricaturists can convey a great deal of
information by means of a rough outline. Their
work often has the simplicity and directness of
children s drawings.
“What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?” by
the American artist and writer James Thurber
(1894 1961). Both in his short stories and his
cartoons Thurber developed a highly individual
way of telling stories in a minimum of strokes.
details from his own imagination. In fact, the viewer’s
share in the process of communication is in this respect
greater with cartoons than with any other visual art.
The style of the cartoonist is always very individual.
It takes us very little time to recognize the work of a
well-known cartoonist. His style of drawing becomes a
kind of signature, so that we need only to glance at a
cartoon to know that we are in touch with a particular
individual whose comments on the social scene we either
enjoy or dislike.
Most cartoons have a very temporary appeal. Each one
belongs to a particular place and period, and for a full
understanding of a cartoon the viewer has to have a good
knowledge of the social setting and fashions in thought
and humor of that place and period. For these reasons a
cartoon published in one country often fails to produce
a response in another country, where conditions arc
different. But, even when their humor has dated or their
comments have become obscure, cartoons remain as
useful records of the kind of situation that people con¬
sidered funny or moving in various countries and in
different periods of time.
 Visual persuasion

In many of the visual arts the artist is mainly concerned

with communicating what he himself feels and ex¬
periences. But there is one important kind of visual
communication that is wholly concerned with arousing
definite feelings in the viewer. When used in advertising
and in the display and packaging of goods, visual com¬
munication has only one purpose: to sell. The buyer,
whom advertising has led to want something, is en¬
couraged by attractive display and packaging not to
change his mind at the last moment.
Such art is here-today-gone-tomorrow business. Its
techniques constantly change with fashions in outlook and
humor. But in its own highly competitive world it pushes
techniques of visual communication to the limit of their
effectiveness, and that is what makes it interesting from
our point of view. Here we are chiefly concerned with the
way in which the advertiser effectively persuades the
public to part with its money by a powerful combination REED PAPER GROUP
A world-wide partnership producing
of image, color, and symbolism. (The wider role of pulp, paper, packaging and plastics

advertising in modern industrial societies is studied on

pages 282 97 .
The appeal of this advertisement, issued by a British firm
Advertisements sometimes have much in common with
of paper manufacturers, depends entirely on the eye¬
cartoons (p. 100 . The most successful advertisements, catching picture- a collage of newsprint and wrappers.
like the best cartoons, usually gain their effect by com¬ It lends glamour to a mundane commodity, and illustrates
the wide range of products made by the firm.
bining a simple visual image with a few words and the
image is the part that has the greatest impact. Even
photographs are distorted to achieve that impact. In
black and white photography, every possible technical
device is used to make a picture arresting and memorable.
In color photography, natural colors are intensified for
instance, to make food look more appetizing or softened
for instance, to make a scene look more romantic and
appealing .
Often the image that such art seeks to project is a
conceptual one—“strength,” say, or “purity,” or
“reliability.” The visual images and the text in an
advertisement and the design of the package will all be
chosen to reinforce this conceptual image. The process
resembles the magical processes that probably led to the
Neolithic cave paintings discussed on page 96: Because
the advertising and packaging strongly reinforce the idea
of, say, “purity,” the product must be pure. Illustrations
on these pages show how artists working in this field
consciously use such reinforcement techniques.

Two toilet preparations, in packs that project

utterly different “brand imagesThe homely
floral design on the bath cube wrapper emphasizes
an image of simplicity and freshness, while the
shiny, streamlined talcum pack stresses an image
of city sophistication.
 mm! PORK

This poster, issued by Britain's Pig Industry

Development Authority, uses a giant color photo¬
graph to convey its message instantly. The impact
of the poster depends on the size and simplicity oj
the picture, which is reinforced by a brief but
persuasive slogan. 103
 Visual shorthand

Men have always used signs and symbols as aids to verbal

This sign outside a Viennese exhibition prohibits
stiletto heels. The picture, combined with the
circle (the international symbol for a prohibition)
is self-explanatory.
explanation. Indeed, when two people have no common
language, they will almost automatically make explana¬
tory drawings to convey simple thoughts and needs. In
spite of this long history of usage, it is only during the
present century that men have sought to understand
what it is that makes one sign more effective than
another. Some of the more obvious conclusions can be
put into words. An effective sign is as simple as possible.
It contains no irrelevant details. It stresses what is im¬
portant and plays down what is less important. In any
given series of signs the “language” that has been
devised should be used consistently for instance, if red
is used in one road sign to indicate that some act is for¬
bidden, then it should be used in that way in all road
signs. Some of these principles are illustrated by the
pictures and diagrams on these pages; both good and
bad examples of communication are shown.

Anatomical drawing of 1543, showing l.'ven this clear-cut photograph of a A modern drawing of the digestive
position of liver, stomach, and intes¬ rat's intestines fails to convey more system, which clearly shows the
tines. Detailed portrayal of smaller than a very general idea of the position of each organ used in the
organs complicates the picture. animal's digestive system. process, excluding irrelevant details.
Two contrasting diagrams of a pumping
station. Diagram below {from
Diderot's Encyclopedia) is compli¬
cated by superfluous detail and diffi-
cult-to-read lettering. The modern
diagram on the right though less
picturesque—is easier to understand
because it contains only the essential
information.
Chapter 5

Written Language

The idea of using marks to represent and communicate

his thoughts and his spoken words was one of man’s
greatest imaginative feats. It may even be that the inven¬
tion of writing has furthered man’s social and cultural
development more than any other single idea.
It is not surprising, then, that people who have not
shared the secret of the art of writing have generally held
the written word in awe. At first, indeed, it was certainly
felt to have some magic power of its own. Writing was
practiced by the wise men, the priests, to preserve the
lore of the tribe and its laws too, since in origin there
was no distinction between priests and rulers.
In most ancient societies the knowledge of writing
was more than a privilege, it was a social role, bound up
with religion and statecraft. Two of our words remind us
of the exclusive social origins of writing. The first is
“scripture,” a sacred writing, connected with “script,”
a system of writing, and with “scribe,” one who knows the
art of writing, and in Jewish religion, a teacher of the law.
The other is “clerk,” another word for one who can
write, but originally also the word for a priest or clergy¬
man.
The needs of merchants trading on an ever-wider scale
did something to break down this exclusiveness, which Over the centuries mcm has devised
many systems of writing, ranging from
was characteristic of most ancient societies (apart from simple pictorial symbols to the most
Greece and Rome) and of Europe during the Middle elaborate scripts. In most countries
Ages. The desires of scholars, the lineal descendants of complicated scripts were long ago
superseded by the simpler, more
priests, for a wider audience for their writings as scholar¬ efficient Roman alphabet; in others
ship broadened out into literature also helped the spread such as China the change is actually
taking place today. But because the
of literacy, as did the development of printing. But it is
Roman alphabet, in its turn, is far from
only in our time that the knowledge of writing and perfect, educators continue to experi¬
reading has become everywhere accepted as the birth¬ ment with ecisier-to-learn scripts that
could speed the process of primary
right of all of us. In this chapter we tell the story of the education and help solve the urgent
development of writing and the spread of literacy. world problem of adult illiteracy.

106
iffV">

An aborigine from Central Australia chants a
magic formula over a rock painting. Like the
prehistoric cave artists, the Australian aborigines
possess no form of writing; but they paint elaborate
and colorful pictures for use in magic ritual.
Two examples of picture writing. Above: the Aztec
god Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), from the
Codex Borgia in the Vatican Library. Below:
the Phaistos Disk, a terra-cotta tablet of about
1700 B.C., found on Crete, inscribed with picture
symbols in an unknown script.
The dawn of writing
We do not know when and how writing began. What we
do know is that men were already writing some centuries
before 3000 b.c., for clay tablets written at around that
date by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia have come down
to us. But even this earliest known writing must have
developed slowly and gradually.
Two things were needed for its development. The first
need was some experience in drawing, since in its earliest
forms Sumerian writing was purely pictorial. The second
was the idea that lies behind all writing, the idea of com¬
municating with someone who is not there to receive the
message by word of mouth.
There is plenty of evidence that man could draw and
paint often very skilfully long before he could write.
The wonderful animal pictures found in caves in north¬
eastern Spain and southwestern France were painted
20,000 or more years ago. But most of them are deep in
the caves, and it seems probable that their purpose was to
invoke the aid of the gods for success in hunting rather
than to communicate with other men pp. 96 7 .
Australian aborigines and other primitive peoples
living today also make animal drawings that they
believe have magic powers. And like the prehistoric cave
artists, these peoples have no form of writing. But they
have developed ways of sending messages, from which we
assume that early men probably had similar means
of communication before the invention of writing systems.
Since many of these primitive methods use such perishable
materials as wood or bark, it is not surprising that no
very ancient examples of message devices have been
found.
One very common device is the notched stick, which
has been used all over the world, and is still in use in
some places, including country districts of France.
It is suitable above all for counting and recording
numbers. Robinson Crusoe, the castaway hero of Daniel
Defoe’s famous story, used one for counting days. He
described it in these words: “Upon the Sides of this
square Post I cut every Day a Notch with my Knife, and
every seventh Notch was as long again as the rest, and
every first Day of the Month as long again as that one,
and thus I kept my Kalendar.” When the notched stick is
used for sending messages, the notches are cut in the
presence of the messenger, for whom each notch empha¬
sizes part of what he has to say. The drawback here is
that, if the messenger forgets his message, he cannot
“read” it out of the notches. He is as helpless as someone
w ho has knotted a handkerchief and then forgotten wh\.
Knotted strings to count numbers or record events is
basically as simple as cutting notches in sticks. The Incas

A map made by Marshall Islanders in the West Pacific to
record information needed for navigation when sailing
between the islands. The shells represent islands; each
curved or diagonal bamboo stick on the rectangular
framework represents an area of ocean swell.
Part of a love-letter drawn by a girl of the Yukaghir tribe
in Siberia. The right-hand arrow represents the girl, the
left-hand arrow stands for her sweetheart. All we see of
his house is the roof to show that it is far away. The girl's
house has crossed beams, which signify sorrow. Below:
bill made out by an illiterate English bricklayer about
1830. It reads: “Two men and a boy, three-quarters of a
day, two hods of mortar, ten shillings and tenpence."
The picture of the hanged man means “account settled."
of Peru, who had no proper writing, developed a compli¬
cated knot-message, system in their famous cjuipu. This
was a set of cords of different lengths, thicknesses, and
colors, which were knotted in special ways. The quipu
was mainly used for keeping records; but it could also be
used to carry news or instructions.
Among many other examples of devices for sending
messages are the cowrie shells that the Jebu of Nigeria
string together in different ways to give different mean¬
ings, and the Red Indian wampum. This consisted of
beads of different colors strung on cords, which were
sometimes sewn onto belts. As with picture writing, the
patterns formed by the beads often represented things in
a direct, pictorial way.
None of these devices led directly to writing, of course.
Still, they show that men have always been eager to find
ways to record information and send messages. And
doubtless it was partly dissatisfaction with devices that
are basically only aids to memory, combined with skill in
drawing, that led men to invent writing.
Picture writing (or pictography), which is the first
stage of true writing, consists of drawings displayed one
after another to form a narrative, or a chain of ideas. The
pictures themselves are simple, and show clearly what
they represent a man, a fish, a mountain, or whatever
the subject is. They do not represent exact words. A
drawing of a dog, for example, can be thought of as
“dog,” “hound,” “cur,” or any other similar term.
Unlike words, a picture is too blunt an instrument to
carry such fine shades of meaning.
A pictograph is made up of chains or sequences of
drawings that, like sentences, must convey sequences of
ideas. Thus, once a society has reached the stage of
pictography, it has achieved true writing, and has the
means of recording and communicating connected
thoughts. Many prehistoric peoples in Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America used pictography; and it is still in
use in Central Africa, Siberia, and elsewhere.

These stone and ivory seals, relics of the Indus
Valley civilization (about 2500 B.C.), are in¬
scribed with characters that are midway between
pictures and ideographic symbols. The script has
not yet been deciphered.
A Sumerian tablet of the late fourth millennium
B.C., inscribed with pictographic symbols. The
script is the ancestor of cuneiform (see text), and
probably represents the earliest systematic
writing in the world.
Pictures into symbols
In pictography, the simplest kind of writing, each picture
means what it represents and no more. It follows that an
abstract idea—like “light” or “heat” cannot be con¬
veyed pictographically. But abstract ideas can be
communicated by another method called ideography.
Ideography extends greatly the possibilities of pic¬
tography. Pictures are still used, but they can stand not
only for the thing they show, but also for ideas associated
with that thing. The modern road sign that shows a
railway engine in order to warn drivers that they are
approaching a rail crossing is ideographic. Naturally, an
ideographic symbol can still carry a literal meaning if
necessary: A drawing of the sun can mean simply “sun,”
even though at other times it can also mean “day,”
“light,” or “heat.”
Ideography does not convey particular sounds, nor
even particular words. But if a language has only one
word for any given idea, then the ideogram, or symbol
representing the idea, will be linked exclusively with that
word, and may in time be connected with the sound of
the word. When this happens, and the symbol is then
used to represent the same sound in different words, the
symbol is no longer ideographic but phonetic Greek
phone, sound).
Some scripts have been found, in all continents but
Europe, that are purely ideographic and have no phonetic
symbols. But the most important scripts include phonetic
elements. These scripts, based on ideography, are com¬
monly called “ideographic,” although they are really a
stage between ideography and pure phonetic writing.
Because of this, they have also been called “transitional
scripts”; but “transitional” is a misleading expression for
scripts that in fact lasted more than 3000 years. Even the
modern technical term analytic (indicating that the basic
units are words does not clearly describe their nature.
The oldest analytic script is Sumerian. In southern
Mesopotamia, more than 5000 years ago, the Sumerians
developed first pictography, then an ideography with
some phoneticism. The Sumerian scribes produced a
style that used short, wedge-shaped lines, pressed into the
surface of wet clay tablets. This style is usually called
cuneiform (Latin cuneus, wedge . Both script and style of
writing spread to almost all the major peoples of the
ancient Near East, including the Babylonians, Assyrians,
Visitors to the tombs at Thebes, Egypt, are shown
wall paintings and hieroglyphic inscriptions such
as those seen here. The early hieroglyphic script
(which dates from the early third millennium B.C.)
consisted of ideograms, which were later sup¬
plemented by phonetic symbols.

Illiteracy would be no excuse for taking the wrong route
at this Indian crossroads, for the visual symbols on the
signpost clearly indicate the roads for car- and camel-
drivers respectively.
The push-button controls on a car dashboard, identified
by ideographic symbols that can be “read” by people o]
any nationality. They represent windscreen washer and
wiper, parking lights, and headlights.
Elamites, Hittites, and Persians. Other analytic scripts,
like the Mayan and Aztec scripts of Central America and
Mexico, were less developed or, like the script of the
Lolos, a hill people of southwest China, less widespread.
Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic (the
oldest surviving examples of which date from about 2900
b.c. ) are the earliest complete systems of writing known
to us. The oldest known specimens of Chinese writing
come from the 15th century b.c. By then Chinese was
mainly ideographic, with some phonetic elements. We
know nothing of its earlier history. There is no essential
difference between the character of this earliest known
Chinese writing and that of the modern Chinese script,
although they look very different. The changes in the
symbols’ appearance are mainly due to the invention of
a special ink-brush, about the third century b.c.
How successful were these complicated analytic scripts
as means of communication? In all ideographic scripts
there is a tendency toward confusion because the symbols
used have too many possible meanings. This is unavoid¬
able, since to have a different symbol for every idea would
make the system unmanageable. To counteract this,
other explanatory symbols called determinatives are
written beside an ideogram whose meaning may be
ambiguous. Cuneiform script used either another
ideogram to give the general sense (for example, an
ideogram meaning “deity” beside the name of a particu¬
lar god) or a phonetic sign to give the last syllable of the
word intended. Egyptian almost always used one or
other of these devices, or else added signs to represent the
sound of the whole word. Chinese most often pairs signs
in what is known as the hsing-sheng method one sign
gives phonetically the general sound needed, while the other
gives ideographic ally the general sense. For example, k'o
(“river”) is written ko (“fruit”) f shui (“water”).
Compound ideograms are also formed in these scripts
by writing two or more characters together, so that their
combined meaning is different from what they mean
separately. Thus in Sumerian “mountain” + “woman”
means “slave girl.” Chinese also does this a great deal; for
instance, “hear” + “door” “listen,” and “woman” +
“woman” — “quarrel.”
These devices, however, are cumbersome and strain
the memory. Of the 50,000 80,000 characters that have
been used at one time or another in Chinese writing,
8000 are still in use, and up to 1000 of these are needed
for a basic reading knowledge of the language. To wipe
out mass illiteracy and take her place in the modern
world, China is being forced to change her ideography
for a more efficient, phonetic system p. 121 .
Examples of the international road signs used in
most Western European countries. They carry
visual symbols that can be understood at a glance,
without knowledge of the local language
(“Camping allowed” “Beware—children/” “No
overtaking” “River bank or quay”). Ill
Symbols for sounds

When men began to use symbols to record the sounds of

words, rather than to represent objects or thoughts, they
took a big step toward the invention of a really efficient
way of recording information. Phonetic writing, the
written record of sounds, is simpler and more practical
than ideography (p. no) because it does not need a
different symbol for each object or idea.
In phonetic systems, as in shorthand, there is no neces¬
sary connection between the shape of a symbol and its
meaning. Thus, the sounds represented have a meaning
only if the reader can assemble them to make words he
understands. It is not difficult, for instance, for a foreigner
to learn the Russian alphabet, and then to read a Russian
sentence aloud without making mistakes in pronuncia¬
tion. But the sounds remain meaningless until he learns
the language.
Some scripts, as we have seen, are partly phonetic,
partly ideographic. A mixed script of this kind is pre¬
served in modern Japanese a highly complicated script
containing some 2000 characters. It began between 300
and 400 a.d., when the Japanese, who had no writing of
their own, adopted the Chinese script. The characters
they borrowed were ideographic, not phonetic. But some¬
times they used a Chinese character in order to write
down a Japanese word that sounded much the same but
had a different meaning from the original Chinese. This
resulted in a kind of patchwork written language that
was-confusing. In order to make the meaning of such
words clear, the Japanese had to introduce an extra sys¬
tem of phonetic symbols that were used together with
the ideographs, so as to guide the reader toward the
proper meaning. These extra symbols were syllabic, that
is to say they represented the sound of a whole syllable of
a word. Here we have a system that bridges the gap
between ideographs and fully phonetic writing but only
at the cost of complication. The curious thing is that it
should have happened so recently, because as we shall
see, purely syllabic scripts had been invented in other
parts of the world many centuries earlier.
In 1900 archaeologists discovered a strange script in
the ruins of the great palace at Knossos in Crete; further
specimens were later found on the Greek mainland. The
script, which dated from about the 15th century b.c.,
was given the name “Linear B.” It was not until 1952
that it was deciphered and found to be a syllabic script
for the early Greek language. It consisted of about 90
characters that represented either syllables, such as pa
and or vowels.
Another ancient form of writing that appears to have
been syllabic was found in 1929 in the ancient Phoenician

Discoveries at the ancient Cretan palace of

Knossos include this painting of a young prince
and the inscriptions in Linear B (behind), a
syllabic script probably introduced by Mycenean
Greek conquerors about 1400 B.C.
A Japanese manuscript scroll, probably 17th town of Byblos. Apart from the script itself, which dates
century, of a work of fiction Boten-goku. It is
from between the 15th and 18th centuries b.c., the place
illustrated with nine water-color paintings.
name is interesting because the Greeks used it as their
word first for papyrus and later for a book written on that
material; hence also our word “Bible.”
Although such syllabic scripts are a step toward a
simpler system of writing, they are not suited to all
languages. Clusters of consonants are awkward to write
syllabically; the English word “script,” for example,
would have to be written “si-ci-ri-pi-ti.” The Greeks who
colonized Cyprus in the seventh century b.c. seem to
have struck this problem. They wrote their records in
their own language, using a syllabic script that they
apparently borrowed from the native Cypriots, but the
adaptation does not seem to have been wholly successful.
For example, the Greek word ptolin had to be written
“po-to-li-ne,” and basileus had to be written “pa-si-le-
vo-se.”
Some of these ancient systems, though largely phonetic,
were still encumbered with ideographs. But by the sixth
century b.c., the ancient Persians had developed a script,
written in the cuneiform style, in which the number of
ideographs was reduced to four. By breaking up syllables
into their separate sounds, they had also achieved a
remarkable economy of characters; no more than 36
symbols were needed, including one punctuation mark.
Many of the characters represented pure consonants.
Thus the difficulty of writing down groups of consonants
was removed, and the system came gradually closer to the
most efficient writing system of all the alphabet, on
which all Western languages depend.

Bronze tablet inscribed in the Pseudo-hieroglyphic

syllabic script, which was discovered at Byblos
(ancient Phoenicia). The script, which dates from
between the 18th and 15th centuries B.C., has not
yet been deciphered. 113
Birth of the alphabet f

From its rudimentary beginnings in pictography, writing

developed into more and more complex ideographic and
analytic systems. But the invention of phonetic systems
first syllabic and then alphabetic made writing simple
again by greatly reducing the number of symbols needed,
while gaining in flexibility. Many people live all their
lives without learning all the symbols in which their
language is written; in Japan, for instance, only about
half the total number of writing symbols can be taught in
schools. But an alphabet is so much simpler that it can be
mastered in a relatively short time.
Like all phonetic scripts, an alphabet represents only
sounds. An ideal alphabet would have a different symbol
for each sound in the language, and no symbol would
represent more than one sound. In this way, the number
of symbols needed would be cut to a minimum. For
example, a language that had 30 consonants and six
vowels would need only 36 alphabetic symbols. But if it
were written syllabically, the same language would need
30 x 6 symbols for syllables ' such as ba, be, bi, bo, bu, ca,
ce, ci, co, cu and so on) and a further six symbols for the
vowels—making a grand total of 186.
The letters of the alphabet are the bricks with which Map shows Mediterranean routes used between about
we can build any word we please. But the very simplicity 1400 and 400 B.C. by traders from Phoenicia (deep blue),
whose North Semitic script was the ancestor of all
of the alphabet made it difficult to conceive, and it is Western alphabets. A Phoenician warship of the fourth
almost certain that as an original idea it occurred only century B.C. is pictured on coin.
once: It may even have been the invention of a single
genius. From this original alphabet, invented in ancient
Palestine or Syria, came the North Semitic alphabet, a
22-letter script that was in turn the source of almost all
modern alphabets. Although most of the surviving
examples of the North Semitic alphabet date from about
the 1 ith or 10th centuries b.c., it is almost certain that it
came into being much earlier. In the 15th and 14th
centuries b.c., the people of Ugarit (northern Syria were
using a 32-letter alphabet that was probably adapted
from the North Semitic.
We have even earlier examples of writing from the
same part of the world that suggest that the original
alphabet was already in use around 1700 b.c. Ten
different characters of a script known as Early Canaanite,
which seems to have been an alphabet, have been found
on a fragment of pottery, a plaque, and a dagger, all of
which belong to the 18th or 17th centuries b.c. And some
of these Early Canaanite characters appear again in
another form of alphabet writing that was used in the
region of Sinai two or three hundred years later.
The idea for the first alphabet may have come from
the use of phonetic symbols in ideographic scripts. Who¬
ever invented it certainly knew Egyptian writings, for

1. Fragmentary Early Hebrew ABC. of late ninth or early eighth

century B.C..from Lachish (South Palestine). 2. Tablet of 14th century
B.C.. showing the 32-letter Ugaritic alphabet. 3. Early Canaanite
inscription of the 13th century B.C.. from Lachish. 4. Tablet of the
seventh or eighth century B.C. engraved with earliest extant Etruscan
alphabet (p. 116). Etruscan was nearly always written from right to left.

A group of Ghanaian women and children learn how to
read their native language, which is written in a slightly
modified version of the Latin alphabet. The letter shapes
on their charts are associated with a picture, to make
them easier to remember.
Egyptian trading posts were scattered throughout
Palestine and Syria. In fact, some of the letters they chose
were similar in appearance to Egyptian pictographs;
the vital difference was that all of them stood for separate
consonants and not for whole words or consonants.
The North Semitic script contained no vowels, but
could nonetheless be understood because of the nature
of Semitic languages. In these languages words are made
up primarily of three consonants, which form the root
and do not change, and vowels, which by changing
indicate grammatical relationships. In modern Hebrew,
for example, k-t-b (the whole idea of writing! becomes
ktlb (he writesi, katnb (he has written), 'k-fb (I shall
write , and so forth. The reader recognizes a word by the
fixed consonantal root which is written), but has to
supply himself from the context the unwritten vowels.
In most non-Semitic languages, however, words are
identified by a combination of consonants and vowels,
and both must be written to make sense.
The basic idea of the alphabet has never changed, al¬
though alterations such as the addition of vowel sym¬
bols have been made to suit other languages. Indeed,
the first changes in the alphabet were simply changes in
the manner of writing. Individual scribes used different
methods, according to their own convenience and the
materials they happened to have at hand.
In this way, the appearance of the letters changed
rapidly. And soon the North Semitic alphabet was being
written in two distinct styles: the Canaanite, which
spread to the West; and the Aramaic, which moved east¬
ward. By the seventh century b.c., the Aramaic alphabet
had actually reached India, where it was transformed into
the Brahmi script. In the hands of different Indian-
language groups, it crystallized into some two hundred
other scripts, the majority of which are very much alive in
modern India (p. 122). Among the many other descend¬
ants of Aramaic writing are Armenian, Georgian,
Avesta (the script of the sacred scriptures of the ancient
Persians), Mongolian, Arabic, Syriac, and Square
Hebrew (the ancestor of modern Hebrew).
The Hebrew Bible was originally written not in Square
Hebrew but in Early Hebrew (a branch of Canaanite),
which fell into disuse after the sixth century b.c. Another
form of Canaanite that used by the Phoenicians was
carried all over the southern and western Mediterranean
countries by Phoenician traders and travelers. Around
the 10th or ninth century b.c. a still earlier form of
Canaanite was adopted and transformed by the Creeks.
Through their agency it became the basis of all modern
European alphabets.
Left: 18th-century horn-book, of the type used in English schools for
over three hundred years for teaching the alphabet to children. The
ancient Etruscan tablet at the foot of page 114 may have been used for
the same purpose. Above: two modern examples of alphabet teaching-
aids, which take the form of toys designed to make the very young
familiar with letters before they start going to school.
Alphabets conquer the world

The alphabet is the best system of writing that man has

invented, so it is not surprising that wherever one or
other of its forms has been introduced it has replaced
other kinds of writing. Let us look briefly at the develop¬
ment of some of the world’s most important alphabets.
In the second century b.c., an Arabic-speaking tribe
called the Nabateans ruled over the peoples who lived
to the south and southeast of Palestine. The Nabateans Left: Batak divination book written on bark part of
adopted the Aramaic alphabet, which then spread across the divination table for the 30 days of the month.
Above: Alamkaraparisekara, a manuscript book of
their kingdom. After the break-up of the Nabatean about 1800 written in the Devandgari script and the
kingdom in the fourth century a.d., the North Arabian Sanskrit language.
people split into nomadic, warring groups. Then in the
seventh century they united under the banner of a new
religion, Islam, and began to spill out of their own infertile
lands to make conquests and converts. Within some 80
years, they had built an empire that included Palestine,
Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, North Africa, and most of
what is now Spain and Portugal.
But the Arabic script that made it possible for Moslem
leaders to communicate with one another and to ad¬
minister their vast new empire, had already lost much of
its resemblance to the Nabataean alphabet from which
it had sprung. Some two or three centuries earlier,
six new letters had been introduced to represent dis¬
tinctively Arabic sounds, and the order of the letters had
been changed. Boys of the Sulu Islands, southwest Philippines, study
In the eighth- to 10th-century Moslem academies the Koran. The Moslem religion and the Arabic script
were carried there about six centuries ago by Arab
then the world’s most brilliant centers of learning—men traders and missionaries. Below: ninth-century dish
translated and copied the hundreds of ancient manu¬ decorated with a line of verse written in Kufic script.
scripts that were collected at the commands of successive Foot of page: verses from 13th-century Koran, in Naskhi
script (see text).
caliphs. The scribes who worked in the cities of Mecca
and Medina developed a free, flowing hand (called
Naskhi' that was to branch out into all modern styles of
Arabic writing; others, in Basra and Kufa, used a heavier
and relatively short-lived script known as Kufic.
The Arabic alphabet was at first spread mainly by
conquest. Much more peaceful was the movement of
Brahmi p. 115 , and the scripts derived from it, eastward
from India. These descendants of the Brahmi alphabet,
which took root in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Indo-
China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, were also a result
of the spreading of a religion Buddhism but this

116 JL
? >

m
9 L’f. rc
.Hi '.s-iV’ ks
time they were carried by missionaries, not armies.
In the case of the Indian scripts the absence of symbols
for vowel sounds that did not follow any regular pattern,
as in the Semitic tongues, eventually caused a relapse
into syllabic writing. But the Greeks recognized and
overcame this problem at an early stage by transforming
into vowels five Semitic consonants whose sounds were
not needed for Greek. They invented four new letters for
sounds that did not exist in Semitic, and they changed the
Semitic letter names slightly. For example, the Semitic A,
B, and C aleph, beth, and gimel became the Greek
alpha, beta, and gamma. And, of course, the word “alpha¬
bet” comes from the first two Greek letters.
By 600 b.c., the Greek form of the alphabet had spread
through the many Greek colonies that were scattered
around the Mediterranean coast. It was transformed into
Lydian, Lycian, Carian, and Phrygian in Asia Minor;
Coptic in Egypt; and Messapian in Italy. The Greek
alphabet also inspired the Gothic alphabet, invented by
Ulfilas in the fourth century a.d., and the 43-letter
script invented by St. Cyril in the ninth century a.d. The
Cyrillic alphabet became, in turn, the basis of the
scripts of those parts of Europe that adopted the Greek
Orthodox faith, including Russia, White Russia, the
Ukraine, Serbia, and Bulgaria. But the form of Greek
writing that was to prove most important in the Western
world was that used by the people of Tuscany in central
Italy from the eighth century b.c. onwards.
The original Etruscan alphabet apparently consisted
of the 22 North Semitic letters in the same order, followed
by the four new Greek letters. Within a century, this
version had been adopted by the Romans. But in passing
from one people to another, it had already lost something
of its efficiency. For example, in Greek the letter C
(gamma) represented the sound g. However, the
Etruscans pronounced C sometimes as g and sometimes
as k, which meant that they had two letters for the
sound k. The Romans, finding they needed to write down
the sound g, invented a new letter G, or C with a bar
instead of restoring the C to its original phonetic value.
The Romans tacked T and £ on at the end of the
alphabet in the first century b.c. in order to make it
easier to transliterate Greek words into Latin. The classical
Latin alphabet was then almost exactly the same as the
alphabet we use today; the only later additions that
survived were [/, W, and J. These letters, transformed
from / and V were added in the Middle Ages.
Let us now see how the knowledge of this alphabet and
t«^i m . ff nc Mil miir. ti ka
the arts of reading and writing were preserved and
popularized in the West.
ZiKfAH . AfiffHiMNnr • wcm*; rni.
1. Gold brooch of seventh century B.C., with earliest extant Latin in¬ itoBHHiiA/w,nA«rTit ru/KiMH &**
scription (right to left “Marius made me for Numasius”)• 2. Roman T1H ;
monumental script of first century A.D. 3. Runes (ancient script of North HHTMI<M<TUH<T jfyu. iffy cSi lt!pcuc •
Germanic tribes) inscribed on eighth-century Northumbrian casket.
4. Stone engraved with oghams—system of writing used by British e • TAl«H BIK e ntA<1ABHAHT«t'6ifij,
Celts in fifth and sixth centuries. 5. Bilingual Ms (in Romanian-Cyrillic
and Greek minuscule). Gospels written in 1429 by a monk, Gabriel.
r vb4\ju . MKHimfiHA<«<oc\
JLtHJLfiK(fi’l<*£'CHEr<KJLATl * ft*'
. - ' _J I _*•_ . Oldi icyDlMJHI tVJUMTTU .

Ancient Egyptian writing instruments (right) were used
only by priests and rulers. In ancient Greece and Rome,
most children were taught reading and writing. Left:
A thenian girl reading a scroll, from a vase-painting of the
fifth century B.C.
Writing and reading
The ability to read and write was far more common in
ancient Greece and Rome than it was in Europe in the
Middle Ages. After the collapse of the Western Roman
Empire in the fifth century a.d., writing was hardly
known outside the Church.
From the sixth to the 12th centuries, most European
books were made and used in monasteries. Monastic
scribes ensured the survival of learning in the West by
copying out not only religious texts but also the works
of Greek and Roman authors. Clergymen who owed
their education entirely to the Church filled the
professions. In a typical European community the only
school was the church school, which was reserved for
boys who were to become priests.
By the beginning of the 13th century, the revival of
trade was increasing both the prosperity and the influence
of the merchant class. Rich merchants founded schools
where boys could train for the world of commerce or for
such professions as the law. Scribes, working in the new
universities, produced books not only for academic use
but also for well-to-do citizens. In this way, literacy the
knowledge of reading and writing slowly began to
spread beyond the Church. But because books were
hand-copied they were still rare, expensive, and inac¬
curate.
The invention of movable-type printing in Europe in
the 15th century p. 126 suddenly made it possible for
hundreds of books to be produced comparatively quickly
and cheaply. By the early 16th century, almost every
major city in Europe had a printing press of its own.
On the other hand, there was hardly any stimulus or
opportunity for learning to read and write in the rural
areas, where the vast majority of people lived. Few
country-dwellers had any education except oral instruc¬
tion in the Christian faith. Church services were con¬
ducted entirely in Latin, and did nothing to spur people
on toward literacy. In 16th-century England, however,
there was a certain extension of literacy as a result of
Henry VIITs break with the Church of Rome. The
Gospels were read in English for the first time a
revolutionary event that inspired many English people to
learn to read the Bible for themselves.
From the t 8th century onward, the story of literacy
in Western Europe is closely connected with the growth
of industrialization. But in its early stages industrializa¬
tion did little to promote the knowledge of reading and
writing. The thousands of people who left the country¬
side to swell the population of the new factory towns in
the late 18th and early 19th centuries found nothing but
backbreaking work at starvation wages. Most children
Page from the Lindisfante Gospels, an Anglo-
Saxon illuminated Ms of about 700 A.D.
Monasteries, where scribes made such magnificent
copies of religious texts, remained almost the
only centers of literacy and learning in Europe
until the 13th century.
 were also engaged in full-time work, for there were no
laws to prevent it. Newly rich factory owners, who were
afraid of losing such cheap labor, blandly argued that to
educate the working classes was unnecessary, and even
harmful.
A test given in 1837 to 2000 English children working
in factories showed that over half of them could not
read at all. And the ignorance of children in other jobs,
particularly in coal mining, was far worse. Similarly over
750o of Italy’s population was illiterate in i860; by 1950
the overall figure had dropped to io-i5°0, but the
greatest decline look place in the industrial north.
The arrival of mass literacy in Europe and North
America was a direct result of the free and compulsory
education that was already well established in most
countries by the late 19th century. Industrialization
supplied the foundation for these developments by in¬
creasing the national wealth, so that the lowest illiteracy
rates arc now found in highly industrialized societies. One
third of the people of France, for example, could not
read or write in 1872; today the illiteracy rate is under
three per cent.
Since the turn of this century, industry has been playing
a vital role in the spread of literacy by making it possible
to build hundreds of well-equipped schools and to mass-
produce textbooks, visual aids, and other new teaching
materials. In the West almost everyone now gets the
chance to learn to read and write. But the fact remains
that there are millions of people elsewhere in the modern
world who are desperately handicapped because they are
illiterate unable either to communicate or to learn by
the written word.
A Parisian apartment house, 1845. As the drawing shows,
life was hard for most people in the newly industrialized
cities. Many lived below the poverty line; it was only the
leisured minority who had the opportunity of learning to
read and write,

Below: These Algerians, nominated for election to posi¬

tions of authority in the flour mill where they work, are
identified by numbers because their fellow workers cannot
read or write. Elections present the same problem in India,
Ghana, and many other developing countries.

Like these Nigerian women arriving at the
schoolroom, many adults in developing countries
are now receiving lessons in reading and writing
for the first time. Adult education schemes are
an essential part of the fight against illiteracy.
World campaign against illiteracy
Even today, writing remains a secret to 700 million
adults. According to the world survey made by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organiza¬
tion ( UNESCO at mid-century, two adults out of every
five are unable to read or write.
Adult illiteracy is highest in underdeveloped countries
like Indonesia, India, and parts of Africa, where primary
education is not yet compulsory. In Ghana, Haiti, the
Sudan, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Iran, Afghanis¬
tan, Saudi Arabia, and the Yemen, for example, the
illiteracy rates range from 80 to 95 per cent.
To people in such countries, illiteracy means far more
than the inability to read a book or to write a letter: It
means undernourishment, poverty, and disease. In such
circumstances, survival and progress depend largely on
the introduction of modern technological methods and
yet such methods can be mastered only by people who
have already learned to read and write.
In planning a mass literacy campaign, the educators’
first step is to decide on the language that will be used as
the medium of instruction. Naturally the most effective
medium is the mother tongue of the pupil. But in many
underdeveloped regions, a great number of different
languages are spoken. In Africa, for instance, there are at
least 369 different tongues. Before any general reduction
in illiteracy can be achieved in such countries, the
educators must prepare and produce textbooks in every
Adult illiterates are attracted to reading and
writing classes by means of posters like this one,
from Teheran, Iran. It uses a simple picture story
to show how such education might help a shop¬
keeper to improve his working conditions and
increase his trade.

Airplanes dropped leaflets over Liberian villages to
advertise the mass literacy campaign launched by the
government in 1951. Scripts for Liberia's 26 different
tribal languages were specially devised by America's
world literacy expert Dr. Frank Laubach.
(Left to right): front cover of a Burmese reader designed
for new literates; a poster produced in Russia to publicize
the mammoth literacy campaign of the 1920s; a stamp
from Ecuador, issued in 1952 to support a campaign
that was directed specially at the Indians in remote
Andean villages.
/VIVA LA REVOLUCION SOCIALISTA^
VlGILANCIA
PRODUCCION
Alfabetizacion\
single language a costly and laborious job. To save time
and money, the mother tongue is sometimes used only in
the initial period of instruction, as a bridge to a second
language that is more widely spoken.
The second step in a mass literacy campaign is to
decide on the script that will be taught. In many illiterate
groups (for example, the Moro tribes in the Philippines),
educators have found that no written form of the
language exists. In other countries, such as China, the
traditional script is far too complicated to be taught in
its entirety.
In dealing with people who have no script of their own,
educators usually use a phonetic alphabet that has been
specially adapted to the group’s language, and has a
separate symbol for each sound. Key syllables and
selected words are visualized by pictures. This method,
pioneered by such teachers as the American sociologist
and missionary Frank Laubach, has already been used to
teach people of over 239 language groups in three
continents.
In China, many attempts have been made to simplify
the written language for teaching purposes. The latest
attempt a two-part plan that was recently mapped out
by a special research committee for language reform
involves radical changes in the language itself. In the first
stage of the plan (now completed) the basic 3000
ideographical characters in the Chinese script were
reduced to a syllabic script of 500. Where several
characters had the same pronunciation, only one was
selected; and the shapes of the selected characters were
simplified to make them easier to learn. In the second
stage of the scheme—even more radical a new phonetic
system of writing is being launched. If this system proves
to be practical, the traditional Chinese script will be
abandoned.
When a country’s language and script problems have
been solved, the educators can set to work. They usually
begin by holding discussions with illiterate groups to
discover their reasons for seeking instruction, and they
use this information to help them to gear their teaching
to the needs of the group. For example, in many under¬
developed countries, the first 24-lesson literacy course
incorporates lessons in hygiene or in diet.
When this stage is reached, the illiterate community
is on the highroad to social and economic progress. But
in such vast countries as India, where many different
languages and scripts are used, the initial stages alone
present a host of social, political, and organizational
problems. Flow are these problems being tackled in
India?
This poster, issued by the Revolutionary Govern¬
ment of Cuba when it came to power in 1959,
placed literacy high on the list of promised
benefits. The government estimates that its 1961
campaign reduced illiteracy from 23 6 per cent
to 3 9 per cent. 121
 Teaching India to read and write

1951 tttmtttttmi 216

million

440
1961 million

Today, India faces an illiteracy problem of gigantic Diagram shows how population growth has delayed the
proportions. She has the second biggest population in the spread of literacy in India. In 1951, 80 per cent of the total
population of 216 million was illiterate (black figures).
world 450 million and about 75 per cent of adult By 1961, although illiteracy had been reduced to 76 per
Indians are unable to read and write. The root of the cent, the population had doubled, and so the total number
of illiterates had increased.
problem lies in the fact that primary education was
traditionally restricted to a tiny, privileged social group.
And because tradition also decreed that it was undesirable
for girls to be educated, the illiteracy rate today is far
higher among women than among men. Only about
eight per cent of the country’s female population is
literate.
Most of India’s population is still dispersed in strug¬
gling agricultural communities. Living in small, isolated
villages, people have virtually no contact with the
outside world. Economically, their isolation has meant
continuing poverty; politically, it means that they have
little or no sense of India’s national unity. And illiteracy
is much higher in rural areas than in the towns.
In order to improve conditions in the villages, the
Indian government launched a comprehensive social-
education scheme in 1951. For the purpose of this scheme,
selected rural areas were divided into “community
blocks.” Each block, which contained about a hundred
villages, was put under the supervision of two specially
trained organizers.
Literacy classes were only a part of this ambitious
scheme. In addition, organizations were formed within
each community to educate people in citizenship, and
libraries and reading rooms were opened. By 1959 the
scheme covered some 180 million people in 360,000
villages. There were about 29,000 literacy classes for
adults, and 40,000 part-time literacy teachers, who had
been recruited from the staff of local primary schools'.
The educators had to face extraordinary problems in
choosing the language and script that would be taught,
for India’s illiterates speak about a hundred different
tongues. And since the only effective medium for instruc¬
tion is the pupil’s own language, each Indian state was
bound to provide oral teaching and textbooks in its own
tongue. Such books are now available in most but not
in all Indian states.

A group of city children receive a meal at a social welfare

center. Educating India's villagers {82 per cent of the
population) is the first step toward teaching them modern
methods of food production, which will make famine a
122 thing of the past.

The emblem on the gateway of Literacy Village, the
teachers' training school that is operated by the India
Literacy Board at Lucknow in northern India. On com¬
pleting their course, the new teachers go into village homes
to teach families to read and write by the flickering light
of oil lamps.
Children tn Ramnagar, North India, watch their fathers
learning to read and write at an evening class in the local
school. The class teacher and equipment are provided
by the government under the social education scheme.
The school, which was built by the community itself is the
first in the village.
An English lecture at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.
The Indian government, having intended to drop English
as cm official language in 1965, has now realized that it
is indispensable. English continues as an associate official
language; and it is still studied at all 40 Indian universities.
Similarly, there are several different ways of writing
down most Indian languages p.' 115 . Thus, each state
has to decide which one of its scripts is the most suitable
for teaching purposes.
India’s illiteracy problems do not end here, for the
cost of running the social-education program is enor¬
mous. Modern teaching materials such as film strips and
wall charts are essential if large numbers of illiterates are
to be attracted to literacy classes; and such materials
arc scarce. Constant supplies of easy-to-read literature
are also needed for new literates, who naturally tend to
lose their skills if they do not keep in practice.
UNESCO continues to lead the way, not only by
providing funds, but also by making available the results
of its research into teaching methods. Recent UNESCO
projects include the establishment of a national funda¬
mental-education center near Delhi, the contribution of
funds toward the production of reading materials for
new literates, and the organization of an experimental
training school for literacy teachers in the state of
Mysore. In addition to such schemes, useful work is
being done by such voluntary organizations as the India
Literacy Board, which runs a special training school for
literacy teachers at Lucknow.
While the Indian Government tackles the enormous
legacy of adult ignorance, it also looks to the future.
Primary education is already free in every Indian state;
the government now seeks to make such education com¬
pulsory for all children in the six to 11 age group. By the
end of its current Five Year Plan > 1966 , all children,
including girls, in this age group should be in school.
Between the years 1901 and 1930 the total rise in India’s
literacy rate was only three per cent. Today, in spite of
lack of funds, lack of trained teachers, lack of textbooks,
and traditional prejudice, India’s literacy rate is rising
by about one per cent a year.
In future, the well-educated Indian will probably
speak three languages. As well as the language of his own
region, he will speak the new official federal language,
Hindi, which will give him a political and social link
with the people of every other part of the country. But if,
for instance, he wants to study scientific textbooks, he
will still have to learn a European language, for relatively
few translations of such works arc likely to be available in
Hindi. And for communication with the world outside
India he will also need other languages. His natural first
choice is English, both because of India’s history and
because English is the most widely used language of all.
And before he can learn English or other European
languages, he will have to master the Western alphabet.
123
Is our alphabet good enough ?

When we learn to read and write in our own language we

already know how to speak, and the pronunciation of
words is fixed in our minds. Spelling follows later, and we
learn without too much difficulty to relate the spelling
of a word to the way that we have already become used
to pronouncing it. In other words, we take the spelling
for granted. But if we stop to consider the matter more
closely, we find that the alphabet that we use is far from
satisfactory, and that there are certain words whose
spelling bears very little relation to the way we pro¬
nounce them. These discrepancies occur in every
Unsuccessful attempts to reform English spelling include
European language, but most of all in English. Alexander Ellis's complicated 19th-century system {left).
As we have seen, our alphabet is still essentially the American spelling was successfully simplified in the 1780s
by Noah Webster (right).
same one that we inherited from the Romans, who
borrowed it from the Greeks, who in turn adapted it from
the Semites. If we look at the Roman alphabet, it appears
to be fairly well suited to Latin as it is pronounced in
schools and used in church services. But we must remem¬ LADIES! GIANT GIVEAWAY i*
ber that we do not know exactly how the ancient Romans FREE DISHES TONITE
pronounced their language. Even Italian, which more
COME AND GET ’EM
than any other language we would expect to resemble
Latin, has pronunciations for which the Roman alphabet ALSO 2 BIG FEATURES
has provided no letters. For example, there was no Latin ALSO 3 SHORT SUBJECTS
letter for the sound sh. In Italian this sound is represented ’.V *V.\ .V/.

by sc (before e or i) or sci (before a consonant or a, 0, u ). In

French it is ch, in German sch, plain 5 in Hungarian, and
sz in Polish. These examples show how other letters or
combinations of letters have been, so to speak, dragged Spellings like those on this American advertising sign
are still regarded as barbaric in England. Though un¬
out of their normal function in order to represent a
orthodox, they are widely used in the United States.
sound for which there was no letter in the original
Latin-derived alphabet.
But if the problem of reproducing sounds leads to
different spellings in different languages, there is also a
good deal of confusion inside any one language itself.
Take the letter c. It has two sounds in Italian: It can be LAifVE-D«i ^ mms QiA/MERynwr
used as we would pronounce k, or it can stand for ch (as in LAI£J/f-77?£L^Ti<r J*^VTRADES
“chapter”). Again, in English we have the hard 0, as in
“cat,” and the soft c, as in “century.” But we already
have letters for these sounds. Why not “A;at” and FOR SAL
“century”?
.GtTAR V7uicr~ tPA Lf nk\ /iur p
English consonants are difficult enough, but when we
tfuyAuPirALft 7ti Aabok\s|\VING^
come to vowels there is such a variety of pronunciation
untfpy^VEETHf/q PHMAmMD oke
that people of other countries have the greatest difficulty
in memorizing English words. One example will make KO/n E C □□ KlNfr EVES
GOOD FOOD KDIVE/
this clear: The combination ough is pronounced in six
F Rome LOVER ^QUVEtflR
ways—cough (koff), through (thru), bough (rhyme with
cow , rough ruff), though (tho , and thought thaut . BESTWauw NEIGHBOR-TWiltf
AND (CREAUCIU2 LITHAIsrlAN-PAINTS
We may well ask why there is such a difference |(W wopfej
between spelling and pronunciation. There are several
reasons, but we can pinpoint one cause with some

These garbled signs outside a Lithuanian shop

in Chicago were painted by an enterprising
immigrant who had learned English by ear. He
did not realize that the letters of the alphabet do
not represent identical sounds in American
124 English and in Lithuanian.
certainty: We know that the pronunciation of a single
language varies from place to place. American and
English, for example, are basically the same language,
WeJher (toirt
but the pronunciation varies not only between the two
countries, but also from one district to another inside
each country. Pronunciation also varies with the passage
tu>dae is
of time; we know that the way we speak now is in many
ways different from the speech of four or five hundred
years ago.
But while these changes in pronunciation have been
going on, the spelling has been “frozen,” mainly by two
big developments that happened several centuries ago.
One was the invention of printing, which as we shall see
(p.. 12.9 led quickly to the standardizing of spelling that
had previously been highly personal. The second develop¬
ment, stemming from the first, was the compilation of
dictionaries (p. 134 . They became the final authority
for spelling and pronunciation, although the fact that
they were compiled by scholars in the big cities meant that
they did not represent so much the language of the people
as the language of the educated classes. And so, as the
standards of spelling were spread, over the centuries, by
means of printed books and by the formal teaching of Example of the Augmented Roman alphabet—a
spelling as education developed, the written and the phonetic script, devised by Sir James Pitman
which is being tried out in English primary schools.
printed word fell into line. But ways of speaking change It enables youngsters to learn reading more
constantly; thus as time goes on the gap between speech rapidly, because it has none of the inconsistencies
and writing tends to widen, even to the point where it of ordinary spelling.

would be an advantage to invent new letters in order to

cope with changed pronunciation. AHDIOCl.il AMD Til LIOM

Improvements in communication in recent years have 1 ua K\ 6**40 * t /XV * |U

nJfJ. «d tut iv [MadtfMfl * t hi »] is a ml
s nQtvtn r*r _ . .... **Ja»«art
brought the nations of the world'closer together, whether 1
It A prtt r>
mamtm
Maslfc fce
i - * Si
«t bvm
afc«

does; ha Meals the gold TMMfa, he do**; be< “

in agreement or disagreement, and it is becoming more # /ok 11 f^t
« A * M.
6m M ’ »■doty
tka pneataaaaa, be docs - jrshl [I ~
*;<***
a pi
important that nations should understand one another’s SNo o#ftq f*n * a. « ImsteMn _
>c. Oor Lord was b<
tfA.MfXA.<o«*/yptr\\
TO- Vfi » ft 1 rerfled. T my wsy to hamn. F.wry auityi
ways of life and viewpoints. To be able to read a foreign m 1 NW. * ma rf jMi. pi IMS to haven, no natter what he’ll dank Hat
t P'MWl ■ so, not k, bother*
language is a good first step, but even better is to be able fcMW/xn. ah d Wo jod I nfrt, 7
*1 rn 14* 7 4ml * to n
CSNTDRIOH. Well, if youre going to baeata, /
dot* want to go than. I wouldnl bs somi with

to speak it. Yet, the fact that speech and writing are by tttftvcri |it ml pvfttftf t mf
•AiywJJ. | f t «*+*«»-

no means the same thing puts obstacles in the way of 1

fcxftwwv H to. n« to * h. Jo, tl
fc /tU trf UI cyrt* n pr.
OAlWcrf p -JiMfifSl v» HA 11¥> ft*
learning foreign languages. International communica¬ 4U Vrt tort, tV taj.
Axfiri [Jroo twt pi fxl 37 k p/]
MtPlJodrim.iiA.v.
tion would be furthered if we could all agree firstly to wlgrt Mint Ort, f Mi
trl ti (lVw> tart.
use the same letters to represent the same sounds, in 7>-t
cv Inf
whatever language, and secondly to invent new letters ‘Aertnt At? / /xi /tfrrl t a? x.

to stand for the sounds that were not provided for in the
original alphabet. This “spring-cleaning” of the written
language, or Spelling Reform, is not a new idea; in fact
it was attempted by the Romans 1900 years ago, at a
time when comparatively few people were literate. Even
so, with fewer people to influence, the idea failed to
catch on. It would be very much more difficult now, in
an age of high literacy, to persuade millions of people into
changing their spelling habits.

British writer George Bernard Shaw (1856

1950), who provided for the design of a new,
more efficient alphabet under the terms of his
will. Such an alphabet was first used in a 1962
edition of Shaw's play Androcles and the Lion
(above), alongside a text in the Roman alphabet.
Chapter 6

Words in Print

One of the greatest events in the history of the Western

world was the invention of printing in the 15th century.
It had, and is still having, a momentous effect equaled
only by the later invention of the steam engine. First in
Europe and later throughout the world, printing created
means of communication that, restricted to manuscript
books, had been the privilege of a few. For the first
time in history there was no limit to the number of
copies of existing books and of new writing that could
be produced. The written word had always been a useful
tool of communication; the printed word became a
weapon that at times wielded more power than all the
armies of Europe put together.
From the 15th century onward, a flood of books,
tracts, pamphlets, treatises, and so on, both created and
helped to satisfy a new demand for literacy. Knowledge
ceased to be the monopoly of the ruling European
authorities, whether of Church or State; gradually it
became the property of all. The old saying that “know¬
ledge itself is power” began to come true in a way that its
author, Francis Bacon, the English philosopher and
Before 1455 books were rarities.
statesman (1561 16261, could hardly have foreseen. Scribes had to toil for months to pro¬
Armed with knowledge, the many began openly to duce a single volume, copying out
dispute the right of the few to rule them without consult¬ each line in elaborate script. Then, with
the introduction of movable-type
ing them. The result was the 19th-century development printing, each of Europe's new' presses
of representative democracy. In the 20th century, we suddenly began to produce as much
reading matter in a day as one copyist
are witnessing a similar advance on a world scale.
could complete in a whole year. Within
In this chapter we explore the beginnings of printing ten years, the price of books dropped
and the development and impact of the more important to a fifth. And today high-speed
printing processes make books avail¬
and influential kinds of printed matter. able to all w ho can read.

126

Above: reconstruction of the wooden printing press at
Mainz which Johann Gutenberg used for the first movable-
type printing in Europe. It was operated like a wine
press, by applying pressure with a screw. Below: early
examples of movable-type printing from China, where
the process was invented in 1041. Left: printed playing
card of about 1400. Right: printed note for 1000 “cash"
{an old Chinese coin), issued 1368 99.
The new art of printing
Printing from movable type is one of those rare great
inventions that seem so obvious and so simple once they
are made. By the mid- 15th century in Europe, all the
ingredients for printing from movable type were there
ready for a man of genius to combine them. That man,
historians are generally agreed, was Johann Gutenberg
(about 1400 68 of Mainz in Germany.
Before Gutenberg, printing was mainly used to
reproduce pictures, designs on cloth, playing cards, and
so on. The design to be printed was engraved onto a
block of wood, stone, or metal. The block was then inked
and put onto the bed of a modified wine press and
printed off onto paper, cloth, vellum, and so on. A few
complete books were printed in this way in the early
15th century. The process was slow and laborious; each
letter of every word had to be carved by hand into
page-sized blocks of wood and, of course, none of the
letters so carved could be used to make another word
in another book. Gutenberg, who was by trade a gold¬
smith, had the genius to realize that individual letters
could be cast in molds and be used and re-used in any
number of combinations.
Actually, Gutenberg’s type was not the first movable
type in the history of the world. Some 400 years earlier,
Chinese printers had made and used such type; but they
later gave up the practice probably because of the
difficulties of making and storing the enormous numbers
of characters that are used in Chinese writing (p. 111 .
It is impossible to give a precise date to Gutenberg’s
invention. We know that in 1438, after working in his
father’s coin foundry, he became a partner in a block
printing firm in Strasbourg. We know, too, that in 1444
 he returned to Mainz and set up his own press. Between
these dates he probably made his first experiments with
wood and metal type. The first book to be printed in
fiegfmapuonmtjmift movable type was Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible (so called
because most of its pages had 42 lines) of 1455. Within

iiiaa Ditto fflftfeftuenf 21 years, towns as far apart as Budapest, Lisbon, and
London had presses that used movable type.
In the beginning the printer’s aim was imitation to
produce mechanically a book that looked as much as

tu possible like a manuscript. (Gutenberg’s Bible was

illuminated by hand in order to make it conform to
readers’ ideas of what a book should be.) It was not until

6 the end of the 15th century that printers discovered the

three major principles that have governed book pro¬
duction ever since: A printed page is much easier to
read if (1) the letters are less massive than the writing
of a manuscript; (2) the page is smaller and narrower

to than the manuscript page; (3) each line of type is

“leaded,” that is, separated from its neighbors by a

u certain amount of white space.

Printing became the first mass-production industry.

m
Like other such industries, it flourished on simplification
and standardization. We find that very early on printers
f set about standardizing the spelling of words and the
punctuation of sentences. Before printing every man
spelled and punctuated as he chose; today we spell and

n
punctuate according to printers’ conventions.
Thus printing helped to accelerate the evolution of
standardized national languages, a process that the

node, © r mt tanfp general development of transport and communications

had already set in motion by the end of the Middle
Ages. Print tends to “freeze” a language, to iron out

frara teurfua nqi?;q its social and regional variations. Such variations persist
in speech: The language we speak is not the same as the
language we write and read; as a rule it is more abrupt
ijr fuo©ft Witter and less grammatically correct. In short, printing
separates the written from the spoken word a point

Fa rirt^pfirmbuC f| that will occur again in connection with poetry (p. 152).
The most revolutionary effect of the invention of

tanipluu uF^ii movable-type printing was, of course, to increase the

size of the writer’s audience. The writer could now reach

fi a public many thousands of times—indeed, over the

centuries, many billions of times larger than was
possible in the days of manuscript books. By the end of

prrojta in rafilia lufF the 15th century, it has been calculated, some nine
million copies of printed books were in existence, as
compared with the few score thousand manuscripts
lira iulftnpitrr imp which, until Gutenberg’s invention, had contained all
the recorded knowledge and wisdom of the Western
world.

A page from the Latin psalter printed on Gutenberg's

press and completed in 1457 the first book to bear the
printer's name and the place and date of production. The
two-color initials were produced from two interlocking
blocks, inked separately, re-assembled, and printed with
the text at one “pull" of the press. 129
Early printed books

When the first printers designed and printed their books

to resemble manuscripts, they were conforming to
current notions of what a book should look like. So long
as books were seen primarily as works of graphic art and
not as expressions of men’s thoughts, printed books were
bound to be regarded as inferior. Indeed, some owners
of manuscript libraries refused to admit printed books.
But books that were designed and printed to compete
with manuscripts were very expensive. Early printers
therefore had to look for their trade among men for
whom books were tools of learning rather than works
of art. In 1498 a scholar complained to the great Italian
printer Aldus Manutius (1450-1515) that he could
have bought 10 of the finest Latin manuscripts for the
price of Aldus’s five-volume folio edition of Aristotle’s
works. As a result, Aldus turned to the printing of cheap
octavo editions of classical authors. (Octavo indicates
a size one eighth that of a folio page.) This was the first
series in which great books were “reprinted.” Aldus was
exploiting the principal virtue of printing--the ability
to spread production costs over a large number of copies
of a book. And by drastically reducing the page-size,
Aldus pioneered the portable book that people could
carry around in their pockets.
Like most of the early printers, Aldus Manutius was
a scholar, deeply interested in spreading knowledge.
The outpouring from their presses of the texts of the Upper: trade-mark of the pioneer English printer William
ancient Greek and Latin writers and philosophers (many Caxton {1422 91). Lower: Caxtonpresenting the Duchess
of which had recently been brought to the West by of Burgundy with a copy of his Recuyell of the Historyes
of Ttoye—his own translation, and the first book ever to
Christians fleeing from Turkish attacks on Constan¬ be printed in the English language.
tinople) and of texts of contemporary scholars and
scientists helped to spread the Renaissance.
But it'was an age, too, of great religious fervor, and Below: three drawings of 1511 {by Germany's Albrecht
religious books continued to make up a major part of Durer) that make ironic comment on the mass-production
of printed matter. Documents churned out by the “word-
book production. We discuss early editions of the Bible smith" {left) are rapidly printed on one of the new presses
on page 132; these apart, the first recorded best-seller {center), and finally burned as waste {right).
was a religious book, Thomas k Kempis’s 1 he Imitation
of Christ. First published in 1473, it went into 99 editions,
including French and Italian translations, before the
century ended, and it is still a best-seller today.
Early printers did not confine themselves to scholarly
and religious books. The 90 books published by the first
English printer, William Caxton, included editions of
medieval English poets, translations of classical writers
like Aesop and Cicero and of popular romances, a book
on chess, handbooks of moral and social education, a
history of the world, an encyclopedia, and an almanac.
Mor^ than three quarters of Caxton’s books were printed
in English instead of in Latin or Greek.
The printing of school books, too, made teaching
easier, and the resulting growth of literacy (p. 118)
increased still further the demand for books. But here
it is impossible to separate cause and effect. The great
growth in the number of schools in Germany, England, STABILEROBVR, CASTASQVE MEMSAR, DELI
and the Low Countries during the 16th century was T1AS, ET BEAT AM ANIMI SECVR1TA
TEM C VLTORIB.M.OFFERCX
partly the result of the dissolution of the monasteries—
itself a consequence of the break with the Church of
Rome that occurred wherever the Protestant Reforma¬
tion movement was strong enough. And that movement
owed its rapid spread partly to the printed word.
Printed propaganda was a major weapon in the
religious struggles of the 16th and 17th centuries. For
instance, of the 498 German-language books and
pamphlets published in Germany in 1525, 183 were by
the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther, 215 by
other Protestants, and 20 by enemies of Luther; only 80
were on non-religious subjects. No wonder, then, that
from the beginning printing was controlled and censored
by Church and State, both of which feared the spread
of heresies and dangerous thoughts (p. 144).
The spread of printing had other important effects,
too. Throughout the Middle Ages, Latin had been the
common language of scholars, and even before 1500
three quarters of all printed matter was in Latin. A
common language has obvious advantages, and right
up to the end of the 17th century scholars and scientists
normally wrote in Latin, so that their findings could be
understood by other scholars and scientists throughout
Europe. Nevertheless, from 1500 onwards, Latin began
to lose ground. To gain a wider audience, printers and
authors had to produce books for readers who knew no
language but their native tongue. So printing helped to
Upper: A page from the 1499 edition of Francesco de
destroy the unity of European scholarship, fostered Colonna's allegorical romance Hypnerotomachia. Pub¬
feelings of nationalism (which is, in part, the sense of lished by the great Italian printer Aldus Manutius, it
was a masterpiece of typography with superb illustrations.
being different from one’s neighbors), and encouraged Lower: Aldus Manutius, from a woodcut made in 1581,
the growth of national literatures. 66 years after Aldus's death.

131
Bibles in print

The birth of printing coincided with a period of bitter
religious controversy that centered on interpretations of
the Bible. It is therefore not surprising that so many
editions of the Bible were published during the first
Martin Luther preaching, from a painting by the 16th-
century German artist Lucas Cranach. Luther's transla¬
tion of the Bible was widely circulated in Germany and
elsewhere. It ran into 430 authorized editions in his own
lifetime, apart from many pirated versions.

century of printing.
Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible opposite), the first printed
book, was a copy of the Vulgate, the official Bible of
the Church of Rome. Because it was in Latin, the Vulgate
was beyond the grasp of ordinary people. The English
reformer William Tyndale (about 1492 1536), who
translated parts of the Bible into English, spoke for all
the reformers when, arguing with a religious adversary,
he prophesied that he would cause “a boy that driveth
the plough” to know the scriptures better than his
learned opponent.
By 1500 there were 30 printed editions of the Bible in
living European languages, mostly German, compared
with 94 editions of the Latin Vulgate; and by the end
of the 16th century the people of every European nation
could read the Bible in their own tongue. These trans¬
lations broke the monopoly of the Roman Church in
religious instruction by making the Scriptures available
to everyone, for even those who could not read could
listen to those of their fellows who could.
Translations of the Scriptures also had a powerful
formative influence on living European languages,
which literate people had considered to be vulgar and
graceless compared with Latin. Since the Bible was a
sacred book, the very words in which it was written were
felt to be sacred too; and now those words were not Latin,
but German, English, Dutch, Hungarian, and so on.

A 16th-century woodcut depicting the martyrdom of the

English Protestant reformer William Tyndale (see text).
Tyndale was condemned and burned at the stake in 1536
for expressing Lutheran ideas particularly in his
132 annotated translation of the New Testament.
Thus the importance of the text gave dignity to the
language in which it was written.
Often, too, the translations were literary masterpieces
a fact that gave them a double authority, that of
sacred content and that of great prose. For instance,
Luther’s translation of the Bible (1522 34 became the
model for German prose. It was also very largely re¬
sponsible for the dominance of Luther’s dialect of
German in the German-language countries. Luther’s
dialect, indeed, becarne standard literary German
simply because he wrote in it. But in Holland the trans¬
lators of the Bible ignored Luther’s version and made
their translation in their own dialect of Low Frankish,
thereby establishing it as a separate Teutonic language
Dutch. Elsewhere in German-speaking countries, such
as Switzerland and Transylvania (now part of Romania
and Hungary), Luther’s language was closely followed
in printed Bibles, and so his German came to be accepted
as the standard for writing and printing.
Again, the English “Authorized Version” of the Bible
(1611) is one of the great literary works in the English
language. As much as the work of Shakespeare, it has
shaped English literary style and expression; indeed, its
influence can be seen in the work of living authors.
At the same time, vernacular living-language Bibles
were a tremendous spur to literacy. In an age of passion¬
A page from Johann Gutenberg's first book the 42-line
ate religious dispute and therefore of passionate
Bible which was printed in 1455. The text {St. Jerome's
religious faith men learned to read simply in order to Latin version of the Scriptures) was apparently put through
read the Bible. the press quickly to yield a rapid profit. The illuminations
were added by hand.
This influence of the Bible spread out over a much
wider field with the start of the great age of Christian
missionary enterprises in the 18th century. Today the
O
Bible, or parts of it, have been translated into more ■GK* S<*
SO*
SO
than a thousand languages, and in many of these the •OS M A M V S S E SO*
«oQ So*
Bible has, once again, been the first printed book. •oS WUNNEETUPANAT AMWft so
•OS So*
•OS SO*
Before the Bible was translated there was often no
written language at all, and translators had first to
OS
•OS
UP-BIBLUM GOD So*
so*
so*
•OS so
provide alphabets and to transcribe the spoken language •OS NANEESWE so
•OS SO
•OS SO*
into a written form. Thus the Bible has helped to create •OS
*>s NUKKONE TESTAMENT SO
so*
new written languages in many parts of the world. In •OS
•OS
so
KAH WONK so*
so doing it has incidentally had the same effect as the 40S so*
•OS
first European vernacular Bibles: It has fostered the •OS WUSKU TESTAMENT. so
so
so*
•OS SO*
growth of new literatures and the sense of nationhood •os so*
•OS so
they help to develop. •OS S<*
•OS so*
•OS so
The Bible is the most widely translated of all books. •OS Ne quofbklnnumuk naftipe Wuttinneumob RlST so*
•os i.oh aioowelit so*
Its only serious rivals are the Communist classics of
SI
•OS
SO*
so*
Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, which, in whole or in part, •OS JOHN ELIOT- so*
■OS so
now exist in many languages. And here we are back in •os So*
SO*
•OS so*
the war of ideas that seems inseparable from the very OS so
•OS so*
existence of printing. •OS so
•os CAMBRIDGE: so
•OS so
•OS SO
•os Printeuoopnaftjpe Samuel Green kah Marmadukj JJmfen, SO
•OS so
•OS so
Title page of the Bible translated into Massachusetts OS % 6 6 So*
•OS so
Indian by the 17th-century English missionary John Eliot. •OS so
OS SO
Eliot was the first to write down the language of the OS SO
Massachusetts tribe. His Bible and catechism were the OS
first books to be printed in that language.
 The spread of knowledge

The books published by the first English printer,

William Caxton (p. 131), included a history of the world,
an encyclopedia, and an almanac. Indeed, from the
'pttdxAtA spMffcr
beginning of printing, works of information were staple
fosrgiaiito W^f came govern ext
nxmKkcoumf oeepiuu diusicarcaa
cabvnop4cto*i «m bimtflwacjttcii products of the printing press. Prominent among them
*“1-'—«t6<m cofndr
were school books, which have always been among the
dto^tmb^m<Ymmmqafckf8iUj»a
C^apCTfiocapfaaaeabmlmcattd^i
5:>{fteyepcmtott96i0 rwiptfci
most profitable books to publish. Gutenberg himself
C*n®ils#p{amj#J&osrrujTi lino? ate/
_rKxfactK^.? printed no fewer than 24 editions of Donatus’s Latin
> ptsii 3ppU2aoq\n6t>irtcti.G&aSdo mai ungcio codJKntocc
L uv rccrc an$ola» iwiarar. G j£2n recta tinea k$ recti
flacrit woqjansuli mobktf facmtdftcz co^vrcrq} rm*<rir. Grammar, which had been a standard work for close on
Gltenwliiwe fcpoftameuw ferihi pp^.ean*\*xaf.<L3J*
M pfaavm q mtosmmt obmto
»Vn rectoaat*appdlaf .CZcrmto*$ qt> emuScmak^ 6ni*tCfiga ,
tr. 10 centuries; and between 1518 and 1533 one English
Afii ntq&nn',"-, < CjCircot r
p»kt*i ;aoi4’ printer alone printed 13 Latin grammars, all of which
lin«n - . - - ■ . ...tjAsal w£tb
were several times reprinted. In England in 1585 a
reading primer sold 10,000 copies within eight months.
•/ eft figura piaru reru Unca I parrr Iircfi farronf efttrax kmicirca
fRV k> quukin am maior aat nmwr.GTRrcnltnfcfisnrc fur que recti* / N . >-^ The printing of specialized works, too, flourished.
fij Hoar oci^mfcltere reenalinoacHiedam jf A \\ MftMWiw*
»V>> qeadnlarcrc^qjMCBittrfa^ * /\ \X. Vw 1 The introduction of printing had coincided not only
ftfJ qamoim»fti«i£e' / fi r^wsui au < / \ j \%V N
frttttttobflteafcnalgmttia^ --*»-\—^
cvi’iil tera t trungntoe with the rediscovery of the classical past but with new
15?/ (ftwdtwtbog mfl wfiXratfian v.. "if-l-Ti adtombb
—--tanbatxiio. 3Ua cftqctamai
geographical discoveries of the Americas and of sea
- -----^fi.atftacftre
sj^Jr'edcqsttti^s Bondi routes to the East. Not surprisingly, then, the first
3U»a <ft Wmaamir qcc eft eqtaUrora: tod rfctangola non eft.

i
0m
A page from the first edition of Euclid's Elements
of Geometry {1482}— an important revival from
the classical past. Printed by the Bavarian Erhard
Ratdolt, it included copies of the author's 200-odd
diagrams and over 400 woodcuts.
atlas -a copy of Cosmographia, by the second-century
Greek astronomer Ptolemy -was printed as early as
1478. Its printing was made possible by the development
of map-engraving. Ptolemy’s work was impaired by a
serious error in estimating the earth’s circumference and
by insufficient knowledge of geographical features.
Cosmographia was regarded as authoritative even by
Columbus, but was later displaced by the work of
Mercator, whose atlas was published by his grandson
in Holland in 1595. During the century that followed,
the Dutch, the leading seafaring people of the age, were
Europe’s chief printers of maps.
With the spread of literacy and learning and the
standardization of national languages both processes
partly the result of printing there arose a demand for
dictionaries; indeed the first book to be printed in
Spanish, in 1490, was a Spanish dictionary. Then in
1540 the great French printer, Robert Estienne, pub¬
lished his Latin-French, French-Latin dictionaries. He
also published shorter school editions of them, which
were often reprinted. A famous multi-language dictionary
was the Gates of Tongues series first published in Spain in
1611, which gave the meanings of words in four languages
Latin, English, French, and Spanish.
These dictionaries, however, were selective glossaries,
not comprehensive vocabularies that set out to give the
spelling, meaning, use, history, and pronunciation of all
the words in a language. The first true dictionary ap¬
peared in Italy in 1612; the French Academy produced
a dictionary in 1694; but England had to wait until 1754
for her first true dictionary: Dr. Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary of the English Language.

A printer's trademark designed in the 16th

century, when Eastern learning began to reach
Europe by way of newly-discoverecl sea routes.
It shows German astronomer and mathematician
Peter Apian (right) with an Arabian astronomer.
Above: Magellan's ship Victoria, which completed its
voyage round the world in 1522. Right: western half of
world map by Mercator, 1587. Exploration stimulated the
production of maps—a speciality of Dutch printers.
Part of an elaborate diagram from a French manual of
fencing published in 1628. Such books, like the 17th- and
18th-century encyclopedias (see text), helped to satisfy
the curiosity of the new reading public and to spread
knowledge of specialized subjects.
In Roman times and throughout the Middle Ages men
had made encyclopedias—attempts to gather together
and summarize all existing (and often fanciful) know¬
ledge. But by the 17th century the discoveries of scientists
and explorers had added so much to man’s knowledge
of his world that a demand arose for newer and more
accurate encyclopedias. One of the earliest of these, and
also one of the last encyclopedias to be printed in Latin,
was Johann Heinrich Alsted’s Encyclopaedia (1608),
which consisted of 2543 pages of very small type and had
an index of 119 pages. Later in the 17th century Thomas
Corneille and Pierre Bayle produced encyclopedias in
French.
The first important English encyclopedia was Ephraim
Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts
and Sciences (1728). It had an elaborate system of cross-
references by which the alphabetically arranged material
was correlated; but its real importance lay in the fact
that, translated into French, it became the basis of the
most famous of all encyclopedias, the 28-volume
Encyclopedic edited by Jean d’Alembert and Denis
Diderot and published in Paris between 1751 and 1765.
In this work knowledge became dynamite, because it
was organized and presented by writers, Voltaire and
Rousseau among them, who were bitterly hostile to the
existing order. In attacking authority it cleared the way
for the French Revolution.
40 c
* 35
Printers, authors, and publishers

When an author writes a book today, his work is his own

property. He owns what is called the copyright, that is,
the exclusive right to print, publish, and sell copies of
his work. That right is his throughout his life (though in
America it lasts 56 years from publication). In most
countries it belongs to his heirs for a certain number of
years after his death. He can, of course, sell his copyright
in a work outright; usually he leases it to a publisher for
a defined period.
In the early days of printing there was no such system.
Many of the first printed books, the Bible and the Greek
and Latin classics, for instance, were no one’s property.
Contemporary authors wrote for fame, rather than
directly for money, or, like Luther, in order to make their
passionately held beliefs known to the world.
For almost two centuries after the invention of printing,
many writers seem to have had very little interest in
having their work printed. Poets, for instance, still
wrote for a small circle of friends; and often their poems
were not published (literally “made public”) until after
their deaths. The first edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets
was “pirated” (published without the writer’s per¬
mission). Its printer had somehow obtained an imperfect
An early printer's device, from a French edition of
copy of the text and printed it in order to cash in on Josephus's History of the Jewish Wars (1530). It depicts
Shakespeare’s reputation. Other publishers printed the pioneer French publisher Antoine Verard presenting
a copy of the work to Francis I.
pirated versions of Shakespeare’s plays, probably taken
down by shorthand writers during public performances.
With the great increase in literacy that followed the
invention of printing, publishing became a profitable
business. Whereas in the 16th century printer and
publisher were generally the same man, their functions
became divided as the demand for books swelled. The
publisher (who was often also the bookseller; became
the man who decided what was to be printed, who gauged
public taste, and who sought out authors to satisfy it.
The printer became his employee.
Writers, too, were beginning to think in terms not of Vnuo<r<r iSifvtw** K<
1 tVifalrfl
iftiB iS& Kotin* <***«
a small circle of appreciative friends but of a large * in tiltKto iiltvt*

mass of unknown readers. Even aristocrats who wrote

for their own pleasure began to seek the fame of having V .'-.in**- it.-;..,rift
their work printed. And the publisher’s desire to exploit ] *?»**»*** -•
rttv- JJrtiMrto.
tv.

the new taste for reading brought onto the scene a new yes 1
1 ^'jonR(Vvie?fcr Ct’rilvm Iv<> t> juc.*,fVthaiie6<3lc #»!
figure the professional author who writes books to
meet a specific demand.
From the beginning, publishers and printers were
organized in powerful guilds that protected their
interests and restricted competition. But the position of
the author was weak; and it remained weak until it was
legally recognized that the products of his own mind and
art were his property. More often than not he was paid

136
 nothing by the publisher, but had to find financial
TO*THE MOST MIGH- support from a wealthy patron, who derived prestige
TIE AND MAGNIFI¬
CENT EMPRESSE ELI- The firft Bookc of from his patronage (which was generally praised in an
g
ZABE.TH, BY THE
RACE 0PG0DQVEENE
F ENGLAND, FRANCE
the Faerie Qgcene.
effusive dedication to the patron written by the author).
AND IRELAND DE¬
T£c Legend of the Knight
In other cases the author would publish his book himself
FENDER OF THE FAITH1
Ac. OR
“by subscription,” that is, by inviting people to promise
Of&0Snt$e.
to buy the book when it was published. These patrons
also won prestige by seeing their names printed in the
Her mcft bumble list of those who had made the book possible. Or the
author would sell his work outright to a publisher, as
Tbywak* Nosttawpefoniwiaywitl, Milton sold Paradise Lost for the ridiculously small sum
***** of £5 down and £5 more on the sale of each of the first
three editions.
The author’s rights in his own creation were first
Title page from the first edition of The Faerie Queene recognized by law in England in 1709. In time other
(1590), the allegorical romance written by English poet countries followed suit, although it was 1793 before
Edmund Spenser and dedicated to Elizabeth I. It earned
another big country, France, protected copyright. Nor
him a royal pension of £50 a year.
could these laws give an author in one country protection
in another. During the 19th century, for example, the
Below: royal charter of the English Stationers' Company, novels of Dickens and other British authors were
1684. This craftsmen's guild, which received its first regularly pirated (usually with little or no payment) in
charter in 1557, had an absolute monopoly of printing the United States. It was not until 1886 that the first
until 1842. Every printer had to serve an apprenticeship
to a member of the guild, and every publication had to be international agreement on authors’ copyright was
entered at Stationers' Hall (which secured copyright). reached. Even now not every country has signed the
The guild even had the power to burn prohibited books
latest agreement, the Universal Copyright Convention
and imprison offenders.
of 1955-
Long after the passing of the first copyright laws, the
author was still not in a strong enough position to bargain
freely with publishers. The epigram attributed to the
poet Thomas Campbell (1777 1844), “Now Barabbas
was a publisher,” sums up the traditional attitude of
authors to publishers. The author came into his own with
the emergence in the 19th century of the great inter¬
national novelists, such as Scott, Balzac, Dumas, Dickens,
Dostoevski, Turgenev, and Tolstoi. Their popularity
was so great that they became more important than
uCv .1- Oumil'ua 1*1 J'w ifw J-Ukfltt# pwifitV Artuleta Cmil IMS&yfH# ,t 5
iW&mUo drigriKtr iwinr l«r .tmi 0 ? <«U *-< p-*-fu the men who published them. It gradually became the
'fj.niuh VSbtlt* ttcreio |«ifr^'.»uwl>y-£iwuctu*
CVtlfctittfri*- Itfcci* fw.miiift:*1' #itvi uV&f ^(uiwurf ■CitHlaliSyi-o*-! accepted practice to pay authors on a “royalty” basis,
* >-a.«
#* 4*tVu* «*«,„
ClV-U-cV
L'tOiiuit'ct' sTlv-U-cV
fcmW—‘3* « *»«• A
fclct cl
fclcv ft <Cou|ti'hi<r f-rap.. ’
^u.‘ whereby the author is paid a percentage of the published
pv&UVJriktt. ^'a.K-^.tVmvjruw
B« UfjSKrt <3Ur
ta.»
TUftE**
*Sf«U*kN(?»"«* ■
price of each copy sold, the percentage sometimes rising
iy.TTut.itBte... ^w*****- •Cn t
with the sales.
? ' i^lu Today the author’s situation is changing again.
! Cw Wtl^un^Jiotwm fvi-frttmat ^ifripUOA UHtftitftij&r4&4b,xi l
• <■
Kw»«uhir (vt-,,«««u‘7fty«(?riv+^«|w. eitV&tutnStaH Increasingly, books have become the raw materials for
rzr^:* »’•' hrEivfti * d- ijutft'ilitf iwumii&i tjtmtt <j h i-uf'rtiayt.Wmij.
other media of communication newspaper and maga¬
■tnltJL ^ ,u frttrotf <.VmnraiJ-ci-tto£tl^tt*|wRwWTfcuj»uitW««aic>,

i oit }^fMU *t*fr«7Uod> iff tHUuntfUr^hittmpetrpu* <Ptunt0*<£u^ ,

zine serials, stage-plays, films, television and radio plays
or serials. Increasingly, too, authors are in conflict with
publishers to get an adequate share of these subsidiary
rights. And many people who, in the days before films and
radio, would have written books, are now turning to
g, (u®«Hw u*ltfjuci' dhr j writing for these financially more rewarding media.
:tttr .li^i tmisT00 ,VUU<*t"'1 y
ofiflutmpc ^eiiKm|T.m«j<«rrf
fitter ^ *«« Rqjtfi
•tatitfei <j»»jt'JPro Rat* rtZVjJ fcK'
rf- e«)f^r -hbcj-tW-^u-d &Z#Vjijflte iweWrto&rtim*

*** *«*^**»t wesr^ .uiiW

137
Books for entertainment
LKKll blat
j0ieu, biltoa fagt me Jtfiefpie 1
gel we lit fc$i»g vff eiit $ellt ffen wg ^fltumb t$ t«c§
Most of the best-sellers of the 15th and 16th centuries
nwetjer fm % verboiKij pet et fan motwg ftete (ole
were religious books; but from the beginning publishers
also provided books whose main object was to entertain.
By the late 16th century there was a lively trade in what
we now call “escapist” literature.
Popular among the upper classes were stories of idyllic
life among “nymphs” and “shepherds,” who were often
fine ladies and gentlemen in disguise. Examples are Sir
Philip Sidney’s Arcadia in England and Honore' d’Urfe’s
UAstree in France. Such stories strike us today as remote
and fanciful. But for less refined tastes there was very
different fare: sensational stories of low life whose aim
was to make their readers’ flesh creep at revelations of
the wickedness of the world and the perils of life in big
cities.
These stories came originally from Spain and are
called “picaresque” (Spanish picaro, a rogue 1. The hero
of these tales, who generally tells his story in the first
person, is an adventurer who lives by his wits. The first
Henfpiegel gen Jteno
Wfl cl r!>et ce firtf fur cm wulle wcbcc
picaresque novel was Lazarillo de Tormes, which was 1' M v(l vfi wj vff ctu fontag 94 fa$t $ wnlleii
published in Spain in 1554. Translated into English in ** (fclte at*
1586, it went into four editions within 50 years. It was fiertag c,tri mewgvn welcfrt flegt gcrit
followed in the next hundred years or so by a wave of 3u t0i5n/ it ftobc t$ nit gem lit memet flrbeft er mts*
books and pamphlets of the sort we now call “true
confession” stories. One of the best is Daniel Defoe’s Page from the oldest surviving text of Till Eulenspiegel,
Moll Flanders, the imaginary confessions of a prostitute, published in Strasbourg in 1515. These tales of a wily
peasant who wandered Europe playing practical jokes
which was published in 1722. won widespread popularity in Germany, and were trans¬
Picaresque writing established one of the permanent lated into many other European languages.
patterns of fiction- the adventures of a person who
wanders from place to place or from job to job. Examples
in different languages and from different times are:
England -Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding (1707-54);
France—Candide, by Voltaire (1694-1778); America
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1835-1910); Ger¬
many- The Confessions of Felix Krull, by Thomas Mann
(1875 1955). The early picaresque novels were written
not for scholars but for ordinary people, and they helped
to make possible the novel as we now know it. More than
any other literary form, the novel depends on a more or
less realistic representation of the actual world. It caters
for the curiosity that had been greatly stimulated by the
voyages of discovery of the 16th and 17th centuries
voyages that brought back news of other continents and
of peoples who lived and behaved in ways astonishingly
different from those of Europeans. Books about these
voyages were enormously popular and were received
with equal credulity whether they were genuine or
invented.
No one exploited this credulity more successfully than
Daniel Defoe. He published Robinson Crusoe, in 1719, not

A painting by Honore Daumier depicting the aging

knight-errant Don Quixote (from Miguel Cervantes's
novel of the same name) with his servant Scmcho Panza.
Published in Spain in 1605 15, the book won immediate
138 success as a burlesque of the chivalric romances of the day.
as a novel but as a true life story. By the end of the 18th
century more than a hundred imitations of it had
appeared in Germany alone, the most famous being J. D.
Wyss’s The Swiss Family Robinson. Crusoe became part
of the mythology of Europe. People saw in him the
epitome of the Protestant bourgeois who triumphs over
hostile nature by a combination of self-reliance and trust
in God.
But Crusoe is a story of a man alone, outside society.
Novels are normally concerned with the relations between
people in society. Twenty-one years after Robinson
Crusoe, Samuel Richardson wrote what is generally
regarded as the first English novel Pamela. Richardson
was a member of the rising middle class. A successful
printer by trade, he was asked by two London booksellers
to write a series of “familiar letters” that would tell
servant-girls how to keep out of trouble. These familiar
letters were popular at the time and served the double
purpose of teaching good conduct and also the art of
letter-writing. The heroine of Richardson’s second and
much greater novel, Clarissa, is a middle-class girl who
defends her honor at all costs against a wicked man whom
she is really in love with for eleven months, through
eight volumes, and more than i\ million words—before
she dies of grief. Clarissa is a masterpiece of suspense and A scene from the 1963 film version of Henry
Fielding's novel Tom Jones, with Albert Finney
of character analysis. (right) as the roguish hero. The novel, published
Both Pamela and Clarissa were immediately and inter¬ in 1749, traces Tom's progress up the social ladder
in true picaresque style (see text).
nationally successful. They were translated into French,
German, and Dutch; in Italy, Goldoni wrote two plays
based on them; Rousseau and Diderot in France, and
Goethe in Germany all imitated them. The reason for
Richardson’s enormous success was his intense con¬ count, that the Buyer of my Almanack may consi¬
centration on the emotions of his heroine; he was one of der himjfclf, not only as purchasing an ufeful Utcn-
fil, but as performing an A St of Charity, to his
the first writers to exploit pleasure in emotion for its poor Friend and Servant R. SAUNDER§.
own sake.
As the novel slowly evolved, so also did the magazine The Anatomy of Man's Body as govern'd
by the Twelve Conftellatious.
and the periodical. We can see their rudimentary Y*, The Head and Face9
beginnings in the 16th-century broadsheets, joke books,
and almanacs, in which solid information was often Armm
enlivened by anecdotes, proverbs, and moral tags. The
best known of these almanacs belongs to 18th-century
Heart
America Poor Richard's Almanack, which Benjamin
Franklin edited and printed himself from 1732 to 1757,
Remt
and which had a circulation of 10,000 copies per issue.
The magazine as a collection of articles for the general
reader first appeared in France toward the end of the Tbtgfts

17th century. A notable example was the Mercure Galant,

v/hich ran from 1672 to 1825 and printed news of the
court and the town, criticism, epigrams, and poetry.
Today bookstalls are heaped with magazines of all kinds.
Page from an issue of Poor Richard’s Almanack, edited
by American statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706-90).
Such almanacs recorded popular astrological beliefs as
well as astronomical information. This woodcut illustrates
supposed relationship between stars and parts of the body.
Leg*
To know where the Stgn is
Firft find the Day of the Month, andagainft the
Day you have the Sign or Place of the Moon in
the 5th Column. Then finding the Sign here, it
thews the part of the Body it governs. _
T*U Names and CharaBers of the Seven Planett.
h Saturn, % Jupiter, <$ Mars, © SoJ, 9 Venus,
§ Mercury, £ Luna, ©Dragons Head and55Tail.
Tie Five Afpeffl 7 ’
6 Conjunction, *Sextile, £Oppofmon, A Trine,
□ Qnartile.
C'n m ynnvt ft

Above: French engraving, 1791. Hand-colored engravings
kept women in touch with fashion changes before new
printing techniques permitted the mass production of
fashion magazines. Below: Chinese compositor sets type
by hand; complexity of old Chinese script prevents use
of machines. When being set by hand, type is held in an
adjustable tray called a composing stick {right).
Printing leaps forward
For three and a half centuries methods of printing
changed scarcely at all. At the end of the 18th century
men were still using presses like the modified wine
presses on which Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible was printed
(p. 128). Then printing suddenly benefited from the
technological advances of the Industrial Revolution.
Beginning in Britain in the second half of the 18th
century, the Industrial Revolution was basically the
outcome of the discovery of cheap ways of producing
iron and of substituting steam power for human or
animal power. The social and economic consequences
of these technological discoveries were fundamental and
far-reaching. At the same time there was a sharp increase
in population and a rapid growth of a new class: the
industrial working class, composed mainly of country-
dwellers who came to the new factory towns in search
of work. At this time, too, the idea of representative
government gradually gained mass support. If men and
women were to better themselves in this new world,
they had to learn to read and write. The new technology
gave printing the means to satisfy this demand.
In 1811 the steam printing press was invented. The
manager of the London Times called it “the greatest
improvement connected with printing since the discovery
of the art itself.” He knew this to be so, because until he
installed Friedrich Konig’s steam press in his printing
shop in 1814, his printers could handle only 300 sheets
an hour; the steam press turned out 1100 sheets an hour
and lowered printing costs by 25 per cent. In 1848 the
invention of the rotary press made it possible to print
8000 sheets an hour.

The first stage in the monotype process: As the
operator taps out the copy on the keyboard of
his machine, complete instructions for type¬
casting are recorded in the form of perforations
on a paper ribbon (unwinding at top).
The next step was to invent a machine that would set
type. The first successful type-setting machine was
produced in 1879 for The Times. A few years later the
linotype and monotype systems of mechanical type¬
setting were invented in the United States. With these
machines the compositor, who formerly handled a piece
of metal for every letter to be set, sits at a keyboard like
that of a typewriter and taps out the letters, which are
cast in new metal by the machine itself. The linotype
machine casts a whole line of letters in one solid piece
of metal or “slug”; the monotype machine casts each
letter separately, so that corrections are easier to make..
The monotype system is normally used in book printing,
although newspaper publishers and many American
book printers prefer linotype. With either system the
compositor can set type almost as fast as he can work the
keyboard (p. 233).
These advances in printing would have been useless
without a speed-up in the manufacture of paper. Until
1798 paper had been made by hand; the process was slow
and costly. Then a paper-making machine was in¬
vented by a Frenchman, Nicolas Louis Robert, though
it was developed in England which reduced the price
of paper by almost half. Forty-five years later Friedrich
Gottlieb Keller, a Saxon weaver, succeeded (where
many before him had failed) in making paper from wood
pulp. Within a few years the national economies of
forested countries like Sweden and Finland became
mainly based on the export of timber Wood-pulp paper
was used throughout the world for the printing of
newspapers, popular magazines, posters, handbills,
catalogues, and so on.
In the mid-19th century, too, there was a change in
the form of printed books in America, Britain, and other
countries. Since the first days of printing it had been
usual for printers to sell their books unbound, in sheets
roughly stitched together and with the edges untrimmed.
The purchaser sent the book to a bookbinder, who
prepared the sheets and bound them in a cover made, in
the early days, from oak boards, and later from stiff
cardboard covered with leather. Since the invention
of the casing machine in about 1830 British and American
books have come to be usually sold bound in cloth.
These inventions—the substitution of machine¬
printing for hand-printing, the machine-manufacture
of paper, and the displacement of hand-binding by the
machined cover—made books cheaper. The first two
also made possible the mass-circulation newspapers and
magazines that began to appear toward the end of the
19th century (see Chapter 11).
Next, the paper ribbon is transferred to the type-casting
machine {left), where compressed air, passing through
the perforations, moves a matrix-case or set of molds
(center picture) to bring the required letter into position.
Then the letter is cast in metal and ejected automatically
in a fraction of a second. 141
Explosive books

In the early days of printing (p. 130), people like Martin

Luther who had powerful ideas to put forward were not
slow to make use of the new medium in order to reach
the widest possible audience. The acceleration in the
production and distribution of printed matter that re¬
sulted from the Industrial Revolution (p. 140) magnified
the explosive force of new and revolutionary ideas that
were spread by books and pamphlets. This new power
can be well illustrated by the history of the works of three
authors—works that have had a profound and world¬
wide influence on society.
The first of these authors is the Englishman Charles
Darwin (1809-82), who, after many years of close obser¬
vation of nature, published On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection in 1859. In this book he
marshaled massive evidence in support of a theory of
descent of plants, animals, and man himself from earlier
forms of life by a process of evolution. The idea of evolu¬
tion was not new, but the sheer volume of evidence and
the masterly way in which it was handled made Darwin’s
book a “scientific blockbuster” that it was impossible to
A 19th-century English cartoon ridiculing Charles Darwin
disregard. Within a dozen years of the English publica¬ for his Origin of Species. It pictures the author (center)
tion, there were four French editions, five German, three as the end product of an evolutionary spiral that leads
through worm, ape, cave man, and dandy.
American, and three Russian, as well as editions in
Dutch, Swedish, and Italian.
Below: drawing of Karl Marx, whose Das Kapital became
It is difficult so long after the event for us to appreciate the bible of millions of socialists, including Russia's
the uproar and controversy that this book generated. It Bolshevik revolutionaries. Foot of page: men of the
Revolutionary Army marching out against invading
was bitterly denounced as an attack on the Bible story of
German troops in 1918, shortly before the Bolshevik
the creation, and hence on the Christian religion itself. government took Russia out of World War I under the
The intensity of feeling it aroused was dramatically treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
illustrated as late as 1924, when an American high
school teacher of biology at Dayton, Tennessee, was
prosecuted for teaching evolution to his students. (In¬
deed, Tennessee still has a law on its books against the
teaching of evolution.) Even apart from the theological
consequences, the effect of Darwin’s work on men’s
thinking was immense. In particular, the idea became
firmly implanted that life is not static, but changing, and
that continuous development is possible.
Karl Marx (1818-83) saw himself as the Darwin of
social history. But, as well as being an immensely learned
scholar, Marx was a revolutionary socialist whose works
are calls to action. Marxism is only one of many 19th-
century theories of socialism, but Marx appeared to give
the case for socialism a scientific basis by demonstrating
that the form of society is fashioned by its means of

142

Above: picture drawn by a 14-year-old boy to describe
a dream in which he got out of bed and won a fortune at
a slot machine. Sigmund Freud's writings have taught
that the repressed wishes revealed in such dreams may
be causes of mental illness. Below: detail from The
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937), by Spanish-born
surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The surrealists—greatly
influenced by Freud's theories of psychoanalysis—created
such dreamlike images in an attempt to express activities
of the unconscious mind.
production. He deduced from this that society evolves in
a predictable way, the inevitable end of which is
communism.
After an exciting early life as an active revolutionary
in Germany and France, Marx settled down to the quiet
life of a scholar in London, spending much of his time in
the British Museum. But his writings circulated among
small groups of dedicated socialists throughout Europe,
giving them at once a gospel and a plan of campaign.
And this despite the fact that his style is obscure and
difficult. In fact, in one case the difficulty actually helped
Marx: The censors of the Tsarist regime allowed his
greatest work, Das Kapital, to be published in Russia on
the grounds that it was not written in a popular style and
was therefore unlikely to find many readers. The Russian
edition, published in 1872, was the first translation, the
original work having appeared in German in 1867.
There was a French translation in 1875, but no English
edition until 1885, two years after Marx’s death. Since
then it has been published in 210 different languages
and has become second only to the Bible as an inter¬
national best-seller.
History has failed to fulfill some of Marx’s predictions
or has fulfilled them in a way he never foresaw. But just
as Darwin permanently changed our ideas of “biological”
man, so Marx, by insisting on the economic foundations
of society, contributed enormously to a major change in
our ideas of “social” man.
The third author, the Viennese physician Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939), effected a similar revolution in our
conception of the human mind. He was the first man to
make a systematic attempt to map the unconscious mind.
Freud’s starting point was mental illness, to cure which
he developed the theory and techniques of psychoanaly¬
sis. But the picture he drew (in The Interpretation of Dreams,
published in 1900, and in other books) was deeply dis¬
turbing, since it seemed to suggest that the sane, no less
than the insane, were at the mercy of unconscious proces¬
ses over which they had no control.
Both Darwin and Freud (and, as far as most of his
writings are concerned, Marx too) were learned men
addressing themselves primarily to specialists in their
own fields. But the content of their books was so explosive
that—given the increased speed of communication and
the growth of literacy—their ideas could not long be con¬
fined to specialists. They had an almost immediate
influence on contemporary literature, art, and philo¬
sophy, and through popularizations in books and in the
press they were soon influencing the thinking of ordinary
people.
143
 Censorship and control

Throughout history leaders of Church and state have

tried to stifle new and daring ideas on the grounds that
they endanger the social structure and in the case of
heretical religious opinions may lead to the damnation
of immortal souls. The rapid spread of dangerous ideas
through printing provoked systematic attempts to control
publishing.
Among the first products of the printing press were
new translations of the Bible and Protestant tracts, and it
was to suppress these that in i486 spurred on by the
Archbishop of Mainz the council of the autonomous
imperial city of Frankfurt set up the first state censorship
office.
In 1501 Pope Alexander VI extended censorship to
secular books, and in 1543 Cardinal Caraffa decreed that
no book should be printed or sold without the permission
of the Inquisition. It was Caraffa, too, who (after he had
become Pope Paul IV) started the Index librorum pro-
hibitorum (list of forbidden books) in 1559. Constantly
revised, this remains the guide to what Roman Catholics
may not read without special permission of the Church.
The Church of Rome had no monopoly of religious cen¬
sorship, however. Although Martin Luther professed to
believe in freedom of conscience, his Church and most of
the other Churches that sprang up during the Reforma¬
tion ruthlessly suppressed “heretical opinions,” i.e.,
religious beliefs that were not part of the doctrine of the
Church in question. And on the grounds of guarding the
M citizens’ morals, puritanical theocracies like that of John
Auftores quorum hhri erfcripta omnia Calvin in Geneva instituted far more rigorous censorship
of secular books than the Church of Rome has ever done.
All systems that are based on absolute authority—
whether of a religious, political, or ideological nature—
ArceUus Valittgenius Stellatus.
are inevitably committed to censorship. Thus, except in
Marcus Antonins C alums.
the Dutch Republic, systematic censorship by state or
Marcus Antonius Commas,; Church was the rule throughout Europe until the end of
Marcus Cordelias Toricnfts. the 17th century, and in many countries for very much
Marcus Ephcfutus* longer. But history shows that censorship is seldom
Marcus T ikmanus Heshujius* effective. For example, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and
Marfilms ie Padua, Voltaire, the intellectual forerunners of the French
Martinikoi Revolution, were censored in France, but like many of
Martinus B orrhausStugardian* the Protestant writers of Reformation times—they had
M artinus Bucerus. their books printed abroad and smuggled into France.
Also, forbidden books create their own market, for there
Martinus Freflus*
is no appetizer like the knowledge that a book is banned.
M artinus Lutbcrus*
Thus censorship often defeats its own purpose.
Marttnas MejJin*
Censorship first leads writers to circumvent it; then to
Martinus Ojtermincherus♦ try to overthrow it. The case for free speech was cham¬
Matthew Alberus♦ pioned in the classic Areopagitica, John Milton’s plea to
Mattheusy<jui ctAjfartius Scoffer the English parliament in 1644 for the “liberty of
Mattbarus Phtlargirus♦
Mattbeus Zelltus Keiferfpcrgen*
Mattbeus Ztfer. Top: Pope Alexander VI,from a painting by Italian artist
Pinturicchio. Alexander—second of the Borgia popes
Mathias F laccus I llyricus* reinforced Church censorship in 1501. Left: page from
M aturtnus C ordcrws* the first Index librorum prohibitorum, listing Martin
Luther among the forbidden authors.
M aximilianus Mauras.

French writer Charles Brunei (known as Betancourt) being
led to the scaffold in 1670. He was accused of blasphemy
and condemned to death by the parliament of Louis XIV,
which exercised absolute control over the press.
unlicensed printing.” Milton appealed to what in his eyes
was the highest authority: “Who kills a man kills a
reasonable creature; but he who destroys a book kills
reason itself, the image of God.” Milton did not live to see
the freedom of the press established in England, but his
noble language, used without acknowledgment by a later
pamphleteer, helped to persuade Parliament to abandon
state control of printing and publishing in 1695.
During the second half of the 18th century, several
other European countries followed suit; but the fears that
were aroused among the ruling classes by the French
Revolution brought on a new spate of repressive
measures in the Austrian Empire, the German states, and
other parts of Europe. In France itself the direct control
of the press—briefly lifted during the Revolution, re¬
imposed by the Paris Commune in 1792, and strengthened
by Napoleon was not fully lifted until 1868. In Russia
the press has never been tree and under the Communists
nothing may be published without government per¬
mission. By way of contrast, in the United States the
press has never been controlled.
But the absence of direct control does not mean that
the press is completely free. Even in the most liberal
countries there is a kind of “censorship by consequence.”
A man may write and publish what he likes, but if by so
doing he offends against the laws of treason or sedition,
libel or obscenity, he will be punished and what he has
written will be suppressed. In Britain, for example, he
could be prosecuted by the state under the Blasphemous
and Seditious Libels Act, which has been in force since
1819.
We have more to say about state censorship and
control today in the chapters on the press (p. 228) and on
opinion (p. 298); but there is one point that particularly
affects books. Notions of what constitutes morality
especially sexual morality are constantly changing, so
that a writer who shocks one generation may be ap¬
plauded by the next for his courage and integrity. This
happened, for instance, to the French novelist Gustave
Flaubert, who was prosecuted for obscenity when
Madame Bovary was published in 1857; the book is now a
world-famous classic, considered by many to be a highly
moral tale.
| PENGUIN BOOKS
LADY
CHATTSRLEY*S
LOVER
Left: In November 1960, Londoners
queue to buy the first unexpurgated
edition authorized in Britain of D. H.
Lawrence's Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
written in 1928. Its release came after
9.H.
a six-day trial in which the publishers,
LAWRlNCS prosecuted under the Obscene Publica¬
tions Act (1959), successfully defended
the novel as a work of literary merit.

Ancient Greek vase-painting depicting Hector Trojan
hero of Homer s epic poem Iliad (9th or 8th century B.C.)
saying farewell to his wife Andromache. Homer's works
—masterpieces of ancient Greek literature —became best¬
sellers all over the world.
Best-sellers
From the earliest days of printing there have been best¬
sellers books that from the moment of publication have
sold in much larger numbers than other books published
at about the same time. Random examples of best-sellers
of the past are Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532), Cervan¬
tes’s Don Quixote (1605), Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress
(1688), which has been translated into 147 languages,
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Richardson’s Pamela
(1740), Voltaire’s Candide (1759), Goethe’s The Sorrows
of Werther (1774), and, in the 19th century, works of
Scott, Byron, Fenimore Cooper, Manzoni, Victor Hugo,
Dumas, Dickens, Tennyson, and Tolstoi.
If we look at the books that have been most successful
from the point of view of sales, books that have sold in
hundreds of thousands &r more, we find that they fall into
two classes best-sellers and steady sellers, that is, books
that go on selling year after year. What makes a book a
best-seller? Literary merit alone is never a sufficient ex¬
planation for rapid sales. Very few of the great novels of
our century have been best-sellers initially, though over
the years many have amassed very large sales indeed;
while the majority of best-sellers are not normally con¬
sidered to be literature at all.
One of the international best-sellers of the 19th century
was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin. Within
nine months of its publication in 1852 it had sold 300,000
copies in America, 1,500,000 in Britain, and had been
translated into French, German, Dutch, Danish,
Swedish, Polish, and Hungarian. About 30 more transla¬
tions followed soon afterward. What accounts for its
tremendous success ?
Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared at a time when the con¬
tinued existence of slavery in the Southern States of
America was troubling the conscience of the Western
world. Its story deals in a dramatic though very over¬
simplified way with the horrors of slavery, and probably
did more than anything else to bring public opinion in
the Northern States up to the boiling point that led to the
Civil War nine years later. It was a propagandist book
that succeeded, probably beyond the wildest dreams of
its author.
Not only was Uncle Tom's Cabin a 19th-century best¬
seller, but it has remained a steady seller, both in English
and in translation. There has, however, been a change in
its public. It is a strong, sentimental, unsubtle story. The
very qualities that appealed to the relatively unsophisti¬
cated mass of adult readers in the 19th century have
turned it into a children’s classic in the 20th.
Other best-sellers, too, have owed their success partly
to the fact that they have crystallized the troubled
One of George Cruikshank's illustrations for the first
English edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the best-selling
novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It depicts a scene in
which the mischievous Negro girl Topsy, who is in disgrace,
is comforted by her master's daughter.

Illustrations from Emile Zola's L’Assommoir {1877),
which became a best-seller in France within a few weeks
of publication. It depicts the conditions of 19th-century
working-class life with horrifying realism, showing how
they demoralize and destroy a young girl.
consciences of their readers. A widespread revulsion
against the futility of war must have contributed to the
sale in Germany alone, (not to mention translations) of
over a million copies of Erich Maria Remarque’s All
Quiet on the Western Fronts which was published in 1929.
Two best-sellers of 1939 were John Steinbeck’s The Grapes
of Wrath and Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My
Valley. The first dealt with the misery of mass unemploy¬
ment in the 1930s among dispossessed farmers in the
United States. The second, about a Welsh mining com¬
munity, was set some forty years earlier, but reminded
readers vividly of recent social struggles. None of
these three books lacked literary merit, but their great
success can be explained only in terms of the social
climate of the age in which they appeared.
In other cases a book may become a best-seller for
exactly the opposite reason: that it answers a nation’s
desire to escape from an unpleasant present into an ex¬
citing or glorious past. Perhaps this accounts for the
unparalleled success of Gone with the Wind, Margaret
Mitchell’s romantic novel of the American Civil War,
which was also published in the 1930s the years of
economic depression, political dictatorships, and war
neurosis—but has been selling heavily ever since.
The enormous sales of Gone with the Wind received
further impetus from the film version of the book. Other
factors that now make a best-seller are publicity (such as
the awarding of the accolade “Book of the Week” or
"Book of the Month” by mass-circulation papers), and
the tremendous growth of book clubs (p. 155), which may
guarantee extra sales of several hundred thousand copies.
Orders from libraries may also have a marked effect on
sales. The subscription libraries of Victorian England,
for example, were largely responsible for the sale of over
two and a half million copies of the now nearly forgotten
novels of Mrs. Henry Wood.
But it is not only works of fiction that become best¬
sellers. Histories, from Macaulay’s History of England in
the mid-19th century to Churchill’s The Second World
War in the mid-20th; true adventure stories, like Thor
Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki or Eric Williams’s wartime escape
story The Wooden Horse; simply written books on natural
science, such as Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us or
Sir James Jeans’s The Mysterious Universe; and books on
many other subjects have had huge sales because they
stimulate and satisfy our curiosity about the world in
which we live, and are written in an easily understood
form. In short, such books are masterpieces of communica¬
tion. But it is seldom that a publisher knows in advance
that he has a best-seller.
A scene from John Ford's 1941 film version of How Green
Was My Valley, the best-selling novel by Welsh writer
Richard Llewellyn {see text). It told of the hardships
and struggles of life in a Welsh mining community around
the turn of the century. 147
Children's books Cwtsix Cornlcatur, £d Aa
ff&eCroto vtgetb.
Agnus blatat bee e B b
When we read that aristocratic children in the 16th Sbollsmbblaftetb'
century studied the Greek and Latin classics at the age of Cicada fit idet. cici C c
six, and that, 200 years later, the children of the poor atbe cifrpgf |
worked in mills and mines, we get the impression that
Vfupa dicir. d* du Dd
people in earlier ages thought of childhood as a phase of
life to be got through as quickly as possible.
Jnfatts ejulat. He Ee
Certainly very few books (apart from textbooks) were
especially written for children before the middle of the
19th century. An early attempt at sugaring the pill of Vent us flat. fifi F f
learning was Orbis Pictus, compiled by the Czech edu¬ r*tOblofe$t&.
cationist Amos Comenius. Published in 1654, it was an Att/erg ingric
g*Z* Gg
illustrated encyclopedia designed to entertain very young
children and teach those a little older something of their Os halat hdhb&h Hh
own language, of Latin, and of the world in general.
Many early children’s books were “moraLtales.” Typical
oat
was James Janeway’s A Token for Children: Being an Exact Mus mintrat. £ij Ii
Account of the Conversion, Holy, and Exemplary Lives, and £bo®oafecfrfrpetb*
Joyful Deaths of several Children, published in 1671. Indeed, Anas retrifti|% .
Ktr
books of this kind continued to be written almost to the SCbe
end of the 19th century. In such books storytelling made IumIu L 1
the instruction more palatable; but as time went on the
entertainment value became more important than the Vrjtv ntfirmurat. mum mum Mm
instruction, as for example in the early 19th-century
German cautionary poems called Struwelpeter, or in The
Water-Babies (1863), by the English country parson
Charles Kingsley. Page from a 1664 English edition of Orbis Pictus (World
Another of Kingsley’s books, Westward Hoi was one of in Pictures), by Czech educationist Amos Comenius.
Pioneering modern teaching methods, Comenius com¬
the many books originally written for adults that became
piled the first fully illustrated schoolbooks, and the first
very popular with children too— in some cases in the to include parallel sentences in a second language.
original form, but often in simplified versions. Others
were the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, Cervantes’s
Don Quixote, Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress, Swift’s
Gulliver's Travels, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Dumas’s The
Three Musketeers, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of
the Mohicans, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, and
many of the novels of Charles Dickens. The process still
goes on. The science fiction of H. G. Wells and George
Orwell’s Animal Farm, for instance, now belong as much
to the child’s bookshelves as to the adult’s.
Children’s books and magazines have become a major
section of book and periodical publishing. Publishers and
educationalists alike realize their importance. As a
result, the standard of children’s books, both in their
text and their production, has risen steadily. Serious
novelists and poets, as well as scholars and scientists, no
longer think it beneath their dignity to write for children.
Thus Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling in
the 19th century, and T. S. Eliot, Antoine de St. Exupery,
and Graham Greene in the 20th, have all written specifi¬
cally for children. Similarly, book illustrators are often

This illustration from the first edition of Charles Dickens's

Nicholas Nickleby (1838 39) depicts an end-of-term riot
at the prison-like school Dotheboys Hall. Such episodes
helped to make the novel highly popular with children,
148 although it was written for adults.

Illustrations from two modern books designed especially
for young children. Above: final scene in The Story of
Babar, written and illustrated by the Belgian Jean de
Bnmhoff. Below: a story without words from Animal
Fair, by the Americans Alice and Martin Provensen.
as happy working on children’s books as on books for
adults, and sometimes in fact find greater scope for their
talents in children’s books.
Many children’s books have an international appeal.
Tom Sawyer, by the American Mark Twain; Pinocchio, by
the Italian Carlo Collodi; Heidi, by the Swiss Johanna
Spyri; Fairy Tales, by the Dane Hans Andersen; Alice in
Wonderland, by the Englishman Lewis Carroll; Emil and
the Detectives, by the German Erich Kastner— all these are
the possessions of children everywhere. Among more
recent additions to the international children’s library
are the fascinating animal stories of the Frenchman Rene
Guillot and, for younger children, the delightful tales of
Babar the Elephant, by the Belgian Jean de Brunhoff.
Books for very young children have a threefold pur¬
pose: to make them want to read, to stimulate their
imagination, and to begin to satisfy their curiosity. In
such books the words probably matter less than the
appearance of the book as a whole that is, the choice of
type face and size and the use of illustration and color.
Because we are more impressionable when we are
young, the books we read in childhood and adolescence
often have a lasting influence on us. It is all the more
important that they should be good books.
r

Poets use evocative language to stir the listener's emotions.
The power of such language is amusingly illustrated in
these two English engravings (1791), which depict
audiences at tragic and comic poetry readings.
How writers use words
In the great social battles that have shaken the world
since the Middle Ages the Reformation, the English
Civil War, the American and French Revolutions, the
socialist movement and the revolutions to which it has
given birth the printing press has been a powerful piece
of artillery. In the less violent fields of literature and
learning, it has changed the world perhaps even more
profoundly. But it could not have had such powerful
effects if its ammunition written language—had not
been so cunningly shaped by writers.
Basically there are two ways of using words: didacti¬
cally (to inform) and evocatively (to stimulate). Didactic
language has its purest form in the dry, colorless, neutral
reporting used by scientists (p. 178); evocative language
is most clearly seen in poetry. Between these extremes lie
innumerable gradations, both in writing and in speech.
Consider the following quotations:
‘'All bodies attract one another with a force directly
proportional to the product of their masses and indirectly
proportional to the square of the distance between them.”
“Even when all the big unions call their men out, as in
the 24-hour national French railway strike which con¬
tinued today, there are always some individualists who
keep a few of the trains running.”
“In this manner march they, a mixed, continually in¬
creasing multitude; armed with axes, staves and mis¬
cellanea; grim, many-sounding, through the streets. Be
all Theatres shut; let all dancing, on planked floor, or on
the natural greensward, cease! Instead of a Christian
Sabbath, and feast of guinguette tabernacles, it shall be a
Sorcerer’s Sabbath; and Paris, gone rabid, dance
with the Fiend for piper!”
“Beer is best!”
“Conservative freedom works.”
“Forward with Labour.”
“The tractors came over the roads and into the fields,
great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible
strength of insects . . . Snub-nosed monsters, raising the
dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the
country, across the country, through fences, through
dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines . . . The
man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man:
gloved, goggled, rubber dust-mask over nose and mouth,
he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat.”
“ . . . for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene.
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks,
A 19th-century print depicting the American statesman
John Hancock challenging Britain with his bold signature
on the Declaration of Independence {1776). This
historic document, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, is no dry
state paper, but a passionate profession of faith.
 3>
ERNEST V AllCHAR

LJ i ORE
Lltteralre. Artiitlque. So dale

<f’Accuse...! Infusing him with self and vain conceit

As if this flesh which walls about our life
LETTRE 111 PRESIDENT DE U REPUBLIQUE
Were brass impregnable; and humor’d thus
Par l^MILE ZOLA
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!”
The first quotation is Newton’s law of gravity. It is
written in precise and completely unemotional prose
whose meaning cannot be mistaken. It is interesting that
the terms are mathematical, for mathematics is the most
precise kind of language that man has invented.
The second quotation an extract from a report in the
London Times is dealing with facts quite objectively, but
betrays a bias by the use of the term 1‘individualist.”
The third quotation- a portrayal of the Sunday before
the fall of the Bastille to the Paris mob in 1789, from
The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881)—
presents facts in a way designed to evoke an emotional
response.
The fourth quotation is putting an opinion as a state¬
ment of fact in order to persuade the reader to buy the
product advertised; while both the political slogans beg
the question: “Freedom” from or for what? “Forward”
to where ?
The last two quotations are from works of fiction
from The Grapes of Wrath by the American novelist John
Steinbeck and from Shakespeare’s Richard the Second. Both
of them recreate a particular human situation to make us
Upper: the sensational open letter addressed to the
respond to the general human situation/ They show what
French president by novelist Emile Zola in 1898. This
letter demanded a retrial for Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew powerful word-pictures can be built up by writers.
who, in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism, was wrongly None of these ways of using words is in itself better
convicted of treason in 1894. It brought Zola abuse from
Dreyfus's enemies {as shown in German cartoon, lower
than any other, except in the sense that it will perform a
picture), a year in jail, and a fine of 3000 francs, but particular task better. Thus history may be recorded in
helped to secure Dreyfus's release and pardon in 1899. much drier tones than Carlyle’s, in which case it will lose
in narrative power but may gain in objectivity. The
colorless, impersonal style that scientists use in presenting
their findings is quite unsuited to the creative writer. He
KflRflWflNE wants his words to have personal associations for the
jolifanto bambla 6 fall! bambla reader; and to him even ambiguity may be a virtue,
grossiga m'pfa habta horem suggesting different levels of meaning and subtleties of
feeling. The expression of opinion, too, is a necessary
tgiga goramen function of human communication.
higo bloiko russula huju
Each of these forms of expression is legitimate in
hollaka hollala
itself; but, just because words can influence us so much, it
anlogo bung is important that we should not be led into mistaking one
blago bung form of expression for another. We know that the
blago bung novelist, the poet, and the dramatist are deliberately
bodso fataka playing on our feelings; we may not always be aware
a bb b when, under the guise of objective reporting, opinions are
schampa wulla wussa dlobo expressed by journalists, historians, advertisers, politi¬
cians, and even social scientists.
hej tatta gorem
eschige zcinbada
mm ssobodu ohiD ssobodn Sound poem by German-born Hugo Ball—one of the
tumba ba- umf “ Dadaist" w riters and artists active in Switzerland during
World War 1. The Dadaist group flouted conventions in
kusagauma order to express themselves more freely; their unorthodox
ba - umf H^Sin w ork attracted a wide public but much hostility too. 151
Poetry and print

Much of this chapter is devoted to prose works; but in

earlier times many more printed books were in verse
than is the case today. It may be that as has been esti¬
mated in the case of Britain the proportion of poetry
readers to the total literate population is about the same
as it was ioo or so years ago, but the average length of the
poems they read is certainly much shorter. Long poems
particularly narrative poems like those of Sir Walter
Scott were driven out of fashion by the novel, of which
Scott himself was a pioneer.
In our great-grandfathers’ times poetry was quite
commonly read aloud in educated circles. The ample
provision of mass entertainment in the form of films and
radio and television broadcasts has made such poetry
readings rare. This is important, because poetry is
Left: a woodcut from the first edition of The Siege of
essentially something for the ear, not for the eye of a
Troy (1513) by England's John Lydgate, whose poems
silent reader. In all creative writing, the sound of words is won great popularity before the development of printing.
important, but poetry in particular could not exist It depicts Lydgate presenting a copy of the work to Henry
IV. Above: young English poet Jeremy Robson reading
without it. Poetry has been called “memorable speech” his poems to a jazz accompaniment.
a definition that stresses that the basis of poetry is always
the spoken word.
Poetry’s memorability springs from its use of rhythms
that evoke a natural response in man. Just as children
run rather than walk, so, without being taught, they
naturally arrange words in rhythmic sequences, as
though they were making language itself an expression of
bodily rhythm. Here is a line of verse by the English poet
Tennyson (1850—92) that shows how rhythm can rein¬
force the sense of words:
Break, break, breaks on thy cold gray stones, 0 Sea!
Rhyme further increases the memorability of verse, as,
for example, in these lines from “To His Coy Mistress” by
the 17th-century English poet Andrew Marvell.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
In societies where writing was unknown, the fact that
poetry is easier to remember than prose made it an im¬
portant vehicle for the transmission of law. knowledge,
and ritual, and so helped to bind a community together.

In modem Sicily, children and passers-by linger to listen

to a roadside storyteller, who recounts medieval verse
epics with lively gestures. Even in the cige of mass com¬
munications, such natural actors keep the tradition of
152 spoken verse alive in some Western communities.
LA MANDOLINE L’CEILLET ET LE BAMBOU This social role of poetry was not really lost until printing
made books and other publications commonplace enough
que cet oeillet te disc for them to replace the spoken word as the principal form
la Ioi des odeurs of literary communication. The great national epics like
*** qu’on a’a pas encore
promulguie et qui riendr*
the Greek Iliad and Odyssey, the Old English Beowulf ‘ the
un jour Old French Song of Roland, and the Middle High German
rtgner sur Niebelungenlied were the property and expression of the
nos cqrvcau*
communities in which they were born. Their authors—
bien -t-
precise & f cubdlc
often unknown were the spokesmen of the community’s
que sense of its own identity.
les Such epics were public poetry, listened to communally.
They were in a sense a form of theatre. It is easier for
qui re® poets and dramatists to borrow their language from com¬
nous ®
Jepr% mon speech than it is for authors whose works will be
& read rather than listened to. At times poets have forgotten
tous amie
this fact; they have thought of poetry as a pattern of
tes y
orgv print rather than of speech, and their living language has
trdne de been smothered by poetic conventions.
U
future Rhythm is essential to poetry, but it need not be either
SA
GES
fixed or regular. Where such rhythms become rigid rules,
SE poetry becomes enchained; but the absolute rejection of
patterns, as in free verse, can impose an opposite tyranny
on the poet. Here is a poem with a strong but much less
obvious rhythm than in the quotations from Tennyson
and Marvell. It is called “Lost in France,” and the poet
This poem, from Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrammes signs himself simply “E.R.”
{France, 1918), is ingeniously shaped to look like its
subjects: a mandolin, a flower, and a bamboo stick. He had the plowman's strength
Although the words are evocative, the poem would lose
most of its impact in recitation. Unlike traditional verse, In the grasp of his hand.
it is a pattern of print rather than of speech. He could see a crow
Three miles away,
And the trout beneath the stone.
He could hear the green oats growing,
And the sou-west making rain ;
And the wheel upon the hill
When it left the level road.
He could make a gate, and dig a pit,
And plow as straight as stone can fall.
And he is dead.

It is difficult to generalize about poetry and still say

something worth saying. Poetry is as varied and as indi¬
vidual as the poets who write it. But every significant
change in the writing of poetry has come from the poet’s
determination to return to what the English poet William
Wordsworth (1770-1850) described as “a selection of
language as really used by men.” Poetry is thus constantly
fighting against the fossilizing effect of print. The broad¬
casting and recording of spoken poetry have helped to
remind us that sound is the poet’s true medium.

153
From manuscript to reader

A book goes through many stages before it reaches the

reader. It begins with the manuscript or typescript as
the author has written it. When a publisher has been
found for it, this manuscript may be considerably
altered or revised in the light of the publisher’s sugges¬
tions. It is the publisher’s business to turn the author’s
manuscript into a book and to sell as many copies as he
can.
The publisher aims to make the book good to look
at. He employs a typographer to choose a suitable type
face, and, if the book is to be illustrated, an art editor to
design the book. When author and editor have made their
revisions to the text, the compositor sets the type (p. 141).
Proofs of the book are checked by several people—the
printer’s reader, the editor, and the author himself at
every stage in the process of getting the book ready for
printing. The corrections that are made at each stage are
incorporated by the compositor.
While the book is being made, the publisher’s salesmen
and publicity staff have the job of seeing that the book
will get maximum attention when it is published.
Booksellers must be persuaded to stock the book;
advertisement campaigns have to be planned; and
before publication copies must be sent to newspapers
and broadcasting organizations for reviews. In these
ways potential readers are made aware of the book’s
existence.
In the days when books were not readily available, the
Bookshops have always been the main channels for educated always carried a specially prepared selection
the sale of books, but they have never been the only ones. with them on their travels. This list of titles appears on
Before railways made the distribution of books rapid the inside lid of a box that contained the 44-volume
traveling library of a 17th-century British courtier.
and easy, many people in remote country districts had
to depend for their reading matter on what the itinerant
Today publishers draw people's attention to new books by
pedlar’s pack contained. Even today, you can buy advertising in the press and by arranging bookshop dis¬
books without ever going near a bookshop. By paying a plays like the one below. Booksellers are informed by
advance advertisements in the trade press.
 subscription to a book club, readers in many countries
can have a regular supply of books that have been
chosen for them by a panel of judges.
In some countries, particularly the United States,
membership of these clubs is very large, so that pub¬
lishers compete with one another to have their books
chosen. This, in turn, can mean that the requirements of
book clubs become a decisive factor in the kind of books
in which publishers decide to invest their capital. The
way in which book clubs operate therefore tends toward
a leveling-out of taste. On the other hand, some book
clubs cater for readers with special interests, such as
poetry,'sport, jazz, motor racing, country pursuits, and
so on. Such clubs help to make the publishing of com¬
paratively specialized books a paying proposition. A
more recent development in book distribution is mail¬
order selling, in which the purchaser buys the book
direct from the publisher through the post.
If we do not want to keep a book, or feel we cannot
afford to buy it, but would like to read it, we can usually
borrow it from a public library. Libraries have existed
almost as long as writing; but lending libraries, from
which books may be taken away and read at home, with
or without payment of a fee, are comparatively new
(p. 202 '. The subscription lending libraries really got
into their stride in the second half of the 18th century.
In England during the 19th century as much as three
quarters of the first printing of a popular novel might
be taken up by die subscription libraries. But most of
these libraries were very careful not to stock books that
might shock their subscribers. The result was that books
that outraged 19th-century moral codes were effectively
denied publication.
The subscription libraries have almost disappeared
with the great expansion everywhere of public libraries,
in which the borrowing of books is normally free. The
BASED ON THE
growth of membership of public libraries is one reflection
SCREENPLAY OF of the growth of literacy and has gone hand in hand with
THE UNFORGETTABLE
the rise in the sale of books. Many have claimed that
MOTION PICTURE
-THE MIGHTIEST the public library system is unfair to the author, any
ROMANCE AND one of whose books may be read, free, by several hundred
ADVENTURE IN A
THOUSAND YEARS
readers before it is worn out. This injustice is recognized
officially in the Scandinavian countries, where the
libraries pay a small fee to each author according to the
number of times his books are borrowed. The fact
remains that no surer proof of the importance of books
could be found than the general recognition of the duty
of public authorities to provide well-stocked libraries
from which citizens can borrow books ranging from the
A GOLD MEDAL SPECIAL very scholarly to the very popular.

Upper: American film actor Charlton Heston as the

warrior-hero of Samuel Bronston s El Cid (U.S.A., 1962).
Lower: cover of the hook of the film. Published in 1962, it
shared the film's success. The British edition alone sold
over 45,000 copies in 12 months. 155
International publishing

When printing was invented the common language of

educated men throughout Europe was Latin, and
scientific and scholarly books were written and printed
in Latin as a matter of course. They could be understood
by the learned everywhere, regardless of nationality.
This situation lasted until about the end of the 17th
century. Then there was a change, which can be seen in
the works of the two greatest mathematicians of the age:
In 1687 Isaac Newton wrote Principia Mathematica in
Latin; 17 years later he wrote his Opticks in English.
Similarly, Gottfried von Leibniz (1646-1716) wrote all
his scientific works in Latin or French, but at the end of
his life he wrote a book advocating increased use of his
native German.
But though national languages displaced Latin, the
need for an international language for special purposes
remained. Throughout Europe during the 18th and
19th centuries French was the international language of
diplomacy and polite society, and many German and
Russian aristocrats spoke French far better than they
did their native tongues.
During these years the dominance of French made
Paris the cultural capital of the world. Today, however,
for scientific purposes there are two principal inter¬
national languages, English and Russian. Many scientists Diagram shows the most important stages in the
feel handicapped without a working knowledge of one international co-production of a book such as
this, which is published simultaneously in many
or the other; and though the rivalry between the two different countries. Work done by the original
languages is a symptom of the ideological struggle editors is shown in black; work carried out by
between East and West, the great importance Russian publishing partners is in blue~ A typewriter
represents an editorial office; two rollers stand
has assumed during the past 25 years is a sign of the for an art department. A T-square shows where
enormous progress made by the Soviet Union in scientific design of book originates. Co-production begins
research and development. when original editors send galley proofs of
text to partners for translation. Design depart¬
For the most part, however, the vacuum left by the ment supplies partners first with layouts of each
disappearance of Latin as the medium of interchange of chapter, then with color proofs. Pciste-ups are
made of corrected color proofs, photocopied, and
knowledge and ideas has been filled up by translation sent to partners, who make final adjustments to
between languages, which is now a highly organized text. Then each partner sends films of his text
part of publishing. An interesting new development in to printer, who prints the various language
editions in swift sequence.
recent years is simultaneous publication of the same book
in several languages. This was pioneered by the magazine
industry, especially in the United States, and now a
number of periodicals, in particular news magazines
and “digests” (magazines in which whole books are
summarized , are published simultaneously in several
languages (p. 234). Now whole series of books are planned
and produced for the international market, particularly
books on the fine arts and books of the encyclopedia
Opposite: view of the Frankfurt Book Fair, 1963.
type, such as the one you are reading at this moment The Frankfurt fair meeting-place of European
(which is published in 12 languages . book publishers since the early 15th century—
Books of this kind are the work of teams, in which lapsed in 1750, but was revived in 1948. In 1963
over 100,000 titles were shown by publishers
writers, editors, designers, and translators all have a from 36 different countries.

156
part to play. The position of the writer who contributes
to this kind of book is very different from that of a
novelist; it is more like that of a script-writer in films
or television, where language is only one element in
the total means of communication. Pictures and captions
play as big a part as the text in putting over information
and ideas.
Because illustration, especially in color, is very costly,
it would be impossible to produce such books at a
moderate price for one country only. However, by
printing all the illustrations for every language edition
in one operation, the cost of production can be spread
over a much bigger market than one country alone could
provide. The original text and captions to the pictures
are produced in one country and translated into the
languages of the other countries.
These money-saving methods make it possible to
produce books for the international market that would
otherwise be too costly to publish. But that is not all.
The fact that such books are read by people in many
different countries has an effect on the way the books
are written. They must, as far as possible, take a world¬
wide rather than a national point of view. They are both
products of modern international co-operation and
conscious expressions of the 20th-century view that our
world is essentially one world.

157
Chapter 7

Theatre, Music, and Dance

Theatre, music, and dance are the three great communal

arts. They form a link with the culture of primitive
society, where all art arose directly from the life of the
community. This is no longer so. Much art nowadays is
the work of solitary artists poets, painters, and novelists
whose audience, too, consists of isolated individuals.
Only the three communal arts retain their social charac¬
ter.
Naturally that character takes different forms in
different civilizations; and these forms may be so different
that they communicate little to members of other civiliza¬
tions. For instance, to Western senses, the shrill, de¬
humanized tone of Indian singing or the frozen rituals of
Japan’s No theatre may at first seem wholly alien. In the
West, too, communal arts have purchased their develop¬
ment at the price of losing contact with the majority of the
people. It is also generally true that, throughout their
long development, group action (tribal dancing, for
example) has slowly given way to the performer-audience
relationship that we find in civilized society.
But whether the setting is ancient India or modern
New York, and whether the community joins in the per¬
formance or merely watches it, the basic function of the
three arts is to satisfy the need for the public expression of
shared values and emotions. As these arts exist nowadays
in the West it is hard to press the comparison much
further than that, for each art has grown to occupy a
world of its own. When they are brought together, as in
opera, it sometimes seems that one art is operating at the
expense of the others. In their infancy their relationship This 10th-century Indian statue of the
was much closer. To this day, India has no separate Hindu god Siva, creator and destroyer
of the world, portrays him in his role
words to distinguish d&nce from drama. But beyond a of Lord of the Dance (nataraja). The
certain point of development there is a limit to the ability principle of sangita (the fusion of
music, dance, and drama) survives in
of these three arts to work together, for, as we shall see in modem India in a way that has long
this chapter, each has its own expressive range. since vanishedfrom the Western world.

158
1Vs0
 Expressive range

Theatre, music, and dance all arise from man’s need for
physical expression, but each translates into a separate
language. The language of theatre is primarily words;
that of music, sounds; and that of dance, movement.
Originally there was no barrier between them: Greek
tragedy, for instance, is said to have sprung from the
dithyramb, a religious chant sung and danced in honor of
the god Dionysus. And according to Hindu mythology,
drama had its beginnings in the rites enacted by the gods
Brahma and Siva when they created the world. In India
the unity persists in the principle of sangita, meaning the
fusion of dance, music, and drama into a single art.
Even where they diverge, the three arts retain certain
fundamental properties in common: They all involve
movement in time, and they are all performing arts—
they evoke emotions and states of mind by using perfor¬
mers to play on the senses of the spectator. And we can
still rediscover their close primitive relationship by ob¬
serving the way in which children’s speech turns into a
kind of song under the pressure of strong emotion, and
dance steps move spectators into beating out a rhythmic
accompaniment. However, such links tend to become
weaker as these three arts become more highly developed.
Drama and music show this tendency to separation
at its most extreme, for drama is addressed to the think¬
ing mind as well as the emotions, music is not. Because
drama is primarily a verbal art, it cannot help deal¬
ing with ideas, human character, and impressions of
society. Indeed, it is so much bound up with life outside
the theatre that it frequently parts company with art
altogether. But whether a drama sets out to reflect life
or to re-enact universal myths, its success depends on how
skilfully it transforms its material into action.
Music, on the other hand, is not usually about things at
all; it need contain no direct reference to the world out¬
side it. Its properties are pitch, rhythm, and timbre
(quality of sound), but it is impossible to convey the
appeal of these properties to anyone who has not ex¬
perienced their force. The closest one can come, in non¬
musical language, to describing the meaning of music is
to say that it conveys the eternal human emotions without
relying on any particular human situation. It can evoke
the emotions of love, defiance, or sorrow, as feelings in¬
separable from the general human condition. But drama
cannot say anything about such universal human
moods unless it speaks through one particular group of
men. Nor at least so far as Western drama is concerned
—can it sustain emotion for the length of time that music
can. True, m the ballet-like No plays of Japan attention
is focused on the characters’ reactions to events rather

First-century terra-cotta figure of a Roman

masked comic actor. The farces of classical times,
with their stock characters and improvised dia¬
logue, were the forerunners of a tradition that
survives today in pantomime and influences many
other forms of theatre.
than on the events themselves. By means of symbolic
gestures, the players manage to prolong such sensations as
grief or betrayal for much longer than is possible in verbal
drama, where apy attempt to dwell on passing states of
mind hinders the onward march of cause and effect. 1W
Music, too, is an onward progression, but its speed is
not that of words. Where a writer may convey an emotion / A Hi fi *1 i
in two lines of dialogue, a composer may devote a whole
movement to it. In Handel’s oratorios, for instance, the r A
1j T
librettos constantly have to double back on their tracks
f wfijifl
BW' , \ 1 1 I f 1 1
to avoid racing ahead of the music. The same is true even
in the relatively simple terms of song. Thus, many song
writers of the 19th century unhesitatingly mangled the
poems they set, distorting both meaning and meter to fit
the form of the music. In the 1890s, however, the situation
was reversed, and composers such as the German Hugo
Wolf and the Frenchman Claude Debussy abandoned
regular musical form so that they could write songs that
truthfully communicated the rhythms of poetry.
With the vastly more elaborate forms of the opera, the
relationship between music and drama is naturally more
complex. The most ambitious attempt to fuse music and
drama together was made by the German composer
Richard Wagner (1813-83), whose operas embody the
principle of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art . But
what the works of Wagner and his followers reveal is not
so much a fusion as the enormous power of the arts to com¬
plement one another. Words can intensify the effect of
music by giving it a specific human meaning, and music
can strengthen dramatic impact, both at moments of
climax and in moments of reflection, where it radiates the
play’s mood and sustains an emotionally charged atmos¬
phere for longer than is possible with words alone.
Drama and music are the furthest apart of the three
communal arts in their means of expression. Dance occu¬
pies a mid-region between them. As its fundamental
property is rhythm, its closest link is with music, but it is
also capable (as in Western ballet of communicating
ideas and telling stories. Like song, it also preserves a
strongly social character and exists both on the popular
level of spontaneous self-expression and on the level of
high culture.

This picture of a Chinese orchestra, which was

painted during the T'ang dynasty, more than 900
years ago, and the photograph {left) of modern
children dancing in the street, illustrate the
permanent place that the performing arts have
in all societies and all periods.
Changes in social function

All art reflects the society of its time. This is particularly

true of the three communal arts, which, unlike poetry
and painting, cannot flourish in private, and so are more
at the mercy of public taste. This has sometimes curbed
their development. Until recently, for instance, British
drama lagged twenty years behind novel-writing and
poetry in technique and subject matter.
In the West, dance, drama, and music have gone
through three historical phases, in the first of which gods
played the dominant roles, in the second kings, and in the
third ordinary men. Between the second and third phases,
these arts underwent a fundamental change of social
function. In providing a ritual for worship or patriotism,
art acknowledges a master. But when the subject is
common humanity, the artist gains social equality with
his material, and self-expression becomes the dominant
factor in his work.
Passing from one phase to another was a gradual pro¬
cess. Although the beginnings of the final phase may be
seen in the Renaissance, it was not until the beginning of This pavilion, erected in London s Green Park in
1749 to celebrate the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,
the last century, with the birth of the European Romantic was the setting of the grand firework display for
movement, that it made its impact really felt. The which George Frederick Handel w rote the Royal
immediate effects of this aesthetic earthquake can be Firework Music, commissioned by George II.

seen most clearly in music, which until then had been

largely dependent on the demands of Church and court
ceremony. Eighteenth-century composers, for instance,
could be required to turn out musical accompaniments
for banquets, reflecting each course of the meal with a
different movement. Music of this kind has reappeared in
the present century in Germany with Paul Hindemith’s
Gebrauchsmusikmusic for specific social functions
and in France with Erik Satie’s musique d'cimeublement
music designed to stimulate conversation. These
revivals of 18th-century practice grew out of a disgust
with the emotional and sentimental excesses of Romanti¬
cism.
Nevertheless, the effect of Romanticism was to liberate
music from the bonds of social occasion, to make it self-
sufficient, so that we now enjoy it for its own sake. The
Romantic upheaval brought about a profound change in
the language of music. In place of ritual, Romanticism
emphasized the appeal to the individual sensibility. For
that reason the communal function of the performing arts
narrowed particularly in the essentially public world of
the theatre. The Romantic era is almost a blank page in
the history of Western drama.
In its periods of greatest vitality, drama has been as
much concerned with influencing society as with reflect¬
ing it. Primitive drama was an urgently practical matter
in which ritual and magic helped to concentrate the will

Above: broadsheet of the Marseillaise now

France's national anthem written in 1792 by
Rouget de Lisle for the Marseilles revolutionaries.
Below: La Carmagnole a round dance intro¬
duced to Paris, as a revolutionary song by the
162 Marseilles rebels^and often sung at executions.

darufionsXa Gxrmapmfle vt ve (aJonvmSeJotv

of the tribe on agriculture, hunting, and war. Drama
thus grew out of sympathetic magic— or, as we would call
it nowadays, wish-fulfillment. In place of magic, the
modern theatre makes use of logic and experience of
nature, but the underlying aim is the same: to help man
to come to terms with natural forces and with other
human beings.
But there is one great difference between ritual dramas
and those of the modern theatre. All ritual serves to
reinforce existing beliefs. This is its function equally in
tribal dance, in church music, and in the popular religi¬
ous drama of the Middle Ages. In modern societies,
where the community sense has been eroded by separa¬
tion from nature and the decline of shared beliefs, there is
far less scope for ritual. Instead of being an everyday
experience, it tends to be reserved for special occasions,
like national pageants, when people briefly recapture a
communal spirit. In such societies the communal arts
remain alive not by reinforcing old beliefs, but by telling
people something new. If they fail to do this, they tend to Devil mask from Ceylon worn in dance rituals to cure
victims of stammering or deformity. Devil dancing is
dwindle into commercialized routine. We can see this in
believed to drive out evil spirits thought to possess the sick.
the case of popular song, for example, by comparing sea Dating from pre- Buddhist times, it is still widely practiced.
chanteys and African work songs with their modern
counterparts, such as the BBC’s Music While You Work
program and America’s “Muzak,” which is relayed in
shops, banks, and offices as a psychological stimulus to
activity. In both cases the music aims to influence
behavior; but whereas work songs fulfill this purpose
with full-blooded expressiveness, commercial music is
designed to affect the listener without really engaging his
conscious attention. One could say much the same of
many products of the commercial theatre.
Where modern drama retains its vitality, it aims to
make the audience think, as in the socially critical plays
of the French writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet
and the Swiss writers Friedrich Diirrenmatt and Max
Frisch. In an age like ours, when all beliefs are open to
question, it is natural to find such plays. Even in the
stable societies of ancient Greece and medieval Christen¬
dom we find orthodox ritual side by side with irreverant
comedy. In such societies irreverance acted as a safety
valve for people’s emotions. It strengthened rather than
endangered the social structure. Similarly, the plays of
the French dramatist Moliere (1622 73) and of England’s
late-17th-century playwrights both flattered society and
made fun of it.
But these earlier dramas exposed the foibles and deceits
of their time without questioning the social structure
itself. In times as unsettled as our own, the theatre
unless the state suppresses it puts society on trial.

Scene from The Kitchen by British playwright Arnold

Wesker. The play records a day in the life of the staff of a
popular restaurant, showing how work pressure changes
them from human beings into frantic automata. The
kitchen symbolizes the organization of society.

These Indian children are fascinated by the play even
though they know the puppets are not “realThey sense
that while the show is on, the dolls are in some mysterious
way alive, and that is enough. The closeness of puppet
shows to the essence of the theatre led the British stage
designer Edward Gordon Craig to call for the abolition of
live actors in favor of “super marionettes
Language of the theatre
The Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski (1863
1938) said that the theatre comes to life with the words “as
if.” The formula of “magic if,” as he called it, was meant
for actors, but it is equally true for audiences: Com¬
munication begins from the moment at which we accept
events on the stage as if they were real.
But this does not mean that everything on our side of
the stage becomes unreal. To be moved by the death of
Othello you do not have to believe that the figure before
you has literally killed himself; it is the very fact that you
are all the time half conscious that he will walk off un¬
harmed when the curtain falls that enables you to res¬
pond to his tragedy. Theatrical communication is a
double mental process whereby the audience is induced
to fuse imaginative life and ordinary life. The double¬
response process is brilliantly demonstrated in a play by
the Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello (1867 1936)
called Tonight We Improvise. In one scene a group of
actors in rehearsal are interrupted by an old clown who
bursts on stage, furious at being kept waiting for his cue.
His part includes a death scene, and he angrily shows the
other actors how well he would have played it. But he
plays the scene so convincingly that the other actors in¬
voluntarily react exactly as would the characters they
play. There in a nutshell is the theatrical experience.
This, however, is not always apparent in the modern
theatre of the West, which has cultivated a style that
minimizes the contrast between imaginative and ordin¬
ary life. Our plays tend to reproduce everyday behavior
with photographic exactitude, and our boxlike stages
encourage the same style. The proscenium arch above a
straight-edge stage interposes an imaginary “fourth wall”
between stage and auditorium, thus making the spec¬
tator feel that he is looking in on something private.
Audiences are so familiar with this convention that they
tend to judge a production in terms of how far it conveys
an illusion of real life and makes them forget that they are
in a theatre. This, however, is a self-defeating demand,
for by these standards the finest “illusion” would be real
life itself. The fact is that “true-to-life” theatre, like
theatre of any other kind, depends on the double¬
response process.
The illusion of real life can only be attained w ithin the
limits of one dramatic style, and the theatre is much
larger than that. In the words of the pioneer stage
designer Edward Gordon Craig (b. 1872 ), “the art of the
theatre is neither acting nor the play, it is not scene nor
dance, but it consists of all the elements of which these
things are composed.” What holds these elements to¬
gether is action the way, for instance, in which a
Sarny Molcho, an Israeli exponent of mime. In this silent
art—midway between acting and dance—the performer
can compress whole life cycles into a few seconds. His face
is whitened into an inexpressive mask and many movements
(climbing invisible stairs, leaning against an invisible wall,
and so on) are standardized. Drawing by Hans Erni.
“musical” develops an idea by passing it back and
forth between dialogue, song, and dance. Such entertain¬
ment is obviously unlike life. Indeed, that is its appeal. By
virtue of the double response we enjoy seeing a common¬
place situation like a rush-hour crowd transformed into a
formal ballet. Enjoyment stems from relating the
theatrical convention to the ordinary experience.
All theatrical communication depends on one kind of
convention or another. Some conventions—like those of
miming—are easy to understand. When a mime per¬
former like France’s Marcel Marceau opens his arms in a
desolate gesture, you do not have to be told that it
represents a sigh. Other conventions have to be learned
like a new language. Indian actors employ a vocabulary
of some 500 hand gestures (mudras) each of which has a
precise significance. In China, thresholds, doors, and
stairs are suggested by mime, and characters are revealed
by the color of their make-up. The symbolism of Japan’s
No theatre is still more austere: A kimono lying on the
stage represents a sick man; a downward glance means
tears; and so on. Devotees of No claim that each lift of a
hand or opening of a fan conveys emotion of immense
power. And as in the Elizabethan theatre ( where women’s
parts were played by boys), Japanese convention ignores
age and sex in the casting of parts: Baigyoku, one of
Japan’s most venerated actors, gave his last performance,
at the age of 73, as a 19-year-old girl.
One of the most powerful of all theatrical conventions,
from the drama of the ancient Greeks to that of the
Elizabethans, is poetic drama. The Greek actors played in
masks and were separated from their audience by the
breadth of an arena; the Elizabethans played in the
costume of their own time on open stages that brought
them intimately into contact with the audience. In
neither case was naturalistic stage setting used. But in An actor of the Japanese Kabuki theatre—a stage
both cases, poetry gave drama an added dimension. tradition that arose in the 17th century and has
affinities with Shakespearean drama. Kabuki is a
Besides allowing the dramatist to “paint” the scenery in combination of dance, drama, and music. Its
words and to give an extra depth to his characters, acting style extends from realism to the stylized
poetry helps to relate local human affairs to a universal imitation of puppets and animals. Most of its
performers are also skilled painters and poets.
context.

Some of the hand-gestures or mudras that form

part of the language of Indian dance. Source of
gestures is Bharata’s Canons of Dance and
Drama, a treatise supposedly dictated by the
Hindu god Brahma. It also gives instructions on
movements of the neck and eyeballs.
Vocabulary of the modern theatre

Moving from a long-term survey to a close look at the

vocabulary of the modern theatre is like going from the
calm of Olympus to the chaos of a Tower of Babel. The
first half of the 20th century was an era of experiment in
the theatre as in other arts. Everything was given a trial.
We had plays that spanned the whole of mankind’s
development and plays that were devoted to a fraction of
a second in a character’s life; plays with a whole social
class as the “hero,’' and plays set inside the skull of one
man. Stages have sometimes been loaded with realistic
properties, sometimes left totally bare.
Each experiment was made in the belief that the play
would communicate more of “reality.” But what kind of
reality the reality of the external world, or the inner
reality of the mind ? The tug-of-war between these two
led European drama through a succession of new stage
techniques naturalism, expressionism, theatricalism,
and other -isms. Most extreme of all the experimentalists
were the Dadaists, whose theatrical style involved throw¬
ing things at the audience.
The beginning of modern theatre can be precisely
dated as March 30, 1887, when a play called Jacques
Damour by the French writer Emile Zola 1840-1902 was
given its first performance at the tiny Theatre Libre in The first night of Victor Hugo's melodrama
Paris. The show was directed by a young clerk from the Hernani (1830)—the Romantic movement's
declaration of war on the French Theatre. It was
Paris Gas Company, Andre Antoine about 1857 1943 ),
given in the Comedie Frangaise, Paris, which was
and it launched the movement known as naturalism with invaded for the occasion by the belligerent young
which the theatre broke away from the artificiality of the intellectuals of the time (among them Theophile
Gautier, Balzac, Merimee, and Berlioz)—a wild¬
19th-century stage and took life as its model. Naturalism looking crew in Spanish mantles and broad-
began with the aim of applying scientific method to the brimmed hats among the white-shirted regular
study of human emotion: “Vice and virtue are products patrons. Below: a stage design for Anatole
France's The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife
like sugar and vitriol,” wrote one of its early exponents, (1915), by the American Robert Edmond Jones.
and in its first years it had a markedly liberating effect. It Jones believed that a stage setting should be
addressed to the “eye of the mind," regarded as
was a healthy shock for the audience o £ Jacques Damour to
“a presence, a mood, a symphonic accompaniment
see actors behaving like ordinary people in ordinary to the drawn ”
surroundings furniture for the show had been trundled
to the theatre by Antoine from his own home . But it soon
became clear that, in the process of turning the theatre
into a painstaking replica of life outside, the “inner
reality” was not being conveyed to the audience. It was
in pursuit of this elusive quality that the next revolution
symbolism took place.
Symbolism renounced the tyranny of copying external
appearances and devoted itself to conveying an inner
truth. As the symbolist designer Robert Edmond Jones
(1887 1954 put it: “Everything that is actual must
undergo a strange metamorphosis, a kind of sea-change,
before it can become truth in the theatre.5’ The theatre,
in other words, communicated not just “life” but an
insight into life. Symbolism (which dates from 1908 with
the Munich Artists’ Theatre production of Goethe’s
Faust was less a playwrights’ movement than a language
of directors and set designers. Its main achievements were
in productions of the classics. Its typical effects were
shadowy and impressionistic, set in a dream world. Its
character was largely determined by the development of
electric stage lighting by Adolphe Appia 1862 1928),
who introduced the double technique of general illumina¬
tion and accentuation (by spotlights and so on which
enormously increased the power of the theatre to com¬
municate atmosphere.
Symbolist designers worked by selecting one aspect of
an environment that would convey a sense of the whole
for example, narrow soaring walls to suggest a light¬
house). They then went on to treat the design as a
“thing-in-itself” that no longer represented the original
object. In thus seeking to communicate the beauty, power, A scene from Konstantin Stanislavski's 1902 pro¬
duction of The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorki.
or other qualities of “things-in-themselves,” symbolism Stanislavski, the father of Method acting, de¬
was as unfaithful to external reality as down-to-earth manded the most realistic performances from his
cast. To prepare actors to play beggars in this
naturalism had been to internal reality. The time was
production, he sent them to live in Moscow's slums.
ripe for the next revolt.
■The movements that followed symbolism are discussed
on page 168. But symbolism and naturalism are far from
dead. They are still the most familiar languages that
playwrights use. Symbolism has become a kind of dra¬
matic shorthand that enables playwrights to cover larger
subjects than the usual laws of narrative permit. An
example is the one-act play by the American dramatist
Thornton Wilder, The Long Christmas Dinner, which
shows the lives and deaths of several generations in the
Q\
course of a single meal. Naturalism is no longer confined
to the surface of life. Its vocabulary was enormously en¬
riched by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov (186a
1904), who perfected a style in which the outward
behavior of characters also reflected their inner thoughts.

Scene from Exit the King (1963) by

Ionesco (p. 175)- a nightmarish farce
about death. The pyjama-clad king
watches the collapse of his country and
the evacuation of his palace, which, like
himself is reduced to an empty shelf
ready for demolition.
The stage as a pulpit

To a certain extent the theatre is always concerned with

influencing public opinion. Even the light comedies of
New York’s Broadway and the West End of London,
which aim simply to entertain, serve also to reinforce
socially approved beliefs such as the sanctity of marriage
or the notion that crime doesn’t pay. But although all
drama conveys a message, the term “pulpit stage”
applies only to drama of a certain kind the kind in
which the didactic (or teaching) element is openly
recognized by actors and spectators. The most obvious
example is the religious drama of medieval Christendom,
which was a popular extension of Church worship into
the market place.
The use of the stage as a pulpit has important conse¬
quences in terms of stagecraft. If audiences go to the
theatre for instruction they will expect to be addressed
directly, not to be separated from the action by an
imaginary “fourth wall” (p. 164). In didactic drama,
therefore, the stage tends to be treated as a platform, not
as a picture frame. There are exceptions. The Norwegian
dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828 1906) preached social
reform in naturalistic terms of a picture stage; so did the
Dutch dramatist Herman Heijermans (1864 1924) and A “constructivist" stage setting by Alexander
Vesnin for G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was
the British dramatist John Galsworthy (1867-1933 , Thursday (1923). Constructivism—a type of
whose plays spurred on movements to change their abstract sculpture that originated in Russia in
1912—was applied to stage design by the great
countries’ laws. But even in good plays, the combination
director Vsevolod Meyerhold. Its exponents re¬
of didacticism and naturalistic staging sometimes irritate placed naturalistic settings with bricklayer's cat-
audiences instead of winning them over. The audience walks, ladders, and scaffolding.
feels cheated when entertainment turns out to be moral
uplift in disguise.
Most of the world’s drama is of the pulpit rather than
Below: a scene from Erwin Piscator's 1928 Berlin
the naturalistic kind. Indian theatre, like that of the production of The Good Soldier Schweik—one
ancient Greeks, instructs the public in national legend; of the key events in modern drama. The play,
based on Jaroslav Hacek's novel, concerns a
traditional Chinese drama expounds parables on ancestor
round-faced little Czech soldier whose talent for
worship and demonstrates classical feats of battle. In survival exposes the inhuman absurdities of World
both, the style is ritualistic. War I. Piscator's production introduced such new
techniques as a pair of conveyor belts for changing
Ritual is an ancient form of pulpit drama. The pulpit the scenes and a cinema screen for film episodes
theatre of our age is critical. Its aim is not to reconcile and drawings, like those above, by George Grosz
men to society but to urge them to change it. In the (p. 308). The political impact of the production,
coupled with its demand that the audience think
disillusion that followed the 1914 -18 war a group of for themselves, made it the first major example
German writers —the expressionists—reasserted human of epic theatre.

m blown skyhigh by the explosion of a gas generator.
Surrealist backdrop by Howard Bay for the
American Federal Theatre production of George
Sklar's Life and Death of an American (1939).
Dreamlike images of a bare hill dominated by a
factory, with wretched houses of workers on lower
slopes, suggest the underlying feudal nature of
industrial society.
Below: a scene from the New York Living News¬
paper production Triple-A Plowed Under (1936).
Living Newspaper, a form of theatrical journalism
relying on loudspeaker, music, and film techniques,
originated in New York in 1935 under dramatist
Elmer Rice. Though state-supported, it ventured
to attack the government (in this case, for its
agricultural policy), and often provoked angry
opposition from spectators.
tr n A
i+myt+smAS.
values in dramas that showed man at war with the
machine. The best known of the group is Georg Kaiser
(1878 1945). His play Gas I concerns the son of a bil¬
lionaire industrialist whose attempts at social reform arc
Apart from its introduction of “telegraphic” dialogue
(in which all except the main parts of speech are omitted),
expressionism added less to our dramatic vocabulary than
did its successor, theatricalism. This style grew up in post¬
revolutionary Russia and made powerful contact with
audiences partly through its social content and partly
iltrough its development of platform stage techniques.
Communism has supplied the century with both its
main forms of pulpit theatre socialist realism and epic
both of which, unlike expressionism, welcome the
machine age. Socialist realism flourishes only within
Communist countries. It is less an artistic style than an
instrument for regulating public opinion: “Theatre is a
Weapon” was an early Soviet slogan. Epic theatre first
appeared in Germany in the 1920s. Its dramatists set out
to criticize society and have developed new theories and
new communication techniques, such as the “alienation
effect” (by which actors are required to play with emo¬
tional detachment) and the use of film to comment on live
action. The pioneers, the dramatist Bertolt Brecht
(1898 1956) and the director Er\vin Piscator (b. 1893),
designed epic theatre as a method of putting society on
trial. Here is part of Brecht’s list of diff erences in emphasis
between traditional theatre and epic theatre:
Traditional Theatre Epic Theatre
Plot, -suggestion, feeling. Narrative, argument, rea-
Implicates the spectator in son. Turns the spectator
a stage situation and wears into an observer but arouses
down his capacity for his capacity for action,
action. Provides sensations. Makes him take decisions.
1
 Language of music

Music is often said to be “an international language."

This is true only where there is some shared cultural
heritage, as, for instance, in the West. A European or
American may rapidly discover this by trying to follow
the beat of an African drummer or the melodic line of
an Indian song. Nevertheless, at least so far as pitch is
concerned, a basic international tonal vocabulary does
exist. This is the pentatonic scale a series of five tones that
correspond to the black keys on a piano. Tunes based on
this scale are to be found all over the world. Such a tune is
“There is a Happy Land,” which was originally an
Indian hill melody.
All other scales, however and they exist in countless
numbers belong to the particular cultures that produce
them. Our Western ears are conditioned to the seven-
tone series known as the diatonic scale (from C up to B on
the white keys of a piano ; thus we encounter difficulties
with the 22-tone Hindu scale.
Music’s three elements are pitch, rhythm, and timbre
p. 160 . All three are elements of speech too (though in
European languages pitch is the most important!. Con¬
versation and melody often overlap, and most experts
agree that the origin of scales is in speech inflexions.
Modern students of folk song have found that country
people are sometimes unable to sing a tune unless they
put the words to it. In other cultures (those of Africa,
for instance the dominant element is rhythm, often
broken into subdivisions of beat that are too minute for
the normal Western listener to grasp. These rhythmic
subtleties explain how African drumming is able to act
not only as a dance accompaniment but also for the
transmission of messages p.213 .
Rhythm is fundamental to most human activities. In
Western music the basic rhythmic measure is the crotchet,
which corresponds to the speed of the human pulse. But
the notation (writing down of a rhythm was a late
development in the classical music of the West. Medieval
notation simply recorded pitch; and even in the 17th
century, by which time the principles of modern notation
were largely established, rhythm and tempo (speed 1 are
often unrecorded. In medieval Christian society rhythm
and dance were part of an earth-bound folk tradition
a popular counterpart to the official spiritual culture.
When classical music began to accommodate the forms of
the dance in the 16th century, the process reflected the
change from a purely Christian culture to the more
secular culture of the Renaissance.
Music reflects the society from which it springs. The
turn towtiutm raft i passionless non-rhythmic line of a Gregorian chant, for
instance, expresses the timelessness of medieval Chris-

Two illustrations reflecting the uniformity of

medieval Christian art. Above: painting from a
15th-century English psalter showing monks sing¬
ing the Divine Office. Left: specimen of monastic
musical notation. Austere visual design suggests
the devotional character of the music.
tianity. But in the 18th century the themes that Western An 18th-century court concert, from a painting
by Italy's Francesco Guardi. The severely formal
music set out to communicate became much more
and richly decorated musical style cultivated in
abstract, and the phrase “music begins where words come the 18th century mirrors the costume and manners
to an end” took on a new meaning. The vast enlargement of the audience of its day.
of harmonic vocabulary and of instrumental timbre the
quality of tone of different instruments) led some com¬
posers to associate music with color. They even drew up
charts labeling each key with the color it suggested; but
whereas one thought of F major as green, another felt it to
be bright red; color symbolism was too subjective to be
used in communicating with an audience.
A new kind of musical communication became This cartoon drawing by Gerard Hoffnung depicts
popular in the 19th century: program music a method a musician playing a cadenza. A cadenza is the
moment in a concerto when the soloist gives a
of musical storytelling. Another attempt to convey literal display of technical fireworks.
meaning was Wagner’s technique of attaching identifying
phrases (leitmotivs) to characters in his operas.
In the 20 th century, the language of Western music
has run into a crisis. As early as the 1890s composers
were beginning to feel that tonality (traditional harmony
had largely been explored. Since then music has been in
search of a new language. The best known so far is
serialising a mathematical system of composition. Serialism
amounts to an attempt to re-invent harmony from the
beginning. The techniques of serialism (which resembles
the improvised ragas of Indian music have given compo¬
sers new territory to explore. But a commonly under¬
stood language is essential to all communication, and
for the average listener this new, strange language has
merely increased the gap between high and popular
culture a gap that is studied on page 174.

171
Language of dance

Of all the differences between Eastern and Western cul¬

tures none is greater than the role of dance in society.
In its origins dance was one aspect of primitive worship;
and the major determining influence on its subsequent
history has been the attitudes of religious authorities.
In the Moslem world, where dance was considered
blasphemous, it was discouraged. In the West, too, it
fared badly. Christian reservations on the use of the body
as an instrument of pleasure depressed it to the level of a
secondary art. But in Hindu culture, dance flourishes in
the belief that music and dance are divine gifts and that
man’s highest expression is to return them to the gods. In
Hindu theology the body is no less divine than the spirit;
consequently even in the most erotic dances, such as the
Balinese Joget (flirt dance t, the performer offers up a
prayer.
Hindu culture spread across Asia from India, some¬
times being transformed in the process and sometimes
remaining intact. Today the most perfectly preserved
Hindu rituals are to be found not in India but in the
Bugaku dances of Japan (which represent the creation of
the world by the god Siva in a form that dates back
1300 years.
By nature, dance is a transient art. In the modern
West we are able to record ballets by systems of notation;
but in the past original form was preserved only in com¬
panies with an unbroken tradition. Such a company 12th-century figures from Angkor, Cambodia.
Still a center of religious dance, it is decorated
is the Royal Danish Ballet, whose so-called “Bournoville throughout with representations of Hindu
style” perpetuates the French style of 100 years ago. apsarases celestial dancers who propitiated the
gods with gifts, with their bodies, and with their art.
Similarly, in Asia dance tradition survives at its purest in
the courts and palaces that maintain household perfor¬
mers. Asian courts have been described as museums of
the transient arts. One of the most famous ensembles is
the Cambodian company of Royal Khmer dancers who
perform in the 12th-century ruins of Angkor in a style
descended from that of the ancient dancers whose figures
are carved on the Angkor stones.
Like all Hindu dance, Cambodian dancing is a religi¬
ous exercise with a traditional language. Its movements
are either oblique or upward from the earth toward god.
In action and hand movement it usually tells a story.
Hand symbolism is used to represent anger and joy and
to convey actions like picking flowers or pointing toward
an enemy. Closely related to Cambodian dance is the
Siamese tradition, in which gesture is divided into three
categories—general emotions, ordinary movements, and
mental intentions, such as refusal or acceptance. In India
itself dance tradition is preserved in four schools, each
with its own style, but all expressing Hindu doctrine and
the legends contained in the two national epics, the

Part of a 17th-century dance, recorded in the early

system of dance notation devised in France by
Raoul Feuillet (about 1675 1730). It is only
recently that any determined effort has been made
to record Western dance steps so as to preserve
172 choreography in its original form.
Ramayana (ram means dance and the Mahabharata. The
limitation of classical Indian dance is that non-religious
and everyday subjects are outside its range: Its function
is to express eternal truths. Other branches of Hindu
dance are the Indonesian school of Penchak a form of
rhythmic combat that includes a dance movement by
which one of the dancers is actually killed and the
innumerable dances of Bali, which derive their steps
from the daily work-movements of the inhabitants.
Western influence has done much to disturb Asiatic
dance. As a rule, urban life and dance do not go together.
In a Westernized area like Vietnam the popular dance is
the Rambong, a Southeast Asian version of the twist,
which requires little skill and merely serves to bring men
and women together. Similarly, the dancing we find in
Western dance halls is largely a matter of social con¬
venience, though in America the Negro influence has
brought powerful human expression into such dancing.
Direct human expression is largely absent from the
West’s 200-year-old ballet tradition, for its particular
achievement is to have created a range of movement that
makes human beings appear ethereal and disembodied.
When comic characters are introduced, their steps tend A drawing by Charlotte Trowbridge depicting
Martha Graham, the pioneer of American modern
to be taken from folk dance, with the result that they dance, in her ballet Deaths and Entrances.
make a clumsy contrast with other performers. A recent Graham's style has little in common with Western
promising development in ballet has been in the work of ballet. Part-Oriental in origin, it is more dramatic
than lyrical, at its most characteristic in dance
those choreographers who translate everyday gestures interpretations of Greek tragedies. Below: a trio
into formal patterns such as we sec, for example, in the of cheerleaders whipping up enthusiasm at an
American football match. Their semi-spontaneous
street-gang dances in the American musical West Side
performance shows dance still occupying one of
Story. its original roles in society.
 High and popular culture

One of the prices to be paid for industrial civilization is a

decline in human contact. Small, primitive communities
have many drawbacks, but at least everybody in them
knows everybody else. People are not divided into
separate classes, each with its own standard of education,
range of experience, and outlook on the world. One might
expect that the three communal arts would help to close
this cultural split in industrial society as they often did in
pre-industrial society. Classical Indian drama, for
instance, was played in Sanskrit for the educated public
while, for those who could not understand, a clown
interpreted the proceedings.
The double tradition of popular art and art for the
cultural elite is an age-old one. In the past there was
usually a healthy interchange between the two. Serious
composers would write popular dances and folk tunes
into serious compositions. Since the Industrial Revolu¬
tion this interchange has declined. Between the two
world wars the divorce of high and popular culture
seemed absolute. Modern music, experimental theatre,
and contemporary ballet were mocked by all but a small
minority of enthusiasts. On the other side, some compo¬
sers, for instance, rejected the mass audience with a
disdain typified by the remark of Ferruccio Busoni 1866-
1924 : “We must make the texture of our music such that
no amateur can touch it.” Classical music illustrates the
situation well, for it embraces both a big public for
traditional works and a minority for experimental works.
Another feature of this century is the way in which
those who, in earlier times, might have been amateur
performers have become spectators. Similarly, most
popular entertainment no longer springs directly from
people’s lives but has become a standardized commercial
product. There have been exceptions. The British music
hall, when it flourished, was a stronghold of working-
class culture; and later generations have found a vital
expressive outlet in jazz. The case of jazz, however, itself
demonstrates the split between high and popular cul¬
tures. When it was despised by classical music lovers,
jazz had a huge public; but once it became musically
respectable, it developed forms too complex to have much
popular appeal.
In Communist countries there have been determined
efforts to prevent the arts from becoming the “property”
of educated minorities. The Chinese theatre went through
a “literary revolution” that established the use of col¬
loquial language on the stage, and troupes toured the
country with “street plays” on national themes. The
Soviet Union keeps vigilant control over the arts, and
playwrights and musicians who are thought to express

A fantastic scene from the traditional carnival at

Basle, Switzerland an event in which the per¬
forming arts survive at the level of popular culture.
In one form or another, the impulse to dress up,
make music, and dance remains a permanent
characteristic of mankind.
 themselves in too private a way for the public good
are accused of “formalism5’ and “obscurantism.55 To us,
the result seems a leveling-down of quality. We prefer
societies in which artists can express themselves as
straightforwardly or as obscurely as they think fit.
Neither the Communists nor the West, then, have
bridged the gap between high and popular culture.
Recent history has given terrifying examples of the
penalty human beings pa)' for failing to understand one
another; and artists have responded by becoming deeply
concerned with the problem of communication. Com¬
posers such as the Englishman Benjamin Britten and the
Italian Luigi Xono have managed to reach large audien¬
ces by setting texts on burning public issues. American
dramatists like Eugene O’Neill 1888 1953 , Arthur
Miller, and Tennessee Williams have explored the
psychological undercurrents of modern life; and, in
Britain, dramatists like John Osborne and Arnold
Wesker have hammered away at class barriers.
A vigorous European popular theatre movement has
also sprung up, with Centre 42 England and the com¬
panies of Roger Planchon (France and Vittorio Gassman
Italy . Its aim is to dev elop drama’s capacity for social
criticism and to create new theatre audiences among
working people. Ballet has shown itself much more
nervous of reflecting the modern world, though choreo¬
graphers like Kurtjoos Germany and Jerome Robbins
U.S.A. have broken new ground with works on political
and social themes which have enlarged the public sup¬
port for ballet beyond the limited appeal it has outside
Russia.
Finally there are the dramatists whose work is grouped
under the misleading term “failure of communication”
writers such as the Romanian Eugene Ionesco and the
Irishman Samuel Beckett, whose plays reflect an absurd
world in which, for instance, a married couple share a
flat with an expanding corpse, or a pair of disconsolate
tramps wait for a visitor whom they never really expect to
arrive. These plays express a peculiarly 20th-century
despair: Action is meaningless, hope futile, and loneliness
the only reality. But they manage to transform these
human negations into positive expressions: The)’ mark
the beginning of communication, not the end of it.

Above: On the 13th birthday of the People's Republic of

China, a mass rally of 15,000 marchers pays tribute to
music, theatre, opera, and painting. Left: The last night
of the Promenade Concert season at London s Albert Hall
is by tradition devoted to performances of English folk
music and patriotic songs, in which the audience joins.
Chapter 8

The Language of Science

The pursuit of science is a very special human activity.

It is concerned with describing the universe in which we
live, and it has two main purposes. One is to disentangle
nature’s mysteries, for no other purpose than to satisfy
man’s curiosity about the world of nature and his place in
it. The other is to discover to what extent man can make use
of the facts of nature in order to increase his interest in
and mastery over his surroundings, whether it be in order
to increase his standard of living, to prolong human life,
or to make better use of his raw-material resources.
Science is like an enormous, uncompleted jigsaw
puzzle. The completed picture would display all that
there is to be known about the universe. Each new dis¬
covery represents a single piece of the puzzle, and sooner
or later it always fits into its proper place in the picture.
Unlike other forms of knowledge and experience (say in
literature and art ) once the shape of a new piece has been
correctly determined it becomes a permanent addition
to our scientific knowledge; the research work it represents
should not have to be repeated. Thus, in each generation, Science aims at discovering the prin¬
scientists build on the work that has gone before. But they ciples on which the material universe is
constructed. Those principles can
can do this only if the previous results are recorded with nearly always he pat in mathematical
the greatest possible accuracy. form. WJiat could he more unlike than
As we shall see in this chapter, scientists have taken a a spiral mollask and a huge chaotic
nebula? Yet, as the picture slums,
great deal of trouble to describe their results in ways that strict mathematical principles underlie
are clear and unambiguous. In fact, science has a the growth of the mo Husk ancl the
activity of the nebula. To express those
language of its own, as well as many non-verbal ways of principles the scientist mast invent
conveying information in a precise and condensed form. spe cial languages.

176
mm

mm

Twelfth-century woodcut illustrates Aristotle's
theory that babies are formed by the curdling of
milk into cheese {here attendants carry cheeses).
Baby's soul descends from heaven via a tube. The
theory owes nothing to observation.
Below: Medieval alchemy blended mysticism with
observation. Brueghel's picture {1558) shows the
near-chaos in which alchemists worked.
Scientific and everyday language
Scientists are often accused of being cold and unemotional
people, withdrawn from ordinary human joys and
sorrows, and living in a remote world of their own. We
shall see later (p. 192) just what effect this alleged remote¬
ness has both on scientists and on their fellow men, but for
the moment let us see what truth there is in the accusation.
Firstly, it is obvious that scientists have built a barrier
to understanding between themselves and laymen simply
because scientists use a special language. Because science
is a specialized way of observing facts and of showing how
they relate to one another, the scientist must train himself
to think clearly, to measure exactly, and to devise experi¬
ments that have a definite purpose. Having done all this
he must then describe his observations as precisely as
possible. There must be no doubt, in the mind of someone
who reads his report, of what a scientist means when he
describes a particular event. He must say exactly what
he has found, no more and no less. For this reason, the
scientist tries to write sentences that have one meaning
and one meaning only.
This is much more difficult to do than it might appear
at first sight. If you look up almost any common word in
the dictionary, for instance the word “line,” you will find
dozens of different ways in which the word can be used,
each with a slightly different meaning or “flavor.” Such
richness of meaning is valuable for the poet, who wants
his words to conjure up a variety of images. But the
scientist wants just the opposite. He needs words that
have an exact and limited meaning, and the words he
uses should if possible carry no other associations or
emotional overtone. We shall see (p. 182) that scientists
have been driven to invent thousands of new words, both
ll
mm \1: ■
1
w
1? ^
 e X ER GIT AT 10
ANATOMICA DE
MOTV CORDIS ET SAN- to describe new things and also to avoid using old and
GVINIS IN ANIMALI- familiar words; meanwhile let us look briefly at a simple
B VS,
word that is only a few years old and is already being mis¬
gVILIELMI HARVEI ANGLI,
MediciRtgii, <3" Trofejfom <sAnatomU in CoU used. Scientists are defending the enormous cost of the
UgiUMeMcnum tindwekfh program to put a man on the moon by saying that even
if it fails the amount of experience gained in many
branches of science makes the whole operation well
worthwhile. These “by-products” of the space program
have been described as “technological fallout.” Now the
word “fallout” was coined quite recently to describe the
deadly particles that poison the atmosphere after a
nuclear explosion, and the word already has an extremely
unpleasant and even frightening significance both for
scientists and the general public. In fact its use for any
other purpose is or should be already out of the question.
This single example shows how important it is that
descriptive words in science should be used only for the
purpose for which they were intended, and not dragged
out of their original context.
Because science concentrates on facts and figures, its
language contains no shades of meaning, no humor, no
Accurate observation led England's William excitement (except perhaps to another scientist), and no
Harvey to conclude that the heart was a pump and
that blood circulated around the body. His lyrical passages of the kind we find in novels. The language
account of his work was published in 1628. of science is in fact dull and even boring to the layman, and
it makes no appeal to people who love literature for its
own sake. But its precision gives it one very valuable
property: It can be translated from one language to
another without loss of information. (Such losses often
occur in translations of novels or poems, whose words and
idioms often have no exact equivalent in other languages.)
This means that the results of scientific research in one
country can be made available in any other country. And
since (apart from military and commercial secrets),
scientific research is international, the free exchange of
accurate information across national boundaries makes
for economy of effort and prevents the same work from
being done twice over. In this respect scientists, for all
their restrictive use of words, actually have an advantage
over novelists and poets.
There is one further difference between scientific and
ordinary language. In our daily lives we use two
languages, one spoken, the other written, and there are
considerable differences between them. The scientist, on
the other hand, must place his findings on record, and for
this purpose he uses a written language. For this written
language there is no spoken equivalent, no slang, no easy
colloquialisms. This is yet another reason why scientific
language, and the scientists who use it, appear to the lay¬
man to be stilted, pompous, and remote from the affairs
of everyday life.

The electron microscope is one of many thousands

of instruments that today enable us to make ex¬
tremely precise observations. With this instrument
we can magnify objects 300,000 times. 179
Science and numbers 3000
50
_31
3081

Secondhand qarr
Furniture- PAVLS GVL.
MMMLXXXI

A large part of scientific information is purely descriptive;
it tells us about things as they are. A textbook on zoology,
for instance, will describe the anatomy and habits
of animals in their relationships to one another. In
This London shopfront aims to attract attention
by displaying its telephone number in Roman
numerals. The number is shown decoded into
Arabic numerals, which are quicker to read and to
manipulate and so more efficient.

every branch of science such descriptive information is

vital: It provides a framework in which natural objects
and events can be classified. But the biggest part of science
is concerned with the way in which things vary in relation
to one another. Examples of such variation are the way
the temperature at which water boils diminishes as we go
up a mountain, or the way the electrical resistance of a
wire decreases as the temperature of the wire gets lower.
To gather such information we need special instruments
that will measure the varying conditions, such as
temperature, pressure, and the flow of electricity.
Furthermore, those instruments must show their readings
in the form of numbers—the number of degrees Celsius
for temperature, the number of kilograms per square
centimeter for pressure, and so on. In fact, numbers are a
vital part of the language of science.
In the past there have been many ways of writing
numbers. None has been as satisfactory as the so-called
Arabic numerals that we now use. Originating in India,
these numerals were brought to the Western world by
Moorish invaders in about iooo a.d. It is difficult to
overemphasize the importance of these numerals, for
they were the first in history to make calculation easy. The
novel feature of Arabic numerals was the inclusion of the
symbol o (for zero), which made it possible to count from
i to 9 and then to “carry over” into the next column for
io to 19, and so on.
In addition to the numerals themselves there are other
vital signs called operators, which tell us what to do with
numbers. Examples are: + (add the numbers on each

Scientists at the Jungfraujoch Observatory in

Switzerland researching into mountain sickness
are constantly measuring percentages of oxygen
in the air and in human blood. Each observation
is reduced to standard form by using the equation
180 written across the picture.
side of the sign), — (subtract), x (multiply), and :
(divide), (find the square root), and signs of relation
such as = (equals), > (is greater than), and < (is less
than). By using numerals and operators the research
worker can express his results in mathematical language,
which is international. In arranging his experimental
results in this way the scientist does two things: He puts
them in a form that other scientists understand, and,
curiously enough, he also communicates with himself.
When he has reduced his observations to a series of
mathematical statements he has, so to speak, tidied his
workbench. He can now look at the results as a whole, and
search for some underlying principle or sign of orderli¬
ness. To take a very simple example, the experiments that
Robert Boyle did with gases showed him that if the
pressure on the gas was increased, say, three times, the
volume of the gas fell to one third of the original. Doubling
the pressure halved the volume, and so on. As soon as the
results of a number of such experiments were arranged in
a tidy manner, it became obvious that the volume
multiplied by the pressure always gave the same answer.
When a scientist reaches such a point, he finds that he
can make a generalization. In Boyle’s case this was a state¬
ment that is true for a wide range of volumes and pressures.
At this point, too, the scientist can use other symbols to
represent the numbers that he found in his original
experiment. Boyle’s law, for instance, runs: P x V K
(where P pressure, V - volume at that pressure, and
K is an accepted symbol for a constant, or something that
does not vary . This is a simple example of algebra, a form
of mathematical language in which generalized signs
stand for a wide range of particular numbers. Apart from
its usefulness in working out complex mathematical
problems, algebra gives us a brief method of stating
relationships in the form of convenient equations that
can be memorized or looked up in a book of tables. For
example, the volume of any sphere is given by the
equation V — f-jcr3, where 7C is a known constant (3 • 1416
actually the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its
diameter), and “r” is the sphere’s radius. As the equation
stands it gives us the volume of a sphere whose radius we
know. But suppose we know the volume and want to find
the radius? We can simply rewrite the equation:

3V or r — 3^V
r3
47t5 4 X K

In this and many other ways mathematics is an essential

part of the language of science. In fact much research,
especially in astronomy, can be reported as a series of
mathematical expressions, with only a few linking words.

The evolution of the calculating machine. Top:

the world's oldest calculator, the abacus, with
nine beads in each row. Middle: a hand-operated
calculator invented by Leibniz (1646-1716).
Bottom: A modern cash register adds up columns
of figures, and prints figures and total.
 The words of science

We have seen (p. 178) that scientists have always tried to

express themselves in a clear and unambiguous way. We
also saw how everyday words are unsuitable because they
have such a breadth of meaning. The only way out of this
difficulty has been to coin new words. Today there are
tens of thousands of scientific words (a medical dictionary
alone contains about 30,000 entries); and their number is
still increasing, so that scientific words far outnumber the
words we use in everyday language.
Where did all these new words come from ? During the
16th century, accurate scientific writing began to displace
the strange mixture of chemical nonsense and mysticism
of the alchemists. All the new words of that time were
taken direct from Greek and Latin (apart from a few
Arabic words such as algebra, zenith, and azimuth, which
came to Europe via Moorish scholars who lived during
the first 1000 years a.d.). There is a good reason for this
use of the classical languages. The scientists of the day,
like all other scholars in Europe, received a classical
education. A writer trying to describe a new discovery
had difficulty in finding a suitable word in his own
language. It was natural, then, that in coining a new
word he should borrow from the classical languages.
Thus we find in a century when there was a lot of interest
in, and progress in, anatomy words like cranium, femur,
scapula, tendon, and virus.
When words were borrowed in this way their meanings
were changed. Take, for instance, the word “anatomy.”
Literally it means “cutting up”; but its scientific meaning
covers the study of the body’s structure —skin, muscle,
bone, nerves, organs, and so on all of which is revealed
by careful “cutting up” of a dead body. In a different
way, the word cranium (Latin for skull) is more precise
than “skull” itself, for its meaning is restricted to the
bones surrounding the brain. In this way, classical words
take on a new and precise meaning.
This conversion of simple classical words went on at
an increasing rate in the 17th and 18th centuries. How¬
ever, as scientific knowledge unfolded, ever more words
were needed to describe not only simple objects but the
properties of things and their relation to one another.
This led to the coining of composite words, made up from
Greek and Latin. Such words now form the bulk of our
scientific vocabulary. Often their exact meaning is not
obvious—even to a student of classics, although he can
usually get some idea by looking at the parts from which a

Scientific names made up Jrom Greek and Latin words: (1) Pterodactyl
(pteron wing, daktylos =finger). (2) A triangle with two equal sides is
isosceles (isos equal, skeios leg). (S) The watering can is made of
polyethylene (polys many). [Ethylene is an organic gas the gas
molecules are crowded together to form a new solid called a polymer
(meros part)]. (4) Stained specimens 0/Bacillus dysenteriae (bacillum
small stick, dys - ill, enteron intestines). (5) Electroencephalograph,
for measuring the electrical activity of the brain (electro electric,
en in, kephalon head, grapho I write).
word is made. Some of the simpler words arc made up by
a prefix (like “super” that is coupled to a sicffix like
“sonic”). Literally translated “supersonic” would mean
“above sound” ; scientifically it means a speed that is
faster than sound. “Ultrasonic” (literally “beyond
sound”) describes a sound of such high pitch that the
human ear cannot hear it.
Words that contain even more information are made
up by combining two or more classical nouns, adjectives,
or verbs. Thus a barograph (boros, weight; gmpho, I write)
is an instrument that records the changes in the weight of
the atmosphere that accompany changes of weather or of
altitude. It has no connection with any other weight¬
recording machine.
In the field of chemistry the naming of substances has
been less systematic. The word “gas” is an invention, a
deliberate corruption of “chaos.” Some elements, because
they were identified in a pre-scientific age, are named
unsystematically, like sulfur (which comes from a Sans¬
krit word). Again, the compounds of certain elements
were known before the basic elements were discovered;
thus the Persian borax gives us the name for the element
boron, and beryl is the Greek name for a semi-precious
stone that contains the element we now call beryllium.
Others like ytterbium are named after the places where
their discoverers were born in this case Ytterby in
Sweden;. The Austrian abbe Gregor Mendel (1822-84) laid
It is in the field of organic chemistry that the made-up the foundations of genetics by breeding hybrid
sweet peas. The name “Mendelism” has been
word really comes into its own, as a guide to the composi¬ given to the principles by which the characteristics
tion of very complicated compounds. One example is of parents are passed on to the offspring.
“trinitrotoluene,” a compound in which a hydrocarbon
(composed only of hydrogen and carbon i called toluene
has had three (tri) of its hydrogen atoms replaced by a
group containing nitrogen [intro). Since this word is too
big a mouthful for common use, we shorten it to TNT, the
well-known high explosive.
Finally, there is a small group of scientific words that
have no Greek or Latin origins. These are the words that
define quantities in electricity (itself of Greek origin,
from elektron meaning amber). Because electricity is in¬
visible and intangible, Latin and Greek had few useful
words to describe its properties. The problem was solved
by naming the various units of quantity after the scientists
who pioneered this branch of science. Thus, to give three
examples only, we have the unit of current or “ampere,”
named after Andre Marie Ampere of France (1775
1836), the unit of electrical pressure or “volt” after
Alessandro Volta of Italy (1745 -1827), and the unit of
electrical capacity or “farad” in honor of Britain’s
Michael Faraday (1791 1867).

In wind-tunnel experiments on wing shapes the

speed of air over a surface is defined as a fraction
or multiple of the speed of sound, which is called
Mach 1 in honor of Ernst Mach (1838-1916),
Austrian physicist.
Pictures, charts, and models

One of man’s earliest scientific activities was the study of

geometry {geo, earth; metria, measurement:, which was
developed by the Greeks over 2000 years ago. This is the
study of the properties of lines, surfaces, and solids and
their relations to one another. The great achievement of
the Greeks in this branch of learning was that they dis¬
covered and proved certain relationships that were true
in any situation. For instance, they proved that the three
angles of any triangle add up to 180 degrees. Another of
their discoveries was that the area enclosed by the sides of
any triangle was equal to one half of the base multiplied
by the height. These and other relationships make up the
science of triangles, or trigonometry. That science has helped
us enormously to construct accurate and informative
“pictures” of the world around us.
The most familiar example of such “pictures” is the
map. On these pages there is a map of a river mouth. How
did the surveyors make this map ? They began by
choosing a convenient site for their measuring instru¬
ments (let us call it point A). They then selected another
convenient site that could be seen from point A (let us
call this second site point B). Next they measured the
distance between A and B. These two points gave them a
line (AB) whose length they knew accurately. From the
two points, A and B, they selected a third point, C. They
measured the angles BAC and ABC. By now they had
enough information to construct a triangle ABC : on a
piece of paper. At the three points of the triangle, they
placed the three landmarks. In short, they had the Put into words, the information on this chart would fill a
beginnings of the map. By selecting further landmarks book. Depths in feet, buoys with and without lights, the
code flashed by each light, the position of submarine cables,
they built up the details into a complete map.
wrecks, and other hazards to safe anchorage—all are
The mariner who enters the river mouth from the open accurately plotted on the chart. Every chart also carries a

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compass rose marked in degrees from both true and
magnetic north, so that any bearing on a fixed object can
be transferred to the chart. The chart is a compact visual
record of literally thousands of separate observations,
calculations, and carefully plotted results.
sea can have complete confidence in the map because it
has been constructed in accordance with the rules of
trigonometry. Another important point about the map is
that although the paper on which it is printed is two-
dimensional that is it has only length and breadth the
map maker has succeeded in showing information in
three dimensions, that is to say he has shown how deep the
water is, by means of numbers. And by coloring he
separates the deep-water channel from shallower water,
and the shallow water from the land.
This method of presentation is an economical way of
showing things that have fixed relationships to one
another. The anatomical model pictured on these pages
is simply a three-dimensional map of part of the human
body. It does more than many hundreds of words to fix
in the mind the relations of tissues to one another.
Another representation that is useful to scientists is a
model of something that is too small to be seen in detail.
For instance, the chemist can combine the information
that he gets from chemical analysis with details revealed
by an electron microscope so as to construct a model of a
chemical compound in which the various atoms are
shown in their correct relations to one another. When the
model is completed (and it is often a laborious task), it
helps the chemist to visualize the molecule and to deduce
what its properties are likely to be.
In these and other ways, then, we can make factual
pictures of the world so as to show fixed relationships. But,
as we see in the following pages, we can also present
varying relationships by means of pictures. And, again,
such pictures are more economical and informative than
words or figures.

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Because the colors in a preserved anatomical

specimen fade quickly, the most informative way
to show the various parts of an organ like this
human hand is to make a papier-mache model,
which can then he colored so as to make the various
parts clearly distinguishable. 185
 Squared paper

How do we illustrate quantities that have a continuously A barograph tracing shows the variations in
varying relationship with each other? It may be that we atmospheric pressure continuously for a week.
The vertical lines are slightly curved so as to agree
want to make a pictorial record of the fluctuations of the with the pen, which, being pivoted, rises and falls
barometer from day to day; in this case, the variables are in the arc of a circle.
(i) atmospheric pressure and (2) time. Or we might want
to show the amount of salt that will be dissolved in a fixed
volume of water at different temperatures; the variables
are (1) weight of salt and (2) temperature. Any situation
in which one thing varies in relation to another can be
shown in a pictorial form known as a graph.
What are the advantages of this form of display? The
first benefit we get is that a large number of observations
can be shown in a compact form that can be taken in at a
glance. The barograph record shown on this page gives a
continuous record because the pen that traced the curve
was coupled to a barometer, but much the same graph
could have been made by observing the pressure on an
ordinary barometer every hour, writing it down and then
transferring the results to a piece of squared paper.
In fact, behind every graph except those made auto¬
matically, like the barogram, there is a large number of
observations recorded in the form of figures. Not only is it
much easier to read the graph than the figures, but, by
noting the steepness or flatness of the curve we can also
detect the rate of change. A steep curve indicates a rapid
change; a shallow one, a slow change.
To put results into the form of a graph is therefore
economical, vivid, and informative. It helps a scientist to
convey a mass of information to others. It also helps the
scientist himself, because he lays out his results in a way
that makes it easier for him to look at them as a whole and
to see whether his experiments reveal a consistent relation¬
ship between the quantities that he is measuring.
Another feature of graphs is that their shape is itself
informative. If two variables are plotted against each
other and the resulting graph is a straight line then we
know that the relationship is a direct one: Increase one
variable by a certain amount, and you automatically
increase the other by a fixed amount. But if the graph is
curved then we know that the relationship between the

Graph (right) relates jet velocity (in meters per second) to height 0/
water column (in meters) of the fountain in the picture above. By inter¬
polation (see text) we can be sure that a jet velocity of 35 meters per
second would be needed to make a 65-meter-high water column, or a
velocity of 43 meters per second to make one 95 meters high. Circled
points are discussed in the text.
variables is more complex. It may, for instance, contain a
square or square root.
In order to say what the relationship is, the scientist
must learn by experience the meaning of different curves
in his graphs. Those curves reveal the mathematical
relationship that exists between the variables.
There is another way in which we can get information
from graphs. Take, for instance, the graph on the opposite
page of the Geneva fountain. This graph could have been
constructed in two ways: either by observing the height
of the column of water for known jet velocities, or (as in
this case) by making calculations based on known
physical laws. Either way the shape of the curve can be
established by observing or calculating three fixed points
(circled in graph). We join these points with a smooth
curve, the lower end of which naturally fits into the corner
where both height and velocity are zero. -300 -200 -100 0 100
Now we have a graph that will give a great deal of
information. We can choose any jet velocity inside the The relation between temperature (horizontal
limits of the graph, and we can read off directly what the scale in C) and pressure (vertical scale in milli¬
meters of mercury) is shown for three gases. The
fountain height would be for that velocity. Or we can
observations are the dots that fall on straight lines,
work the other way round. We can take different fountain which extend (broken lines) to converge at
heights and read off what jet velocity would be necessary —273 C. The importance of this temperature is
made clear in the text.
to produce them. In either case, the graph saves us the
trouble of doing fresh calculations. This way of working is
called interpolation.
There is yet another way in which graphs can yield
extra information. The graph on this page (top right)
plots a number of relationships, which, we find, give
direct or straight-line graphs. If we extend these lines until
0-31
they meet the bottom scale (temperature), we find that
they all converge at the same point: 2730 c. At the
same time the reading on the vertical (or pressure) scale
is zero. Actually, we have never reached 2730 c. in any
experiment; but, even so, the graph tells us that there is
something very special about this temperature. We call
it Absolute Zero, the temperature at which gases have no
molecular activity (or pressure). We call this method of
getting information extrapolation.
Lastly, graphs can be very informative in showing a Variations in the intensity of radio noise from the direction
correlation between two (or more) events that we suspect of the sun are plotted (above) against a horizontal time
are in some way tied together. The middle graph shows scale of 64 days. A graph (below) of variations in the area of
visible sunspots for the same period shows very similar
how the radio c‘noise” (p. 225) that comes from the sun fluctuations. This “correlation” suggests a connection
fluctuates with time; the lower graph shows the varia¬ between noise and sunspots. Correlations of this kind are
useful guides to further research, but they do not by them¬
tions over the same period in the total area of visible sun¬
selves prove or disprove anything.
spots. Because both curves have the same general shape,
we can conclude that sunspots and noise are connected in
some way. It would be difficult to show this correlation
clearly without converting the observations into this
graphical form.

4 14 24 34 44 54 64
Time (days)
Scientific shorthand

Like the stenographer, the scientist has his shorthand

a code that can condense a lot of information into short
symbols. Each of the many branches of science has its
own code. Of those branches, chemistry is the one that
makes the greatest use of symbols. Let us look at the
fascinating shorthand that chemists use in order to com¬
press a large amount of information into a small group of
letters and numbers.
Chemists have so far discovered 90 natural elements
and created about a dozen artificial ones. These are the
basic building materials from which the many thousands
of different forms of matter are compounded. How can we
write down a quick description of these elements and
compounds in a way that is accurate and yet does not
cover many sheets of paper?
We start by giving each element a shorthand name, or Medieval alchemists often made a mystery of
symbol, that contains one or at the most two letters. their art by using symbols to disguise their
Sometimes the symbol can be recognized as a shortened apparatus. The symbol for a retort also took the
form of a bird; beneath it is today's standardized
form of the full name, such as H for hydrogen or A1 for symbol for the same apparatus.
aluminum. Other symbols come from the Latin name of
an element, for instance Ag (short for argentum) for silver,
or Sb (from stibium) for antimony. Whatever its origin,
however, the same symbol is used by every country, so
that, for example, Cu from cuprum) is the shorthand for
copper in any laboratory. Although this symbol is often 0 Oxygen

used wrongly to denote copper in general, strictly speak¬

ing it has a more limited meaning: “Cu” stands for one
0 Hydrogen

atom of copper and one only, and this rule applies to all • Carbon

the other symbols of elements. CD Nitrogen

So much for the elements; but how do we describe a
compound? Suppose that we want to write the chemical
shorthand for marble. We have found by experiment that o«o Carbon dioxide CO 2

the basic composition of marble is one atom of calcium

CD CKD Nitrous oxide n2o
(Ca) combined with one atom of carbon (C) and three of
oxygen (O). o«o Ethane ch2

We cut this long description down to two words when
we call marble “calcium carbonate”; but even that is
too long if we want to go further and describe how marble
behaves with other compounds. So we use the symbols of
the elements it contains, and we call it CaCO;r We add
the number 3 after the oxygen symbol to show how many
O CD O Nitric oxide no2
Ilu chemist John Dalton (J766-IX44) invented a
set of symbols for elements. Four of the simplest
are shown here, singly and in combination. This
shorthand” was unsuccessful: There were too
many patterns to memorize.

Electrical engineering has its own “shorthand

Complex circuit diagrams can be built up by con¬
necting symbols together. Left to right: a multiple
selector switch, a double pentode tube, a radio
tube, and a cathode-ray tube of the kind that is
188 used in television sets.
atoms of oxygen are present. CaCO^ is the formula for
calcium carbonate. Just as a symbol represents one atom
of an element, so does a formula indicate one molecule
of a compound. A molecule is the smallest quantity of
matter that can have a separate existence. If you said
that a marble statue was made of calcium carbonate, you
would be correct; but you would be wrong in saying it
was made of CaC03, because one molecule of marble
would be quite invisible.
Once we have discovered the true formula for a com¬
pound we can use it in a number of ways. For instance, if
we consult a table of atomic weights, we find that calcium
has a weight of 40 (to the nearest whole number ), carbon
has a weight of 12, and oxygen of 16. Adding these figures
together we get 40 + 12 -f- (3 x 16), or a total of 100.
W e call this the molecular weight of calcium carbonate. Now
let us suppose that we want to find out exactly what
happens when we mix marble and an acid say, sulfuric
acid. The formula for this acid is H2S04, and its molecular
weight is found in the same way by adding up the atomic
weights: (2 x 1) + 32 + (4 x 16), a total of98. Experi¬
ment shows that marble and sulfuric acid act together to
produce calcium sulfate, carbon dioxide, and water. The
shorthand for this reaction is: The symbols beneath this picture of the common primrose
provide botanists with a complete description of the
flower's structure. From left to right: hermaphrodite;
CaCO, + HaS0.1 - CaS01 + CO, + H,0 radially symmetrical; calyx of five united sepals; a
100 4- 98 — 136 + 44 T 18 corolla of five united petals with five attached stamens; a
pistil with five united carpels, the ovaries of which are
higher than the level of insertion of the petals. This code
The molecular weights tell us that, say, 100 grams of assists a quick comparison of related species of plants.
marble will react with exactly 98 grams of sulfuric acid,
to produce 136 grams of calcium sulfate, 44 grams of
carbon dioxide, and 18 grams of water. And the state¬
ment would be just as true if the words “pounds” or
'‘thousands of tons” were substituted for ‘'grams.” So
that, if we wished to conduct this reaction on an industrial
scale, the equation would still be a precise guide to the
correct quantities of material.
We call the shorthand description of the reaction as
set out above a chemical equation. We use the symbols
in this equation in the same way as we use symbols in
algebra p. 181 . Also, as in algebra, we can check the
accuracy of the equation by making sure that the same
number of atoms appears on each side of the “equals”
sign.
The foregoing explanation of the reaction between
marble and sulfuric acid has taken about 400 words. The
code used in the equation allows us to write all the neces¬
sary information in one line. It would be difficult to 13 Cl P4 M3
imagine a more compact way of recording and trans¬ 44
mitting information, once we know the code. I3 C1 P4 M3

Dentition (arrangement of teeth) of an animal is a useful

guide to its classification. “Shorthand"formula lists teeth
in half the upper and half the lower jaw in this case the
same: 3 incisors, I canine, 4 premolars, 3 molars. Total
number of teeth is 44. Diagram is an “idealized’ composite
of many carnivorous mammals.
 It pays to classify

During the past three hundred years scientific inquiry

has brought to light a huge number of facts. Scientists have
described about a million species of animals, over
300,000 species of plants, and several hundred thousand
chemical compounds. How can we handle so much in¬
formation without becoming lost in a mass of detail?
For every large city there is an alphabetical telephone
directory. It carries thousands of unrelated facts (names,
addresses, and numbers) arranged in order of the first
letter of each surname; the directory is quite useless to
you unless you know the particulars of the person you
want to speak to. Every city also has a classified directory
in which subscribers5 names are gathered into groups
under the names of various trades and professions. All the
information in this book is scattered haphazardly in the
alphabetical directory, but it is now arranged so as to
show who does what. A stranger to such a city would get
far more information out of the classified book.
Similarly, the scientist, by classifying millions of
isolated facts can bring them into a shape that makes
them understandable and useful. He groups all the items
of information that obviously belong together, and
arranges them to try to show an orderly pattern.
The scientist can use the word “orderly55 with some
confidence, because the more he learns about nature the
more he finds that it is essentially consistent that is, the
facts of the universe do not change from day to day. In Francesco Torti's attempt in 1712 to classify
addition, just as the conversion of experimental results fevers (“tree” above) threw little new light on the
subject. The basic cause of disease remained un¬
into a pictorial form (p. 186) often reveals some extra
known until Louis Pasteur (1822-95) demonstrated
information, so, too, the classification of related facts mav that microorganisms were responsible.

1 II III IV V VI VII VIII

H 10
Hydrogen

Li 69 Be 90 B 10-8 C 12 0 N 14 0 O 16-0 F 19 0
Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine

Na 230 Mg 24 3 Al 27-0 Si 28-1 P 31 0 S 321 Cl 35-5

Sodium Magnesium Aluminum Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur Chlorine

K 391 Ca 40-1 Sc 45-0 Ti 47-9 V 50-9 Cr 52-0 Mn 54-9 Fe 55-9

Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadiu m Ch romium Manganese Iron

Cu 635 Zn 65-4 Ga 69-7 Ge 72-6 As 74-9 Se 79-0 Br 79 9

Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromi ne

Rb 85-5 Sr 87-6 Y 88-9 Zr 912 Nb 929 Mo 96 0 Tc 99-0 Ru 101-1

Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium

Ag 107 9 Cd 112-4 In 114-8 Sn 118-7 Sb 121-8 Te 127-6 1 126-9

Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium lod ine

Cs 132 9 Ba 137-4 Hf 178-5 Ta 180-9 W 1839 Re 186-2 Os 1902

Cesium Barium Rare Earths Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium

Au 1970 Hg 200-6 Tl 204-4 Pb 207-2 Bi 209 0 Po 210-0 At 211-0

Gold Mercury Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine

Fr 223 0 Ra 226-1 Ac 227-0 Th 232-1 Pa 231-0 U 2381 Np 237-0 Pu 242 0

Francium Radium Actnium Thorium Protactinium Uraniu m Neptunium Plutonium
 Aves Mammalia turn up something new, or provide a fresh approach.
The task of classification is not always an easy one; at
first there may not appear to be an obvious way of
arranging our material. Sometimes we have to treat the
individual bits of information as if they were playing
cards and lay them out on the table in different patterns
in search of an arrangement that is meaningful. One of
the most productive games of “scientific patience” was
played by the Russian Dmitri Mendeleev, who in 1869
set out all the then known chemical elements in the order
of their atomic weights and in a particular pattern (see
illustration). He then found that, reading from top to
bottom in each column, the elements grouped themselves
together according to their chemical properties. Such
evidence of a hidden “master plan” was too striking to be
Leptocardia neglected, and it triggered off a great deal of fruitful
research into the structure .of atoms.
Thus Mendeleev’s classification (now called the
Periodic Table was effective in starting new lines of
inquiry. The table also sparked off a search for new
elements. There were gaps in the original table because
many of the elements that we now know had not yet been
discovered. (These later discoveries are here marked red.)
To take a single example, in 1871 Mendeleev predicted
that in Group IV between titanium and zirconium there
was a missing metal with certain definite properties and
Family tree of the orders {main divisions) of an atomic weight of about 72. Fifteen years later C.
vertebrates. Tree can be devised only after a
systematic comparison of the anatomies of ani¬ Winkler discovered a metal, germanium, with the pre¬
mals in the orders has revealed their relation¬ dicted properties. Its atomic weight was 72-60! In the
ships to one another and to a common source.
same way the other gaps in the table were gradually filled
because chemists now knew what to look for.
In the field of biology, too, the careful classification of
VIII VIII 0 all the known facts about the structure of plants and
animals has been of immense help in producing order out
He 40 of a chaotic mass of data. Not only has it shown more
He urn
clearly the similarities and differences of organisms, but
Ne 202 as the pattern of relationships between organisms has
Neon become clearer, a progression from simple forms to more
Ar 39-9 complex ones has been revealed. That pattern allows us
Argon to trace the broad outlines of a long journey in time from
single-celled protozoa through a number of lines of de¬
Co 58-9 Ni 58 7
Cobalt Nickel
velopment into more complex forms.
Some of these lines stopped short, others continued, and
Kr S3-3
at the end of one of these stands man. It is because the
Kr> pi on
facts of natural history were classified that the discovery of
Rh 102 9 Pd 105 4 evolution became possible. So we see that the act of
Rhodium Palladium
arranging data methodically does more than merely
Xe 131 -3 keep the facts tidy. Classification is a way of clarifying
Xenon what we know, and it is therefore an essential part of the
language of science.
Ir 192 2 Pt 195 1
Iridiu m Platinum

Rn 222 0 Mendeleev's Periodic Table {left) is discussed in the text. The elements
Radon
he knew of are shown on a white background; he also knew of the 15
“rare earthswhich he placed in Group III {grey box). Elements
Cm 245
predicted and later found consist of those shown on red background
Am 243 0
plus the six so-called inert gases {extreme right, grey), which fitted into a
Americium Curium
specially created group that was labeled zero.

The Fransciscan friar Roger Bacon (about
1214 94) was an experimental scientist ahead of
his time. Because his scientific outlook was in
conflict with authority he spent much of his life
either in prison or under close supervision.
This demonstration outside a military research
establishment in Britain underlines the secrecy
of government research projects. Whether the
protest is justified or not, the demonstrators will
probably never know the exact details of the
research that they object to.
Scientist and layman
We have seen how the need for accuracy, conciseness, and
precision has compelled scientists to build up a structure
of special languages and codes. There is no doubt that
such languages have provided a very efficient means of
communication among scientists themselves. But they
have also had the unfortunate result that, between the
scientist and the man in the street, there is an ever-
widening gap. And in our own century, as the sciences
grow more specialized, communication across that gap is
becoming more and more difficult. There is, in short, a
failure of communication between two sections of society.
Let us look at this failure for a moment and ask why it
has occurred. The first reason is that the scientist is
usually too absorbed in his work to pause and tell the
public what he is doing and why he is doing it. Sometimes
too, because he is working at problems that have never
been solved before, he is a little inclined to be superior
about his profession and to look down on those who clo
not understand his kind of work. But the second main
reason for lack of communication is that even if a scientist
is willing to explain himself, his specialized training often
makes it impossible for him to express himself in simple
language.
In the scientist’s defense it must be said that it is
extremely difficult to translate from what is often called
the ‘jargon” of science into everyday language. Only a
very few in each generation of scientists have had the
great gift of being able to talk or write plainly and interest¬
ingly about their work. Usually we find that such men
were educated, or have educated themselves, to take an
intelligent interest in the so-callccl “liberal arts”
philosophy, literature, music, psycholog’s, and so on.
Because of their wide learning, these people arc more able
than most other scientists to stand back from their work
and to view science as only a part of man’s total activities.
The man in the street, however, has neither the time
nor the specialized training that would enable him to
read scientific papers. Instead he gets his news of scientific
developments through newspapers, magazines, and tele¬
vision. These mass media form a very valuable bridge
across the barrier between scientist and layman. The
scientific journalist, who uses everyday language to report
scientific discoveries, plays an important role in any
society. But even he is hampered by the conditions of his
work. The mass media make their money only by attract¬
ing a large audience. The scientific journalist, therefore,
is under pressure to make his reporting sensational
which nearly always means oversimplified. This is true
both of science writing and of pictures.
Such reporting, in turn, gives the man in (he street a
distorted view of science. This result is the very opposite
of what a scientist would wish for. The layman marvels at
scientific progress but at the same time he is bewildered
by it. Often he ends up hy mistrusting and even hating
the scientists, who have become in his view the modern
equivalent of tribal witch doctors.
There is a further complication that increases the
barrier between science and the public: the practice of
carrying out research behind closed doors, and of keeping
the results secret. Governments are among the biggest
employers of scientists many of whom work on highly
secret defense projects. As long as deep-rooted ideological
conflicts divide our world, this kind of work and the
secrecy that surrounds it will remain.
The other kind of secret science is sponsored by large
corporations that spend enormous sums in developing
new industrial processes and materials. Naturally these
companies owe it to their shareholders to keep their
findings secret. But, again, the secrecy serves to widen the
gap and to harbor mistrust between the rest of mankind
and the scientists.
There are, then, formidable barriers to communica¬
tion between scientists and laymen. Against this, there is
an enormous current demand for good scientific reading,
which is shown by the success of scientific “best-sellers”
(p. 147 and other scientific books that are accurate,
simple, and interesting.
One final question remains to be asked: Does this
separation of science from ordinary life really matter? In
other words, are we really any the worse off if we do not
know what goes on in the scientist’s mind? In the re¬
maining pages of this chapter we examine the impact of
science on the modern world, and we shall see how
science is vitally important to all of us.

Left: A chemist prepares an anti-malarial drug that can

save millions of lives. Above: an intercontinental ballistic
missile capable of mass slaughter. The public gets a dis¬
torted view of scientists' work because weapons are
treated more prominently by the mass media than are
stories of workaday research.

■
For centuries men believed that the earth was
the center of the universe, as in this map. This is
one of many fallacies that science has exploded.
Other fallacies are shown below.
A 17th-century physician dressed to avoid infec¬
tion from plague sufferers did not know that he
was helping to spread infection by taking plague¬
bearing fleas from house to house.
The influence of science
During the last 300-odd years a short span in terms of
human history—scientists have evolved the complex and
specialist language whose basic principles we have studied
in this chapter. Each succeeding generation has added to
and refined that language in a constant endeavor to
make it more fitting for its purpose: the accurate and
economic description of events and ideas. What is more,
the rate at which the language has grown has steadily
accelerated throughout that time.
Naturally this fantastic growth has had an important
influence not only on our day-to-day language but also,
and more importantly, on our way of thinking and our
outlook on the world. For instance, 300 years ago most
ordinary people would have explained unusual and
mysterious events in supernatural terms—that is, in
terms of ghosts, magic, witchcraft, and so on. When
ordinary people today offer such explanations they are
most probably joking. In short, most of us today think
more scientifically than did most of our forefathers.
This great change in our outlook is a reflection of the
important part that science plays in the modern world.
And, since we can foresee no end to the development of
the sciences, it is logical to assume that their influence on
our thinking will become even more important in the
future. These facts partly answer the question posed on
page 193: Why is it important for us to understand the
work of the scientist? But it is only a part-answer. For a
full answer we must try to imagine what effects some
present-day trends will have in the future.
We must turn to the future because the impact of
scientific discovery on everyday thought is often slow to
be felt. There is often a considerable time lag between the
specialist’s explanation of an event or system and the
widespread understanding of that explanation on the part
of the general public. Thus the basic explanations of
chemistry and physics are more in the public mind than,
say, the findings of economics or psychology. This is
because chemistry and physics are relatively old sciences
and there has therefore been more time for the ideas and
language of these sciences to become generally accepted.
Similarly, if we review the vocabularies of the various
sciences, we find that the oldest branches, like chemistry
and physics, not only have the largest number of words
but also show a greater measure of agreement among
scientists themselves about basic concepts and working
methods. Younger sciences, like biology and medicine,
are still expanding their vocabularies and sorting out
their basic concepts. And the most recent sciences of all
like the social sciences (economics and sociology and
those of the mind (psychology and psychiatry) are only
It is only 30 years since Adolf Hitler was able
to “put over ’ a totally unscientific theory of
Aryan racial supremacy. Such theories were
loudly applauded by Nazi supporters including
these “Hitler YouthsNo evidence exists that
any race is innately superior to any other.
Early-19th-century men of science (like this
1807 British group, which included engineers
and industrialists) could keep in touch with
progress in all subjects. Today science is so
specialized that workers in one field know little
of what is happening in another.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 1543) demonstrated
that the earth is only one of several planets that
revolve around the sun. Above is a diagram from
his book De RevolutionibusOrbiumCoelestium.
Man, once resentful of is now accustomed to this
“less important” position in the universe.
just beginning to qualify as true sciences. They still have
to work out their methods, establish their standards of
accuracy, and develop a full language.
It is in these younger sciences, then, that the greatest
amount of work remains to be done. For the same reason
and making allowances for the inevitable time lag
between specialist and general public) these sciences will
probably have the greatest influence on our way of
thinking in the years to come. Most of us already have a
fairly good education in the physical sciences and in
biology. In other words, we can understand the basic
mechanisms that control the world around us. If, in the
coming years, sociologists, economists, psychologists, and
so’ on can develop reliable theories to explain our own
social and individual behavior, their work will obviously
give us an enormous new insight.
The day may well come when sociologists and psycho¬
logists will be able to describe the workings of human
societies and of the human mind as accurately as doctors
can now describe the workings of the human body. By
that time, too, ordinary people will have learned new
ways of looking at themselves and at their societies as
well as new language for describing their ideas. Precisely
what those ideas will be we have no way yet of knowing.
But clearly they will revolutionize our way of life every
bit as much as our understanding of the older sciences has
already done.
195
Chapter 9

Stored Communication

Man’s memory was the first and simplest tool for record¬
ing information; memory gave the first means of an
intellectual continuity. But the human mind does not
simply record facts; it assimilates and interprets them, and
so alters them, however subtly. Legends and stories
handed down through the ages may retain the traditional
outline, but they are changed in many of their details by
successive storytellers. The written word was the de¬
velopment that gave durability to communication.
Further, as soon as writing was developed, history
could be recorded permanently and in detail, technical
discoveries could be handed on, and records of every
kind could be kept. There was no longer any barrier to
communication between living men or between the past
and the present.
But information in itself is of no use unless it is stored in
such a way that it is easily and quickly available, and can
be readily used to the best advantage. It is the task of
libraries to store communication to this end, collecting,
organizing, and preserving it for use. Other kinds of
collections too are stores for our use and pleasure. In libraries ami museums nv can find
Archives, museums, and art galleries are all means of facts on every subject, from ancient
literature to the development of the
preserving material for present and future generations; wheel. Without such storehouses of
for it is not only the written word that can instruct and information, progress would be
virtually impossible, for each new de¬
delight us.
velopment in the sciences and in the
In the following pages we shall see how the storing of realm of ideas is based on work done
communication has developed, what are some of its in the past. Over the centuries, man
has gathered an immense mass of
extensions and allied concerns, and what are some of the information. As the sum of his know¬
problems involved. The storing of information is of great ledge grows, he mast continually seek
importance to us, for progress in every social activity more efficient methods of storing it so
that it will be readily available when
depends upon it. he needs it.

196
 '//!** m
Mil

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litSuKjj
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•-
>
? £
■«»

National archives contain many manuscripts
and documents that can he of great value to
researchers into a nations past. Illustrated above
is a seal of an English bishop of Durham,
Anthony Beck (1283 1311), now in the museum
of the Public Record Office in London. The
seal was used on documents issued with the
bishop's authority.
Below left: mixing paint at a large chemical
research laboratory. The results of research (for
example, into color blending or into adapting
new materials for paint making), are stored
in the laboratory's library (below center).
Information is made available to the public in
such forms as the “color planner" (below right).
The holes allow decorators to match up any two
colors (as has been done with a yellow, here) and
so build up harmonious color schemes.
What a library is
Before man invented systems of reading and writing, he
had only one way of passing on his accumulated know¬
ledge and experience by speech, signs, and pictures.
But after he became literate he was able for the first time
to make permanent records of all kinds of information,
and by so doing he freed himself from the need to
memorize all that he was told. The urge to keep records is
a strong one and is a fundamental part of human nature.
It is therefore not surprising to find among the remains of
some of the earliest known civilizations the existence of
well-developed document or book stores p. 200 . The
ability to preserve information has led gradually to
elaborate systems of storage that are a necessary part of
our lives today. These stores are called libraries.
When we talk about libraries (Latin liber, a book we
usually mean just that: a collection of books. But the
word has also come to mean any collection of books,
documents, recordings, or photographs that is intended
to be used. It is a collection that is made with a purpose.
Its contents are carefully selected according to the uses
to which the library will be put and the individual items
of the collection are arranged in such a way that they can
be quickly located.
Libraries can be useful to us at every stage of our lives.
From the local library, books dealing with the care and
upbringing of children can be consulted by parents.
The school library allows both teacher and pupil to
explore a much wider field of learning than they could do
without it. A teacher can convey only a certain amount of
information about a subject in a given time, but the pupil,
guided by the teacher, can find in a good school library
a fuller treatment of that subject. At university level,
students need libraries in the same way but on a much
larger scale. The university library is the greatest single
instrument of higher education, and this is why many of
the most ancient and famous libraries belong to centers of
learning.
School and university libraries cater for many and
 0o|ttmm|i$u
diverse needs, but there are other libraries that are
deliberately restricted in their scope. Professional bodies
build up libraries that are as complete as possible in
everything to do with their own professions. There are,
for example, libraries that specialize in medicine. The
largest such library is at the Surgeon General’s office in
Washington. Similarly, the World Health Organization
in Geneva has the biggest library on the related subject
of public health. And on a smaller scale the Caroline
Institute in Stockholm contains the central medical
library for the Scandinavian countries. Law is another
profession requiring highly specialized libraries. Two
famous law libraries are those of Lincoln’s Inn in London
and of the Court of Appeal in Paris.
The explosive increase in the mass of scientific infor¬
mation in the past 150 years has resulted in the setting up
of libraries that specialize in some of the wider branches
of science. These libraries are usually controlled by
learned bodies such as chemical, physical, or astronomical
societies. But the breaking down of information into
groups does not stop here, because we live in an age of
great specialization. Thus we find that industrial firms
now maintain libraries on separate subjects such as paint
and color chemistry, heating, refrigeration, or water
supply. These libraries share and exchange their material
and so are able to pool their resources on a wide variety of
specialist subjects.
Another kind of library is needed at the center of a
country^ government. This is more of a reference
library, containing up-to-date statistics of trade and
manufacture as well as a complete record of all legislative
proceedings. In these libraries, members of the legislature
have immediate access to the exact information that they
need in their debates.
So far the libraries we have mentioned are collections
of stored material about definite subjects. But there are
other collections of information that often has not been
worked over or studied what we might call undigested
information. Here we find old documents, state papers,
and personal letters to and from people of national im¬
portance. These are called archives, to distinguish them
from libraries of printed material. Most countries have
their national archives; but there are also state, county,
and city archives that contain records of purely local
interest. Such records are invaluable to students of
history and sociology, for they are the raw materials of
history itself. So we see that, although the word “library”
can mean a number of different things, a library is
essentially “information on ice” that is waiting to be used,
either immediately, or in the future.

Material dealing with Nazi territorial and racial policies is contained

in the Wiener Library in London, England. Top to bottom: Plebiscite
poster attempting to justify the German occupation oj Austria; two
German prisoners of war, one aged 78, the other aged 12; Jewish identity
card; Jewish wartime ghetto money; a synagogue burned by the Nazis.
Ancient libraries

Nowadays we take libraries for granted. We are accus¬

tomed to their existence, and most of us have access to a
library of one kind or another. It is a curious fact that
some very early libraries were like modern public ■ f i jiTv-trvI A
^ l, J
libraries in that they were open to everyone. Yet in the
centuries in between, the library became an amenity
that was restricted to a wealthy and educated minority. J
It was not until the modern idea of the public library
had evolved that ordinary people could again enjoy the 4*hy<*f
Lv r^r >*h.
services of a library. jif
The earliest library was really an archive (p. 199 . In
ancient Egypt, which was one of the first countries to £*frt ftrt'cftr

1 'if **
develop writing, there were two kinds of library. One was
the government archive, which contained records of
rulers, taxation, administration, and so on; the other
kind was the religious or temple library of sacred writings.
In both kinds of library, the records were written on
papyrus rolls and stored in clay jars. In the Mesopotamian
kingdoms of Babylonia and Assyria records were made on
baked clay. From the evidence of the thousands of
such “books” that have survived, it seems that as far back
as 3000 b.c. there were public and private libraries con¬ Part of a Greek astronomical papyrus written in Egypt
between the fourth and second century B.C. Greeks built
taining works on a great variety of subjects including many libraries to house their records and other writings.
medicine and astronomy. The greatest of these was at Alexandria, the city founded
During the great age of Greek civilization in the fifth in Egypt by Alexander the Great, which contained half a
million parchment and papyrus transcriptions.
and fourth centuries b.c., each city-state had its own
library, but little is known about them. It was the first of
the Greek rulers of Egypt, Ptolemy I, who founded the
great library of Alexandria in the last years of the fourth
century b.c. It was called the Museum, or home of the
Muses (the deities of art and learning and the daughters
of Memory), and this is the first use of a word that we
now apply to collections of things other than books. The
Alexandrian library was the greatest in the ancient
world. It was properly catalogued and contained half a
million manuscripts. It was destroyed in a.d. 391 by
order of the Roman emperor Theodosius, a Christian,
who aimed to stamp out pagan learning and belief; with
this destruction went much of the accumulated know¬
ledge of the ancient world including, for example, one of
the books of Euclid’s geometry.
The Romans took from colonies like Greece not only
the idea of libraries, but the books themselves. In the first
century b.c. the Roman scholar Lucullus threw his own
library open to other scholars. Later, emperors founded
public libraries, so that by the middle of the fourth
century a.d. there were 29 libraries in Rome alone.
Anyone, from nobleman to slave, could use them.
Another library, founded in the fourth century at
Constantinople, grew in 300 years to be what was then

Students at New College, Oxford, England,

listening to a lecture in about 1453. Many
medieval universities had large libraries, but
the books were normally used only by the dons
200 (tutors) / the students took notes.
probably the greatest library in the world; but it was
rivaled by those founded in the seventh to ninth centuries
by the Moslems. In Baghdad, for instance, a huge
library was opened and made available to the public,
and in Cordova, Spain, there was a library of 600,000
books, including manv scientific works.
In Europe, during the centuries that followed the fall of
Rome in a.d. 476 (the so-called Dark Ages), books and
libraries became something that only the literate few
could enjoy. The more significant developments, from the
point of view of the preservation of works of literature
through the Dark Ages, were those that took place in the
libraries of the Christian communities, and particularly in
the Benedictine monasteries. It was in these monasteries
that the obligation to preserve and reproduce manuscripts
was most faithfully carried out. But as medieval universi¬
ties began to develop as a result of the Renaissance, the
demand for books also grew. In northern Italy (where
universities grew out of the law schools at Bologna and
Padua 1 and at Paris, it was at first only the masters who
had collections of books. But in time each college built up
its own library. In 1322 the Sorbonne had a collection of
Above: Michelangelo's design for part of the
over a thousand books; the most important ones were Laurentian Library, Florence, which was founded
chained and only the lesser ones were allowed to circu¬ by Lorenzo Medici (inset). The founding of a
public library was a rare occurrence in the
late. There were other university libraries at Prague,
15 th century, when only a small proportion of the
Salamanca, Oxford, and Cambridge, but at each one the population were able to read.
books could be borrowed only by senior members of the
university.
As well as the monastic and university libraries, there
were a few private collections made by wealthy families.
The Medici of Florence gave from their own library, in
1444, enough books to start a public library, known as the
Medicean Library. Later they founded the Laurentian
Library. But these were very rare occurrences. In any
case, so few people could read that public libraries for the
use and benefit of ordinary people would have served
little pqrpose. Until the invention of printing in Europe
in the middle of the 15th century (p. 128), a book re¬
mained a rare and precious possession.
The invention of printing meant that books could be
produced quickly, cheaply, and in large numbers. Very
soon after its invention many literary works in Hebrew,
Latin, Greek, and the languages of Western Europe
became available. These books could be put on open
shelves instead of being chained to lecterns or locked in
chests. Above all they could be loaned. Books were more
easily available; more people could learn to read; and
the demand for books grew accordingly, so that by the
end of the 16th century conditions were once again ripe
for the idea of libraries for general use.

Chained library in Hereford Cathedral, England.

Books were chained to prevent pilfering by the
scholars and students, many of whom were so poor
that they could afford to buy the expensive volumes
only one page at a time.

Forerunners of today's public libraries were
the subscription libraries {above). They were
mainly patronized by middle- and upper-class
women for whom much of 18th- and 19th-century
prose fiction was written.
Above: mobile library of a mechanic's institute,
England, 1860. These institutes, run by and for
working men, were among the earliest efforts
to bring further education to those who had little
schooling before starting to work.
Libraries for everyone
We have come to recognize that books are a means to a
greater enjoyment of living and to the improvement of
mankind. The establishment and growth of public
libraries was part of a historical movement toward the
spread of such enjoyment and knowledge among poorer
classes of people. The two main kinds of public library are
those that are intended for research (where people can
go in order to consult large collections of reference works),
and those meant for the circulation of non-specialist
books that can be freely loaned.
Public library systems have developed slightly dif¬
ferently in different countries, but they all share some
characteristics that can be traced to common origins. In
the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, a few such libraries
were opened by kings, prelates, and sometimes by
wealthy and philanthropic private citizens. Some of
these have survived; others have foundered for lack of
endowment. The great Bibliotheque Nationale of France,
one of the major libraries of the world, was first systemati¬
cally organized by Francis I (1494 1547). The Arch¬
bishop of Milan, in 1609, opened the Ambrosian Library
and made it available to anyone who wanted to study
there. The state library of Prussia was opened in Berlin in
1661. The municipal library at Antwerp in Belgium
was opened in the 16th century; it is one of the oldest
public libraries in Europe and it has operated con¬
tinuously since its foundation. The collection of over
nine million books in the British Museum had its begin¬
nings in the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane, who in 1753 left
his books to the nation on condition that they should be
properly housed and displayed to the public. Even larger
are the collections in the University of Lenin in Moscow,
and the American Library of Congress, which was
formed around the private collection of Thomas Jefferson,
the third president of the United States. In most countries
publishers are now required by law to supply the great
national libraries with one or more copies of every book
they publish, and so the collections grow and grow. The
Bibliotheque Nationale fills an additional two kilo¬
meters of shelves every year with new acquisitions.
It was not until the 19th century that smaller municipal
libraries really began to be established. In England in the
early 1600s there were libraries for the public at Coventry,
Norwich, and Bristol, all founded by private citizens; but
none survived. Neither these libraries nor such town
libraries as those at Frankfurt, Geneva, and Lyons (all
founded in the 15th and 16th centuries) loaned books to
be read off the premises.
Toward the end of the 18th century a number of
Left: A patient selects a picture
from the British Red Cross Society's
circulating picture library, which
loans prints of works by famous
artists to long-term hospital patients.
Patients may change their prints at
regular intervals.

Many of the outlying areas of Denmark's com¬
plex coastline are mere easily accessible by
boat. Here, seen at Svendborg on Fatten Fyn (the
central island of Denmark), the county library
is housed in a launch.
?.eMfcV403|
mm mil
mm
semi-public lubraries were established. Typical of these
were the mechanics’ libraries, which provided both
educational and recreational reading for apprentices.
But such services were available only to the workers con¬
cerned. In the 1880s subscription libraries (pp. 147, 155
sprang up to meet a great increase in the reading public,
particularly women readers, who created a demand for
three-volume novels known as “three-deckers.”
Public lending libraries as we now know them are the
product of the 19th-century growth of the middle classes,
of democratic ideas, and of education. The early
19th-century subscription libraries were open to all who
paid the fees. They were at that time the best source of
cheap reading matter, and they later led to the establish¬
ing of free lending libraries. Similarly, in 1731 Benjamin
Franklin founded a subscription library in Philadelphia
that paved the way to free libraries in America.
Although the evolution of public libraries varied
from country to country, there was a general and steady
acceleration of the idea in the 19th century. After the
French Revolution the libraries of religious foundations
and of the nobility were confiscated and handed over to
the local communes, so that public libraries came into
being throughout France. The German libraries at that
time were the best organized in the world; among many

1943 June 24 =500

different kinds were popular libraries and reading rooms
in cities all over the country. In England in 1850 the
December 37
Public Libraries Act enabled councils to establish public
libraries in towns. In America, libraries that had origin¬

»- - tttmttmi ally been endowed from great bequests by such men as

1 Jr. were consolidated and supported by municipal
-- - mmmtttmmit
- - • mmttmmtmtm
During World War II the Red Cross and St.
John s book-parcel scheme [top) enabled prisoners
of war in Germany to study for university degrees.
Of British prisoners who took degree exams (see
chart), 79°Qpassed.
J. J. Astor, Andrew Carnegie, and John Pierpont Morgan
funds. In Belgium, the University Library of Gent had
already been declared public in 1797, and in the next
century state grants were made for public libraries in
other Belgian towns.
This very vigorous movement in the 19th century
produced a library system that has become a part of our
everyday lives. There are now many refinements to the
basic business of satisfying a need for books. Traveling
libraries carry supplies of books to remote villages. In
hospitals and prisons there are library services connected
with the public library system. There are also special
libraries of books in Braille for the blind; children have
their own department in most public libraries. And most
libraries have reading rooms devoted to current news¬
papers, periodicals, and reference books.
Every section of the community now has a free library
service that satisfies the need for a rich and varied supply
of books for us to take home and enjoy at leisure.

Making “talking books" for the blind. A skilled

broadcaster or actor records a particular book
onto a magnetic tape, which is then fitted into a
cassette. The cassette fits onto a simplified
version of o tape play-back machine obtained
from the talking-book library. 203
Organizing libraries for use

The principle on which the public library system rests in

most countries is that books should be freely available to
all. It costs us nothing to go to a local library and borrow
books, or to study in a great research library like the
Library of Congress or the British Museum Reading
Room. But the organization and running of libraries
requires steady supplies of money—to pay the staff, to
keep collections up to date with new books, to replace old
ones, and to provide the additional services that libraries
offer.
Libraries that are publicly owned are usually financed
from either national or local public funds, so that the cost
of running them is spread over the whole community.
The great national library of the British Museum is
supported directly by the state through funds drawn from
taxes. Municipal libraries are managed by committees The chained library of the University of Leiden,
appointed by local authorities, who decide how the Netherlands, about 1610, shows early attempt at
arranging books by subjects.
funds allocated from local taxes should be spent. In the
U.S.A. most states have a library commission to advise
public libraries in towns; each town controls and sup¬
ports its library through powers given to it by the state to
use part of its tax revenue for the purpose. In France the
administrative control of lending libraries is with the
Ministry of Education, which subsidizes and inspects
them, though local authorities have a large say in ad¬
ministration. In Holland, the national library, the
Koninklinjke Bibliotheek, is unusual in that it lends
books out all over the country. An advisory board created
by the Ministry of Education organizes the library
services. But the subscription library system has always
been a greater force in Holland’s library movement
because religious and political disagreements have
hindered the development of free public libraries. The
libraries in Germany show a very sharp distinction
between popular libraries and libraries for students. The
state and university libraries have come closer together
to form a core of learned libraries financed by the state;
while popular libraries are financed by the local muni¬
cipalities.
But even the best library would be useless without This patient in an iron lung is reading a micro¬
filmed book projected onto the screen above
a guide to its contents in the form of a catalogue, which is him. To""turn the pages” he presses a control with
itself stored information about books and their contents. his chin. Many hospital libraries today have micro¬
Catalogues can take a number of forms: They may be filmed books for immobilized patients.

printed in book form as a guide to a permanent collec¬

tion, or made up on movable cards, a system that is useful
if the library stock is constantly changing. Methods of
cataloguing vary from one library to another, but we will
always find at least two separate catalogues; one con¬
taining an alphabetical list of all the authors, the other
containing a list of books grouped under subjects. The

One solution to the problem of book storage in

libraries is the microprint card. Up to 100
pages can be printed on a single card- part of
one is shown, actual size, extreme right. Cards
are fitted onto a reading machine that projects
204 each page onto a screen separately.
 author catalogue shows not only the titles of books by each
author, but the number of the shelf, and the number on
the back of the book, so that it can easily be located. The
method of numbering that is most used in public libraries
is called the Dewey decimal system, devised by the
American librarian Melvil Dewey in 1876. dhis is a
numerical system that divides all books into 10 main
subject categories, each with a number. Each of these 10
main categories subdivides into another 10, also with
a number and so on until any book can be quickly and
precisely placed by the librarian, and with the help of the
catalogue quickly found by the reader.
Libraries nowadays are not exclusively concerned with
books. A reference library, for instance, is designed to
give as complete a picture as possible of current infor¬
mation on subjects within its field. As well as books, it is
is «J likely to contain photographs, slides, film-strips, films,
N===i charts, maps, graphs, tape and wire recordings, and
newspapers. For example, the American Library of
Congress—which has developed into an organization
unique among the learned institutions of the world also
includes lectures and concerts as well as photoduplication
facilities among its services. Public libraries also fre¬
quently have collections of phonograph records and re¬
productions of paintings for lending out.
No library has limitless space. An increasing problem
of librarians is to find room for the ceaseless accumulation
of material. This is especiallv difficult when some of it is
not only bulky, as newspapers and periodicals are, but
accumulated day by day. This can be partly met by the
provision of separate storage buildings for less-used books.
Another method that helps to solve this problem is
microphotography. This is of value not only in storing
material, but in bringing to research workers material
that is too rare or too distantly located to be easily
available. The microfilm is a roll, sheet, or strip of film
onto which the pages of books or newspapers are photo¬
graphed, very much reduced. The reading machine
illuminates and enlarges the film so that it can be read
almost normally. Similarly, microprinting, an extension
of the microphotography method, can condense a
hundred-odd pages of text onto a single sheet of plastic,
which is almost indestructible, and more speedily
handled than a roll of film.
By co-operating with one another, libraries can extend
and improve the service they offer without a correspond¬
ing increase in cost. By keeping records of the possessions
of other libraries, and by devising a system of inter-
library loans, libraries can give a reader access to the
contents of libraries in other parts of the country.

flSSoT THE FINANCIAL times :
tfkoCfty: WBIT- Interview mit Professor J. M. Bochenski (FmuiH^ton)
Some of the material making up popular culture today is stocked
by a few special libraries. Montage, left, illustrates the kind of services
that these libraries provide, though not all are available at the same
library. From top to bottom: photographs; phonograph records; sheet
music; films; national and foreign magazines; jig-saw puzzles; and
newspapers. Many of these items can be borrowed and taken home.
 Displaying collections

The contents of libraries must be systematically arranged

if they are to be easily accessible, but it is not essential that
they should also be carefully displayed. But display is of
the utmost importance in the treatment of other kinds of
collection, where the aim is to show objects to their best
advantage. Museums and art galleries are not merely
storehouses for their treasures, they are themselves centers
of knowledge.
The visitor to a museum or art gallery is sometimes
confronted with what at first seems a bewildering array
of claims on his attention. If the layout is not carefully
planned, the visitor will go away confused and weary,
and the whole purpose of the exhibition will have failed.
On the other hand, a properly planned exhibition can
J MUS El \
add enormously to the visitor’s knowledge.
TtVORMliVNltt It is important to avoid monotony in displays, and to
i HISTOR1A 1
LUGO ■ BATAVORMNV
)coraciNAXLStvi^>w consider carefully such details as the treatment and color
of backgrounds to a particular exhibit. The message that
the exhibit is trying to convey can be made clear by
rigorous selection of objects for display. The visitor may
The museum of Ole Worm, a 17th-century Danish not be very sharply aware of how the techniques of display
antiquarian. This collection of oddments, mon¬ affect him but, in fact, both his enjoyment of the exhibit
strosities, and genuine rarities, displayed with
no attempt at systematic arrangement, hy/.v and the knowledge he gains from it will be increased.
typical of early museums. Whether museums house collections that embrace
many subjects or are devoted to a single subject, their
galleries are usually laid out in some kind of sequence, so
that the visitor can follow an idea step by step from its
fundamentals to its final development. In museums of
history or in art galleries, for instance, it is common for
the exhibits to be arranged according to their period and
place of origin. A museum of science or natural history,
on the other hand, might be more concerned to show the
similarities and differences between their exhibits.
Other collections such as those of ethnology, history,
science, and technology use a variety of methods to make
displays as vivid and meaningful as possible. In a
natural-history museum, for example, we find lifelike
models of animals in their natural setting the next
best thing to seeing them alive. In science museums a
working model to show a basic principle, like that of
steam power or of electronic devices, will help to explain
all the other exhibits that work on the same principle.
Replicas or reconstructions are of especial use in history
museums where, for example, a model of a Roman fort
or of a medieval city can give the visitor a clear and
detailed picture of ancient structures. A planetarium is
rather different in that the whole building is a kind of
giant working model that can show the positions and
motions of planets and stars at any past or future date.
Very few museums and art galleries show more than a

The elegance of turn-of-the-century craftsman¬

ship can be seen in this 1890 hansom cab. Set
against a background of other cab designs in the
Transport Museum at Lucerne, Switzerland, it is
an example of order and artistry in modem
museum display.
small fraction of their collections. For one thing, there is
seldom enough space to show the public more than a
good representative sample of the total stock. For
another, any good museum houses behind the scenes a
large collection of objects that would be of no particular
interest to the public but that are of great interest to the
scholar. Such institutions serve a double purpose: of
public instruction and amusement, and of research.
There is no real substitute for the sight of actual living
exhibits, such as we find in zoos. For this reason, zoos are
everywhere the most popular of all permanent exhibi¬
tions. Like other exhibitions, zoos are usually laid out
according to a plan: Animals of the same general class
are housed near one another so that the visitor can see the
relationships between them and can easily find the
groups that interest him most.
To visit the zoo is to witness a reality that museums,
by their nature, can only hope to imitate. Sometimes,
though, in old country houses that are open to the public,
or in great palaces like Versailles in France, the display
goes a long way toward capturing reality. The visitor
sees not only the houses themselves but also the pictures
and furniture of the correct period. He is surrounded not
by an instructional display but by a home that feels as if it
has been lived in. Such places can often evoke the past
better than can the finest museum.
Finally, in places of historical importance, we often Displays, in the form of typical town and country road
find commemorative exhibits. A modern example is the layouts, with working models of vehicles, help the public
to learn road safety on today's busy roadways.
city of Hiroshima, which an atom bomb destroyed during
World War II. The city now has a permanent exhibition
that shows both the immediate effects of the bomb and At Madame Tussaud's waxwork exhibition in London,
the long-term results of atomic radiation. It is a horrifying lifelike figures and authentic costume andfurniture vividly
and solemn demonstration of what warfare today would recreate historical people and events for the visitor. In the
Versailles tableau below, figures (left to right) are:
mean, and it is more powerful propaganda against the use a lady of the court; Louis XVI; Marie Therese; Voltaire;
of nuclear weapons than anything else could be. the Dauphin; Marie Antoinette; Madame Tussaud.
Using stored knowledge

In most fields of knowledge, and particularly in the

sciences, there is an enormous output of periodicals and of
original papers on the results of experiments or surveys.
The sheer volume of information can defeat its own
object, because it becomes difficult to locate a specific
publication. This, in turn, creates a risk that time, money,
and effort will be wasted through the pointless duplica¬
tion of research.
Even if the librarian could solve this problem by any
conventional space-saving means (such as microfilming
p. 205), it would still be a lengthy and tedious business to
Map showing member countries of the Inter¬
locate a particular paper. Experts have therefore de¬ national Federation of Library Associations {in
veloped a system of abstracting that helps both librarians green), which advises its members on international
loans and on the exchange of publications.
and library users.
There are two kinds of abstracts. One, the indicative
abstract, gives the title of the work, a sort of long subtitle
that shows clearly the subject of the paper and the kind of
work that is reported in it, and enough information to
trace the original. The other, called the informative
abstract, simply condenses the data and arguments of the
original paper. Though this kind of abstract may make
it unnecessary for a reader to consult the original, it is not
a straightforward summary or precis, for the abstractor
may have placed special emphasis on certain parts of the
original, according to the purpose for which the abstract
was made. For instance, an article on a general chemical
subject may deal also with new apparatus or methods.
An abstract designed for readers especially concerned
with these points would emphasize them more than
another. Bulletins of abstracts are issued regularly by the
abstracting services, which now cover almost every
subject. The abstraction system is so highly organized
that the researcher can keep in touch with progress in
any field with the minimum of wasted time.
Another way of saving time is for libraries to pool their
efforts. Indeed, co-operation between libraries, either
officially directed or mutually agreed, has already made
Above: nutrition lecture in a Ghanaian village.
considerable progress. It takes such forms as arrange¬ With the help of UNESCO, the Ghana Govern¬
ments for lending books between libraries, comprehensive ment publishes recipe books as part of a nation¬
wide campaign to teach healthier eating habits
catalogues for groups of libraries, and the establishment and to combat food taboos.
of various information services. For example, the
International Federation of Library Associations en¬
courages the exchange of publications and of inter¬
national loans. It has devised international rules for
such exchanges, and they have so far worked successfully
in 20-odd countries. Similarly the International Federa¬
tion of Documentation provides a center for the exchange
of information and for dealing with document selection,
reproduction rights, and copyright. Again, the Inter¬
national Council on Archives encourages the preservation

Established by UNESCO and the Colombian

Government in 1954, this mobile extension of the
Medellin City model library carries over 5000
books and covers 100 miles weekly. Similar
schemes are springing up throughout Latin
208 America, doing much to widen villagers' outlook.
of archives, makes archives known and accessible
between countries, and secures reproduction rights.
Each of these associations is aided by UNESCO (the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization , a specialized agency of the UN. Part of
UNESCO’s purpose is to help libraries and archives in
the co-ordination and improvement of bibliographical
services. It has a scheme to simplify the marketing of
books between countries. It gives technical advice and
small grants for libraries to member states. It tries to
maintain a free flow of books between countries, and to
untangle copyright difficulties where they occur.
The principle behind UNESCO’s work is that since
war begins in the minds of men, it must be prevented in the
minds of men. The provision of free libraries is a tremen¬
dous weapon in fighting ignorance and prejudice.
UNESCO, through its complex systems of advice and
assistance, works toward this end in many countries of
the world.
Wherever civilizations have grown up in the past, they Perhaps the ultimate in storage is this glass disk—a
computer equivalent of a Russian-English dictionary.
have produced libraries, museums, and other collections The disk has 700 tiny tracks in the dark area near the edge,
of stored knowledge. Such collections have never played making up a dictionary of 55,000 Russian words. The
so vital a part as they do in the world today. We are dictionary will eventually contain 400,000 items with
English equivalents.
accumulating new knowledge at a rate that is un¬
precedented in history. Museums, galleries, exhibitions,
A class in a Scottish university studies comparative
and, above all, libraries are our most important means of anatomy with the aid of specially mounted specimens of
storing, communicating, and digesting that knowledge. human and other animal skeletons.
Chapter 10

Long-distance Communication

So long as human society consisted of small independent

groups, such as the family or the tribe, it was easy for
every individual to know what was going on in his group.
In other words, communication by word of mouth was
enough to keep him up to date on any matter that con¬
cerned him. But as groups became bigger, as tribes grew
or combined into nations, the individual began to lose
touch with the activities of society as a whole.
A large-scale society without more complex communi¬
cations than are needed by a small, closely knit group
would be as inefficient as a living creature without the
nervous system that co-ordinates the working of its
various parts. Indeed, the methods of communication
described in this chapter may be thought of as a kind of
super-nervous system linking the individual human units
in a large social system.
It is only in the last 120 years that man has really begun
to master the problems of communicating quickly over
long distances. In this chapter we shall see how these
problems were first tackled by turning our everyday For most of his time on earth man could
language (itself a code) into a code that is suitable for communicate instantaneously only with
those who were within range of sight
sending. The disadvantage of using a code is that the or sound, like the Old Testament
message has to be retranslated or decoded at the receiving prophet in the picture. In extreme
end. Later, we find man devising ways of sending mes¬ contrast is today's communication
potential that is here symbolized
sages without using an intermediate code. Finally we by a system of orbiting satellites that
come full circle, back to the face-to-face situation with can instantaneously relay sound and
TV signals from and to any point on
which we started, namely speaking to someone whom we the earth's surface, day or night, and
can also see, but now with no limits to the distance. whatever the weather.

210
 Iff

mm
iM
 Signals and codes

Suppose two people, A and B, are walking along a

country road and discussing plans for meeting again
later in the day. While they walk together they are com¬
municating with each other in several ways—by word of
mouth, by the expression on their faces, and perhaps by
gestures that they make with their hands.
Now they come to a fork in the road. A goes one way
and B goes the other. They have not finished their dis¬
cussion and they have no time to stop. So they go on
talking and raising their voices as the distance increases.
Finally A shouts, “All right, I’ll meet you at five o’clock.”
But B shouts back, “What’s that ? I can’t hear you,” and
shakes his head. This is the point at which communication
by sound has failed, but information can still be trans¬
mitted visually. So A points to his wrist watch, points to
himself and then to B, and holds up five fingers. B under¬
stands and waves goodbye, to acknowledge the signal.
The visual signaling we have just described is of the
simplest kind, and you can see that it succeeded only
because of the conversation that went on before. Indeed,
it might mean nothing at all to a third person, who
happened to be watching. In other words, a simple signal
is effective only if both the sender and the receiver under¬
stand the context in which it is made.
It was by visual means that in 1588 the news that the
Spanish Armada had been sighted off Plymouth was sig¬
naled to London 200 miles away in less than 20 minutes.
A chain of beacon fires on hilltops and church towers,
spaced about eight miles apart, served to carry the news
just as quickly as each successive fire could be lit. How¬
ever, if the weather inland had been foggy on that
particular day the message would have been delayed. In
addition, this kind of signaling gave only one bit of infor¬
mation: that the enemy fleet had been sighted. It could
not indicate its strength, course, or intention. So fire
Armada was a very simple kind of code, with a low infor¬
mation level.
We still use visual signaling systems with simple codes
of this sort, especially in situations where it is more im¬
portant that the message should be immediately under¬
stood than that it should carry much information. The
use of flashing lights to guide ships and aircraft is an
example.
Visual signaling is very fast. Because light waves travel
at about 186,000 miles a second, that is about a million
times as fast as sound, transmission is practically in¬
stantaneous. But it can be done only between points in a
straight line, and the weather must be clear.
Audible or noise signals operate over much shorter
distances and at a lower speed than light about 1100

Left to right: the letters of the alphabet, with the

corresponding signals in the international flag
code, the Morse code, and the semaphore code.
feet per second. But they have the advantage that sounds
can travel straight or round corners and attract attention
more widely. Such signals are particularly useful for
conveying information to a lot of people simultaneously,
so that we can think of sound signaling by horns, drums,
or bells as a kind of primitive broadcasting. The air-raid
siren is another example. This has only two sound symbols
in its codes; an undulating note to give warning of the
approach of enemy aircraft and a steady note to indicate
“all clear.”
So far we have talked about simple signals and simple
codes, and it is easy to see that these methods are so
limited that people were soon driven to invent codes that
could convey more complicated messages. Among these
are the codes used by tribal drummers in the African
forests; some of these, indeed, are not so much codes as a
rough imitation of the human voice, using more than one
drum to reproduce the rise and fall of speech sounds.
Complex visual codes have also been devised. In the
days of sail, flag signaling was an important means of
communication, especially between warships. But hoist¬
ing flags is a clumsy way of translating words into a visual West African talking-drum signalers use two
drums to produce a tone-and-rhythm code that
code suitable for long-distance transmission. In the 18th mimics the tones and rhythms o] human speech
century, a much swifter way of sending messages, called (which is itselj a code).
semaphore, took its place. In semaphore code each letter of
the alphabet is represented by a particular position of
flags or signal arms. In 1794, by means of a chain of
semaphore stations devised by Claude Chappe, the
French Revolutionary armies on the Belgian frontier
were put on the alert within a quarter of an hour after the
sending of orders from Paris, 150 miles away. Another
visual signaling method uses Morse code. This code was
invented for the electric telegraph (p.216 , but is equally
suitable for signaling by means of a hand flag or a flashing
lamp.
Semaphore, Morse, and the most developed forms of
flag signaling are all based on the alphabet, using a
different symbol for each letter. They thus share the chief
drawback of alphabetic writing, which is that we have to
use many symbols to transmit little information. But the
greatest virtue of the alphabet and of other codes based on The note oj a horn carries a long distance. Here
Tibetan monks use enormous horns to summon
it arises from this same fact: Each separate symbol has a villagers to a religious ceremony.
very low information level, but because we can combine
them in an enormous number of ways, we can say almost Soldiers in the First World War signaling by
heliograph. Morse-code messages were sent by
anything we choose. reflecting sunlight in short and long bursts.
Letters by the million

The sending of written messages or letters is as old as

writing itself, but it is only in the last 120 years that cheap
public postal systems, linking all parts of a country, have
come into being. Before this, many countries had or¬
ganized more or less efficient postal networks. But the
charges for carrying mail increased with the distance, so
most people could not afford to send letters except on very
special occasions. Thus, although the idea of the posts as
a public service, and not merely an organization of king’s
messengers, was well established by the 17th century, in
practice it had remained a privilege of the well-to-do.
The development of a reliable mail service for everyone
was in part a result of the Industrial Revolution, which
brought both increased business and, with the invention
of the steam locomotive and the steamship, faster and During the 1870 siege of Paris, carrier pigeons that were
more reliable means of transport and delivery. The move¬ flown out of the beleaguered city by balloon brought back
more than two and a half million messages condensed into
ment of large numbers of people from the villages to the microfilm and enlarged again on arrival.
towns meant that many families were split up, thus in¬
creasing the need for better postal services. And at the
same time, the growth of free schooling meant that more
and more people were learning to read and write.
It costs little more to supervise the journey of a
thousand letters than it does for that of a single package.
England’s Rowland Hill, the outstanding pioneer of
postal reforms, argued that it would be possible to charge
a flat rate for carrying mail regardless of distance, and
that this rate could be very low and the service still show a 7

profit because so many more people would then use the

service. At the same time as these reforms were adopted by
Britain in 1840, Hill introduced the postage stamp
something we now take for granted, and yet an ingenious
device for paying in advance for the transport of a letter.
Other countries followed suit, and the volume of social
and business mail has since increased enormously.
The United States post office, for instance, handles an
<‘*0riai
average of 100 million letters a day. The daily handling
of millions of letters seems at first sight to be a complicated
operation, but if we break it down into stages it becomes
quite simple. As the -diagram on the facing page shows,
there arc six stages: collection, sorting, transportation in
bulk over a distance, sorting again by districts, a further
sorting into small groups equivalent to a postman’s
“round,” and finally delivery into your mail box.
The methods of handling letters vary only slightly from
country to country. One part of the postal service that
does vary, however, is the delivery of letters. This can be
done only by a man who walks from house to house or
from one office building to another. Now that so many
processes can be mechanized, the effort of a man working
by himself has become relatively costly, and it is for this

The world's most isolated mailbox, on Charles

Island in the Galapagos. Visiting ships leave
letters (unstamped by common consent) to be
picked up by the next ship that happens to be sail¬
ing in the right direction.
reason that in many countries letters are not delivered to
the final address, but are placed in numbered boxes at
the local post office.
The importance, particularly for trade, of a free flow of
postal material between different countries is so great
that almost every country in the world has opened its
postal facilities to incoming mail by joining the Universal
Postal Union. Member countries undertake to deliver
without further charge any material arriving from
abroad; in doing this each member reckons that roughly
the same number of items will be sent out of the country
as are received. The steady and efficient working of the
Union has of course been interrupted by outbreaks of
war, but in times of peace it shows how sensibly countries
can co-operate with one another if they really want to.

Top picture: Special photographic techniques reveal the complexity of

the movements that a postal worker makes in sorting some 50 letters
into a sorting rack. Today, mechanical and repetitious jobs are more and
more ojten done by machine.

Right: a semi-automatic machine that can sort letters at high speed.

Letters come up in front oj the operator, who reads of] their destination
and punches the appropriate keys. Each letter is mechanically ejected into
its correct box. A good hand-sorting speed is around 50 letters a minute
to 48 boxes; this machine sorts 110 per minute to 144 boxes.

The above diagram charts the course of three letters (identified in key).
The left half of the diagram represents a city in one country; the right
half a city in another country. In column A stand postmen; column B,
mail boxes; C, local sorting offices; D, central sorting offices. The three
letters begin their journeys in the mailbox at the top left. All go to one
local office for sorting. The local letter is delivered directly
from this office. The other two go on to a central sorting
office. One is sent to a local office across the city. The
other goes abroad (broken line) for sorting and delivery.
A similar story could have been told for the other offices.
Electric telegraphs

Signaling methods of the kind described on pages 212 13

all have serious limitations. None of them is a truly long¬
distance system, because the whole message must be
repeated every few miles; and even visual signals, which
can be sent so much more rapidly than audible ones,
are useless when visibility is bad. In addition, none can be
used to form a public system of communication, an event
that became possible only in the 19th century with in¬
creasing knowledge of the properties of electricity.
The electric telegraph is essentially a system of sending
information along a wire in the form of short pulses of
electric current. Sending is easy enough; all we need do
is to switch the current on and off at predetermined
moments. Receiving and interpreting the invisible, This 19th-century print dramatizes the fact that
inaudible pulses is much more difficult, and no satisfactory the Pony Express, America's most famous pre-
raihvciy mail service, was by the 1860s superseded
solution was devised until electromagnetism was dis¬ by the Overland Telegraph.
covered in the early 19th century. Electric currents could
now be made to do physical work by activating a bell,
buzzer, or even a moving pen, and in such ways the
electrical pulses—for example, the short pulses (“dots”
and long pulses (“dashes”) of the Morse code (p.213
were converted into a form that could be heard or seen.
Samuel Morse (1791 1872) made a careful study of the
frequency of use of different letters in the English
language. Then, having arranged the letters in order of
frequency, he (or, as some now believe, his assistant,
Alfred Vail assigned short code symbols to the common¬
est letters and long symbols to the letters that are used less
often. Thus he found that the letters e and t are most used,
and to these he gave the symbols • and -, respectively.
The least-used letters are z and <7, so these received the
longest symbols, — • • and — • - respectively. Now
the dash is three times as long as the dot, and the space
between pulses is equal to a dot, so that you can see that q
takes 13 times as long as e to transmit. Morse or Vail
could hardly have foreseen in 1844, when the first
American line was built, how heavily loaded with mes¬ Helsinki 0
sages the world’s telegraphic systems were to become; EM W:
but his code has saved an enormous amount of time and
money over the years.
 In the early days messages were sent by hand; that is,
an operator read a message, translated it in his head into
Morse, and tapped out the code as a series of dots and
dashes on a Morse key, or switch. At the other end an
operator listened to or watched an instrument that
exactly reproduced the pulses. He translated them back
into letters and wrote out the message. Good operators
could maintain a speed of 20 to 25 words a minute.
Modern telegraphy has reached such a pitch of perfec¬
tion that many messages can be sent simultaneously along
a single wire; but the most significant improvement
that helped telegraph services to keep up with the ever-
increasing demand for quick communication was the
Submarine telegraph cables have connected invention, in the 1920s, of the teleprinter. This machine
Europe and America since 1866. Here we see a
repair party splicing a short length of new cable at converts alphabetical letters into coded pulses at the
the site of a break in mid-ocean around 1900. point of transmission; a similar machine receives the
pulses, decodes them, and prints the message in plain
language. While a code is still necessary, it is only a means
of getting one machine to drive another at a distance; the
human element has been eliminated, and the result is a
great increase in speed and accuracy.
Today a telegraphic message is universally taken to
have the same authority as a written letter, so that a
business transaction between two people, one, say, in
Europe, the other in Australia, can be settled in a matter
of minutes. In effect, the private telegraphed message, or
telegram, is simply a high-speed letter. In normal cir¬
cumstances the telegraph organizations guarantee its
writer the same privacy as he enjoys with a sealed package,
or with a telephone conversation; and a telegram is
accepted as evidence in a court of law.
The intercontinental telegraph service carries more
messages, news, and information every year, because it
provides a permanent written record of what has been
sent. Today in the United States, for example, a two-
( O S A N O M A million-mile network of overhead and buried wires
2? 162/5 16oo handles more than 200 million telegrams a year, apart
from news services; while on every ocean bed lie cables
ceaselessly conveying messages between the earth’s
continents.
STelti Sieva Suomalainen
!2ar skintie W A 49

241
TELEGRAPHS DEPARTMENT
Most countries now have special forms or en¬
velopes jor telegrams containing messages of
greetings, condolence, and good will. Here are
examples from several countries. Top, Formosa;
center, Finland; far left top, Greece; jar lejt
bottom, France. In India they have standard
telegrams, but different envelopes (right).
;_2nPB63

--

i. XX- 241 -
_
X
litre O?

"V
,

0/,
217
C\ V’ A
< va

In the early 1900s telephone lines, bunched into
cables, ran over city rooftops; today the wires are
out of sight below pavements.
Below: Calls to and from foreign countries arc
handled at international exchanges where each
operator can speak at least two languages.
Telephony
We have seen that when people are too far apart to com¬
municate by speech or gesture, they have been driven to
devise alternative and sometimes roundabout ways of
passing on information. And we have seen too, how
spectacular advances both in speed and distance of
communication came in the 19th century with the under¬
standing of some of the properties of electricity. The 19th
century also gave us the telephone, the invention that
first enabled man to go back to using speech, this time
at any distance.
The idea of extending the range of human speech had
long intrigued scientists. As far back as 1667 the English
scientist Robert Hooke invented a crude telephone, in
which the sound waves set up by the speaker’s voice
struck a diaphragm of stretched skin or parchment that
was itself connected to a tight string or wire. At the other
end of the wire he placed another diaphragm that roughly
converted the original speech into audible air vibrations.
Hooke’s invention was effective for only a few yards,
because the vibrations died away in the wire.
What made the instrument that we call a telephone
possible was the discovery that electric currents can be
made to vary in strength or intensity very rapidly. The
American pioneer of telephony, Alexander Graham Bell,
put the problem in a nutshell when he said: “If I could
make a current of electricity vary in intensity precisely
as the air varies in density (that is, vibrates ) during the
production of sound, I should be able to transmit speech
telegraphically.” Bell succeeded in doing this by 1876.
He invented a crude microphone whose resistance to an
electrical current varied in harmony with the sound
wax es striking its diaphragm, so that a current could be
made to vary rapidly. At the other end of the wires was a
receiver, consisting of an electromagnet, through which
the now varying current flowed, vibrating another
diaphragm. This diaphragm converted the current back
into sound waves. Today’s telephone uses a more sensitive
microphone, invented by another American, Thomas
Alva Edison. It contains carbon granules, whose resis¬
tance to a steady current is influenced by the vibrations
of a diaphragm pressing against them.
Today, anyone with a telephone can speak to over 135
million other telephone users all over the world. Indeed,
the telephone has become so much a part of our business
and social life that we are inclined to take it for granted,
like gas and electricity. However, it is worthwhile con¬
sidering for a moment what telephone communication
gives us that we cannot get in any other way.
The first big advantage is that a telephone makes it
possible to hold a two-way conversation. We can ask
questions and get immediate answers, and we can discuss
a personal or business matter in detail. Conversation is
much more intimate because we can at once detect the
slightest changes of tone and expression in the other
person’s voice. There is only one way of saying “yes” in a
telegram, but there are many possible shades of ex¬
pression, from eagerness to reluctance, in the pronuncia¬
tion of the same word.
While the telephone is primarily an instrument for
two-way communication, most telephone services also
provide information that we can obtain by simply dialing
a number. A recorded voice then tells us the time, the
weather forecast, the latest sporting results, or even a
bedtime story. Familiar too are the emergency services
that we can call on, such as police, ambulance, and fire
brigade, by dialing an easily remembered number.
The telephone was the first instrument to make long¬
distance signaling personal and intimate. But what we do
not get in a telephone conversation is the full interchange
that is possible only when two people can both hear and
see each other (p.221 . However, most of us who regularly
use the telephone compensate for this almost uncon¬
sciously by taking more trouble over what we say. We try
to put more expression into our speech in order to replace
the facial expression and gestures that we would use in
talking face to face.

ABC

Early automatic exchanges used system diagramed above. First dialed

digit moves selector arm on switch A, making connection to switch B;
next dialed digit moves selector arm on B, and so on. A modern auto¬
matic exchange {right) has transistorized units that do away with moving
switches. When a unit jails it can be pulled out like a drawer and replaced
within seconds by another unit.

m ih \ The electric telegraph and telephone went a long way
A short-wave radio transmitting and receiving
station keeps this Antarctic research base in
constant touch with the outside world, and also
with other bases on the polar ice cap.
The control of arriving and departing aircraft at
an airport would be impossible without the radio¬
telephone that keeps the controller in touch with
aircraft on the ground and in the air, as well as
with other airports.
Radio signals
toward satisfying the world’s demands for quick com¬
munication. But there was still one big disadvantage.
They operated over fixed systems of wires and cables;
objects in motion, such as ships, were isolated.
The invention of radio, or “wire-less,” communication
in the 1890s changed all this, and soon enabled ships at
sea to keep in constant touch with one another and with
their owners. Also it brought isolated places such as the
polar regions, remote sheep stations in Australia, and
lonely islands in the Pacific into contact with the world’s
existing communications network.
Radiotelegraph signals consist of bursts of electro¬
magnetic waves, like light waves but longer and invisible.
They travel at the speed of light (some 186,000 miles a
second) and can be radiated in all directions by making
high-frequency currents pulse up and down a raised sys¬
tem of wires called an antenna. Like light waves, they
travel in straight lines, so one would expect that a radio
signal could be received only on another antenna that
was in the line of sight of the transmitter. However, there
is a zone of the upper atmosphere called the ionosphere
that reflects most radio waves. The Italian inventor
Guglielmo Marconi was able to pick up the first radio
signals transmitted across the Atlantic, in 1901, because
the waves sent out from Cornwall in England bounced off
the ionosphere, back to earth, and up again several times
before reaching his receiver in Newfoundland. Long¬
distance radio communication would be impossible with¬
out the ionosphere. Scientists had predicted its existence;
Marconi took a chance and won handsomely.
In the early years of this century, radiotelegraphy using
the Morse code enjoyed an immediate success. The
dramatic role of radio in the arrest of the English
murderer Dr. Crippen in 1910, and again in attracting
rescue ships to the sinking Titanic in 1912, made an
enormous impression on the public. Many people
thought that submarine cables would soon become
obsolete. But the last 50 years have demonstrated that
the ever-increasing demands for international channels

Closed-circuit television is particularly useful for
enabling a large number of students to see a
surgical operation {above) without crowding
around the operating table (see below).
of communication can be met only by making the fullest
use of both cable and radio networks.
Just as telephones developed out of the telegraph, so
radiotelephones were born from radiotelegraphy, just
after World War I. The familiar broadcasting service is
a form of “one-way” radiotelephony. In two-way com¬
munication, radiotelephones have two main uses; one in
world-wide public telephone services, the other in short-
range communication between police cars, taxis, and
aircraft. Radiotelephones are also used increasingly in¬
stead of overhead lines or buried cables for passing on
ordinary telephone messages. Automatic stations called
radio links receive radiotelephone signals, amplify them,
and pass them on to another automatic station. These
systems are particularly useful in mountainous country
where ordinary telephone lines are difficult to install and
may be damaged by avalanches.
Because radio waves are of the same nature as light
waves, it is not surprising to find that we can reflect them
by suitably designed mirrors. These can take the form of
a metal bowl reflector, as shown on page 225. This type
is most suitable for very short waves. Longer waves can
be reflected by an array of wires hung like a curtain at a
short distance from a transmitting antenna. By means of
reflectors, radio waves that normally spread out in all
directions can be “beamed” in any desired direction, with
a considerable saving of transmitter power; with very
short waves there is also a useful increase in secrecy.
Nowadays, communication systems are so intermingled
that when you make a long-distance telephone call you
may, without knowing it, be using a land line, a sub¬
marine cable, or a radio link, whichever is the most
economical to carry your message.
The last and latest in the series of electrical devices for
communicating at a distance is television. Television is a
method of converting visual as well as audible signals into
short-wave radio signals, transmitting the signals, and then
reassembling the information into a “talking picture” at
the receiving end. While television as a one-way com¬
munication (that is, broadcasting) is a familiar item in
our daily lives, just the same basic apparatus can be
used without radio signals for transmitting visual images
and sound between two points along a land line. This
closed-circuit television is coming into increasing use in
industry, as a means of controlling the operations in
factories and offices.
With the invention of television we have come full
circle back to the communication by sound and sight
with which we started this chapter, but over a much
greater distance.
The image made by the television camera that is
poised over the operating table in the top picture
is projected in color onto a large screen. At the
same time, the surgeon's account of the operation
is relayed by loud-speaker. 221

Two ultra-short-wave stations can communicate
over several thousand miles only ij their signals
(which penetrate the ionosphere see text) can he
relayed by satellite.
4 sent the first radio signal, we have run into a crisis in com¬
The Syncom relay-satellites system {above) relies
on the jact that a satellite at a distance of"22,300
miles has a 24-hour orbit and thus appears
stationary. Three such satellites could give world¬
wide, around-the-clock coverage.
Satellite relay systems
In the past io years there has been a sevenfold increase in
the volume of communications across the Atlantic, and
there is every reason to believe that this rate of increase
will continue for some years. This means that the supply
of channels of communication is barely keeping up with
the demand. It is true that new submarine cables that
carry hundreds of messages at once are helping to ease the
load, but cables are not suitable for instantaneous trans¬
mission of television, which is better done by radio
techniques. Moreover, what is happening in transatlantic
communications is only one example of a world-wide
demand for more channels.
The main load falls on the radio services; but here again
there is a "‘traffic jam” because each radio station must
operate on a definite wave length (or a group of waves
known as a waveband) in order to avoid interference from
other transmitters. Radio engineers have turned there¬
fore more and more to using very short waves called
microwaves because these are the only waves not yet
completely crowded with traffic. (Another reason why
very short waves are being intensively exploited is ex¬
plained on page 225.
We said that when radio first came into being, waves
could be bounced off the ionosphere (p. 220 ). Such
bouncing occurred only with the medium and long wave
lengths, which were the first to be used. The microwaves
that we are now using penetrate this “mirror” and are
lost in outer space. Thus, less than 70 years after Marconi
munications that can be solved only by finding a way of
making microwaves carry signals over the longest dis¬
tances.
Fortunately the answer to this problem has come just
Tiros weather satellite (left) carries TV cameras that take pictures of
large-scale weather formations like the storm vortex (above). The
pictures are stored on tape and are transmitted on command to a ground
station. Tiros gives advance warning of storms and hurricanes and
enables weather men to make more accurate forecasts. The satellite
orbits at an altitude 0) around450 miles.
in time. It lies in using earth satellites, orbiting outside
the earth’s atmosphere, as microwave relay stations. This
may seem a roundabout method, but it serves its purpose
because if the relay station is far enough from the earth, it
is in direct contact at the same time with two land
stations several thousand miles apart. Telstar and the
other satellite relay stations have proved that a satellite
relay system can work. All that now remains is to deter¬
mine the best arrangement of satellites to provide world
coverage at all times.
Public interest in relay satellites has naturally been
focused on the novelty of instantaneous transatlantic
television, but we should remember that their chief
function is to provide hundreds of telephone channels, as
well as television and teleprinter channels, in order to
meet the ever-increasing demands for person-to-person
communication.

Effective communication by relay satellite de¬

pends on special tracking antennas that point
continuously toward the satellite. This station is
at Lannion in France. Below: Telstar (first com¬
mercial relay satellite, launched 1962) relayed
TV and phone calls between the U.S. and Europe.
It orbited the earth once in every 158 minutes.
 Communication theory

100
New communication systems, set up to satisfy the demand
200 for more and better channels through which messages
Frequency in kilocycles per second

can be sent, eventually stimulate more traffic than they

300
were designed to cope with. Sooner or later, each new
400 system becomes overloaded. A traffic jam in our systems
of communication means a breakdown in the operation
500 - SOS—telegraphy
of society; and in the past 20 years a new subject called
600 ■
communication theory (or information theory) has grown up
to study the problems of communication (p. 322 .
700 -
Broadcasting The problem of coping with more and more messages
800 •
can be tackled in two ways. One is to provide more com¬
munication channels and to improve those we already
900 -
have. The other is to evolve more efficient codes for
1 -
carrying the messages. Some forms of coded language,
|

such as shorthand and abbreviations, show us one way in

2 which a code can be made more efficient. Shorthand is a
SOS—telephony
compressed form of writing, and by compressing infor¬
-
Amateurs
mation so that it takes only half as long to transmit, we
. Broadcasting can send twice as much information in a given period of
Coastal stations
time.
-
Here is an example of how a lot of information can be
Broadcasting
■ compressed into a short message. Suppose you .ire going
Aeronautical from London to Amsterdam and you want a friend to
Amateurs meet you at the airport. If you were talking to him on the
Broadcasting
telephone you might say, CCI shall be leaving London on
Ships
Coastal Stations Tuesday at five past eight arriving about five past nine,
and I shall be glad if you could meet me at Amsterdam
10
airport.” But if you send a telegram, for which you pay by
Broadcasting,
Ships, and Amateurs
the word, you might say, “Meet KL120 Tuesday”
20 three words instead of 29. (By giving the flight number
Frequency in megacycles per second

30 - Radio control of models

your friend can find out by telephone what time the plane
is due, and also if there is any delay due to bad weather.)
40 This is an example of an economy that we ourselves
can practice. But there are other economies that are in
50
Television the hands of the engineers. For example, our speech can
60 be trimmed without loss of meaning. Human speech con¬
sists of a complex mixture of sounds that vary from a low
70
Mobile radio frequency of 50 vibrations, or cycles, per second, to a high
Aeronautical
80
Radio navigation
frequency of 5000 cycles per second. But if we pick up
speech sounds on a telephone circuit that responds only
90 V.H.F.
Broadcasting
to frequencies between 300 and 3000, and deliver them to
100 a receiver, the result is perfectly intelligible, even al¬
though some of the quality is lost. Since a telephone exists
200 Television for communication and not, like broadcasting, for
300
entertainment, we can put up with this loss. The tele¬
Instrument landing systems phone engineer can compress more conversations into
400 Amateurs and Air navigation
one line, because a narrower band of frequencies takes
up less room in the transmission system.
500
Television
Another way of compressing information is called
600 “time division multiplex.” The engineer feeds a hundred

700
Television Left: The diagram shows the allocation of radio frequencies to different
800 classes of communication. A frequency of 100 kilocycles per second {at
top) equals a wave length of3000 meters; at the bottom 1000 megacycles
900 per second equals 30 centimeters. All the available frequencies are in use.
This sometimes causes interference between stations, adds to the radio
1000 engineer's problems.
conversations into one wire through a special, very-high¬
speed electronic switch. The current corresponding to
each speaker’s voice is chopped by the switch into
bursts lasting less than a millionth of a second at intervals
of one ten-thousandth of a second. Another switch at the
receiving end sorts out these brief portions of speech
current; each listener thinks he is hearing an unchanged
voice, whereas in fact he is getting only a series of brief
samples. To him it is as good as the complete message,
just as a series of 24 still pictures a second thrown onto a
cinema screen appears to he a smoothly moving picture.
One of the basic facts with which communication
theory is concerned is that the rate at which information
can be sent through a cable or by radio is limited by the
range of frequencies or “band width55 that is available. A Highly schematic diagram above illustrates the action of
a maser. Crystal (A) is “pumped up” with microwave
simple message of the “on55and ‘6ofP’ kind, like Morse,
energy (B) by an electromagnet (dark grey). Weak in¬
needs only a very narrow band; but a television program coming signal (C) takes energy from the crystal atoms and
in which millions of bits of information are sent out in emerges amplified (D). Signal-to-noise ratio {see text) is
high, allows million-times amplification.
every second to make up the picture—calls for a wide
band of frequencies. As we can see in the diagram left a
very small change of wave length in the ultra-short-wave
part of the spectrum results in a huge change in frequency.
Thus, in that part of the spectrum there is room for a
large number of high-information transmitters, each with
its own allocation of frequencies, or band width.
Communication theory is also concerned with “noise,”
a word that is used in communications to describe any
unwanted interference. If you are trying to talk to some¬
one across a crowded room, you will not he heard unless
your voice is strong compared with the level of conversa¬
tion. The engineer would say that the signal-to-noise ratio
must reach a definite figure before the message can be
intelligible. Noise in telegraph and telephone systems,
whether by line or by radio, can come from a number of
sources, for example, amplifiers or “repeaters55 in a tele¬
phone cable, or devices for amplifying signals in radio
receivers.
Thunderstorms and the bombardment of the atmos¬
phere by particles from the sun also cause interference.
Even the flow of electrons in a wire can cause noise, and a
great deal of research goes into designing electronic
apparatus that will keep the signal-to-noise ratio at a
satisfactory level. One such instrument is the maser (see
diagram) a crystal that can be “pumped up55 with The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's radio telescope
electronic energy, in which state it can receive a very (1above) is fitted with a maser {in “box” at focus, top left)
that enables it to amplify the very feeble signals that are
weak signal and give out an enormously amplified
received from outer space.
replica. The maser is very silent in proportion to the
amplification it gives, and it can be made even more Long-distance telephone calls must be amplified at regular
silent by keeping it at a very low temperature (about intervals. Below is a section through a repeater {amplifier)
of the kind that is spliced into submarine cables every
— 268° c.) in a bath ofliquid helium. 20-odd miles.

Above: the New York Stock Exchange, which could not
function without the modern communication devices that
keep it in touch with world markets. Below: the British
end of a transatlantic conference in which speakers in two
such halls are linked by telephone. Portraits of American
speakers on wall help compensate for lack of television.
vr*
Social consequences
The American War of 1812 was ended by a peace treaty
signed at Gent in Belgium, on December 24, 1814. But
communications were so slow that the Battle of New
Orleans was fought 15 days after the war was officially
over. By contrast, the ending in 1945 of the European
part of World War II was known all over the world in a
matter of minutes. This is a striking illustration of the
way in which modern communications have affected our
lives; and we can ask ourselves what other changes in our
way of living they have brought about.
The chief effect has been to reduce, so to speak, the
size of the globe. By means of airmail, we can exchange
news and information with relatives and friends in all
parts of the civilized world in a few days; if the matter is
more urgent we can pay more and make contact in a few
minutes by telegraph or telephone. As a result, people
who might otherwise have stayed in the district where
they were born are now quite prepared to take a job in
some far-off country, because they know that they can
keep in touch with their relatives. The sense of isolation
in a foreign land is far less now than 100 years ago.
In the field of commerce the benefits of rapid com¬
munication are very great; the more that trade becomes
international, the more necessary it is to know the
market conditions on the other side of the world. Im¬
mediate information is to the advantage of both buyer
and seller. No longer, for example, does an Australian
wool producer ship his cargo to Europe without knowing
what prices it is going to fetch. He can now sell his wool
by cablegram at an agreed price to a merchant 12,000
miles away, or he can choose to wait until an increased
demand for his product gives him a better price.
The development of long-distance communications
has also had a marked effect on international politics. In
the past an ambassador to a foreign country was more or
less on his own and had to solve problems as they arose.
Now he can consult his home government in a matter of
minutes or hours and be advised what to do. But the
availability of rapid communications can serve either to
dispel misunderstanding, or to make matters worse by

In 1870 a telegram from William I to Bismarck was
altered by Bismarck before publication, to make it appear
that the French were breathing defiance at Germany. This
“Ems telegram” sparked off the Franco-Prussian War.
In this cartoon of the period Bismarck is saying “My foot
must have slipped
starting a quarrel; and this is a good example of how
technical progress itself is less important than the use to
which we put it.
The speed with which a crisis can now involve nations
(instead of flaring up and dying down again before the
news leaks out, as often happened in the old days has led
in 1963 to a development that is new in human history.
This is the “hot line,” a teleprinter circuit that per¬
manently connects the Kremlin in Moscow with the
White House in Washington. This line is reserved en¬
tirely for communication between the heads of state of
the world’s two most powerful countries. It is designed to
prevent an outbreak of war through inability to com¬
municate, such as might have happened in 1962, during
the Cuban crisis.
One of the most striking features of modern life is the
constant flow of news through the teleprinter networks
and through radio and television broadcasting. Here, as
in private communication, we see the same trend: News
that is of only moderate interest travels slowly by
comparison with important news, like the assassination
of President Kennedy. News of that event spread all over
the world in minutes. News is in fact a commodity that
is bought and sold like foodstuffs. Important news is
worth more and therefore more money may be spent on
transmitting it. Thus an urgent message will be sent at a
higher cost per word, called “full rate,” which guarantees
its immediate transmission, while less important in¬
formation is sent at “deferred rate” (i.e., it is transmitted
only when the lines are clear of urgent messages .
So far we have seen a constant improvement in com¬
munications from tom-toms to Telstar. Looking into the
future, we can envisage even greater advances in speed,
reliability, and capacity to handle messages. But up to
now there has been one major difficulty in international
communication. Messages in an electrical form can and
do jump national boundaries with ease, but there
still remains the problem of language. Somewhere along
the line of each communication between one country and
another an interpreter is needed, and good interpreters
cost money. A great deal of research is now going on with
the aid of computers in order to devise machines that will
automatically translate one language into another. And
if may well be that in a few years it will be possible to type
out in English a cablegram that will automatically be
delivered translated into Russian or Chinese. If, as seems
probable, automatic translation develops on a large scale,
it will quicken the process, that has been going on for the
past century, of drawing the countries of the world ever
closer together.
Left: The controller of the American Strategic Air Com¬
mand control center in Nebraska times how long it takes
him to alert the Pentagon and get in touch with all SAC
bases. In 20 seconds he is ready to pass on instructions from
Washington that would let loose a retaliatory strike on an
enemy. A war can start and finish in a few minutes. 227
Chapter 11

Mass Media 1 :

The Press

In countries where nearly every adult is literate almost

everyone reads a daily paper, or part of one—even though
he may never open a book. The first and obvious function
of a newspaper is to print the news. This it does with a
speed and a completeness unknown in history until a
century ago. But a paper does much more than this. It
presents a picture, continuous and yet constantly chang¬
ing, of the community in which it circulates.
We can hardly imagine a modern city or state without
newspapers. Their importance to the life of a modern
community was shown during the three-month news¬
paper strike in New York in 1963. Shops suffered a sharp
drop in business and did not venture to bring out new
lines; theatres, movie theatres, and sporting events were
poorly attended; the pace of the entire community
slackened. As for alternative news sources, these were
generally agreed to be inadequate (p. 267).
Newspapers do not create a community, but they do
much to define its boundaries and to maintain its unity.
They promote common interests and attitudes, especially
where the same paper appears on breakfast tables all
over the country, as in Britain and the smaller European
states. Similarly, a local paper helps a town or district to
keep its sense of identity. In the broadest sense, too, news¬
papers underline the unity of the modern world by re¬
porting grave and light-hearted events that take place Over 8000 daily newspapers are pub¬
thousands of miles away. In earlier ages we should have lished throughout the world—a re¬
markable figure when you think of the
heard rumors of such things only months afterward.
cost and production skills involved in
There is no simple answer to such questions as c‘What producing a daily. Yet it represents
is a newspaper?” and “What ought it to be ?” But in the only a fraction of the output of the
world's presses, for there are many
following pages we study the many different forms that a more non-daily newspapers, as well as
newspaper may take. We also survey the immense variety numerous magazines and periodicals.
of periodicals that play so big and so vital a part in our Whether controlled privately or by
the government, the press is a major
social relations. force in the daily life of a community.

228

Above: Postboys took 10 days to carry news the
370 miles from London to Edinburgh in the mid-
nth century. Mail coaches {right), introduced in
1784, cut this time to two days.
Political candidates bribing a voter—scene
depicted by the English artist William Hogarth
{1697 1 764). In Hogarth's time newspapers that
exposed such practices were liable to be silenced
by the government. In many other cases, editors
were bribed to suppress news.
Early English railway train, 1831. The coming of
the railways greatly speeded up both news
gathering and the distribution of papers.
Growth of the press
The idea of supplying news for sale dates from Renais¬
sance times. As cities grew and trade spread through
Europe, people found it necessary to know what was
happening in places far afield. But the printers (who were
the first journalists) .had to rely on news from chance
travelers, and so they gave their customers “news
pamphlets” produced at irregular intervals.
In 1622 a dozen printers in London, the Low Countries,
and some Rhineland towns arranged to exchange regular
letters and were thus able to produce weekly newspapers.
At first these were concerned mainly with foreign news,
but they gradually came to give most of their space to
domestic politics, which had become too complex for the
ordinary citizen to follow by word of mouth. The situa¬
tion was now ripe for the daily newspaper, and the first
the London Daily Courant -was founded in 1702.
The 18th century brought improvements in printing
and in the regularity of mail coaches, both of which aided
news gathering and the building up of newspaper circula¬
tions. Journalism became a profession instead of a side
line for the enterprising printer. The newspaper became
an accepted part of life in Western Europe and America.
Monarchs and governments, however, looked with
disfavor on papers that expressed independent opinions or
published facts that authority wished to conceal. Editors
were openly bribed by the agents of ministers; those who
refused to be subservient were harried and imprisoned.
In most countries a paper could not appear at all without
an official license. Even governments that were not dicta¬
torial believed that only the educated few should concern
themselves with public events, and they sometimes limited
circulation (notably in England) by imposing a heavy tax
on each copy of a newspaper. Even in 1815 The Times of
London, with a circulation unrivaled in the world, sold
only 5000 copies a day. Its selling price was 7d., of which
4d. was tax.
Great changes came at about the middle of the 19th
century. Political liberty became the rule rather than the
exception. Taxes on the press were abolished. News came
into the offices speedily by telegraph and later by tele¬
phone. Printing could be done far more quickly (p. 140),

Viennese coffeehouse, about 1900. In Europe, coffee¬
houses have been centers for newspaper reading and dis¬
cussion since the early days of the press; many still supply
newspapers as part of their service to customers.
A family holiday amid fairytale surroundings this was
the prize in a 1963 competition organized by a British
Sunday newspaper. Competitions are familiar reader-
catching devices in the popular press.
and railways rushed the papers to distant towns and
villages. The large-scale exploitation of the Canadian
forests and the use of improved machinery in paper mills
made paper cheaper. In England and America advertis¬
ing began to contribute significantly to revenue pp. 241,
285 . For all these reasons, newspapers could be pro¬
duced in large numbers and far more cheaply than before.
Most papers reduced their prices to what the clerk or the
craftsman if not yet the laborer could afford.
Even the cheaper papers, however, were serious in tone.
Their long descriptive accounts were written by well-
educated men for well-educated readers. It was in the
1890s that a quite new style was introduced, in Britain
by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), in the
United States by William Randolph Hearst, both of
whom soon had imitators. They served up the news in
short items, rewritten in the office in simple and standard¬
ized prose, under large headlines; they gave space to
crime reports, scandals, and personal interviews. Their
papers sold at a price within the reach of the poorest, and
appealed to a new generation whom free and compulsory
education had made literate.
In Britain, and in small countries such as the Nether¬
lands, speed of transport had produced the national news¬
paper, which reached breakfast tables throughout the
country. Harmsworth’s Daily Mail was soon selling a
million copies. In most European countries, in America,
and on other continents, the regional newspaper re¬
mained and still remains the rule. But, especially in
such centers as New York and Chicago, popular news¬
papers sold in hundreds of thousands.
The present century is the age of the mass-circulation
press. In Britain the two biggest daily papers sell over
four million copies each. In all industrially advanced
countries it is normal for people of all classes to read a
newspaper. For every 1000 people, including children,
573 daily papers are sold in Britain, 462 in Sweden, 400
in Japan, 347 in the United States, 277 in West Germany,
244 in France, and 107 in the Soviet Union. This means
that papers compete fiercely for readers. Circulation¬
boosting techniques include sensational treatment of
news as well as a wider coverage of it. There is now a deep
gulf between the popular press, with its enormous sales,
and the “quality” papers such as The Times in London or
Le Monde in Paris, whose higher prices and advertising
rates compensate them for limited sales. However, the
gulf is still bridged by certain papers whose serious tone
has not prevented them from holding a fairly large
circulation; thus the New York Times sells 750,000 copies
and the London Daily Telegraph over a million.
231
 How a paper is produced

A modern newspaper is generally written and printed in

the same building, which may be as large as a fair-sized
factory. If it is a leading paper in a major city it may
employ 400 journalists; 300 other white-collar workers
to deal with advertising, circulation, and accounts; and
1200 printing workers.
In most cases the editor of a morning paper holds two
conferences one in the late morning, the other at about
five o’clock in the afternoon, when it is necessary to start
sending “copy” to the printers. Round the table sit one
or more assistant editors, the news editor, foreign editor,
women’s editor, sports editor, city editor, and perhaps
the political and industrial correspondents and car¬
toonists. Also present is the features editor, who handles
all “background” material, such as special inquiries,
documentaries, and articles by specialists.
The men at the conference begin with the knowledge
that they will have to deal with, say, an important parlia¬
mentary debate, a strike in a car factory, the landing of a
satellite, a fashionable wedding, a big football match,
and the verdict in a murder trial. They consider what
space and prominence to give to each event, taking into
account its importance, the paper’s policy, and what they
judge to be the tastes of the readers. As unexpected news
comes in, the second conference may make decisions that
cancel those of the first. These may be repeatedly revised
by snap decisions of the night editor as the night goes on.
Editorial conferences may also decide on the issues to be
discussed in the editorials or “leaders.”
Meanwhile, news flows in. Some comes from the paper’s
own reporters (most of whom work from the head office,
though many are based on other towns and foreign cities),
who cable or, more often, telephone their stories to the
head office. A great deal of news comes from agencies—
organizations that maintain a news service more complete
than that of any individual newspaper, and whose reports
the paper gets for an annual fee. Other news is sent by
hundreds of journalists, at home and abroad, whose
regular jobs are on local papers but who send items to the
big papers. Other news items and feature articles are
contributed by free-lance journalists, who have no one
employer but write for various papers.
Similarly, pictures come from photographers on the
newspaper’s staff, from picture agencies, and occasionally
from free-lance photographers. A good picture may be the
deciding factor in getting a story on to the front page, or
indeed into the paper at all.
Of all the words that pour into the office, not one
in 10 will reach the readers. The night editor and his sub¬
editors select and discard, and often combine reports from

Typical layout of large city newspaper building.

Below ground are the presses and stores; at
ground level is the loading bay. Then come the
composing room, main editorial offices, adminis¬
trative and other editorial offices (five floors),
accounts department, and boilers.
 ISiTDNeSr AMERICAN
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The changing approach of editors to layout. Dull
text-crammed Dutch newspaper of 1808 (left)
was typical of early press. Center: American
paper of 1944; its headline-filled front page
appealed to a wider public. Popular contemporary
layout is represented by French daily {right).
Illustration from Loyal Protestant and True
Domestic Intelligencer {an English newspaper of
1681) showing a huge hens egg containing the
forms of comets and stars that Mas alleged to have
been laid in Rome -cm early example of the use of
sensational news items to attract readers.
staff and agency despatches on similar subjects. Specialists
do the same in their own departments. The chief in¬
dustrial correspondent, for example, may have to get
news of four labor disputes into one story.
All material is prepared for the press by copyreaders
(called subeditors in Britain). They make the writing
conform to the paper’s usual style, check the accuracy of
details, and amplify or (far more often) shorten a story to
fit the allotted space. In some cases they make up head¬
lines, but specialists are often employed to do this.
A daily newspaper of any importance has several
editions at least two and perhaps as many as six. If a
great deal of important news comes in during the night,
many changes are made between editions. The features
may also be changed between editions.
Some papers print editions simultaneously in more
than one city, using the principle of the teleprinter (p.
217). This is called teletypesetting. An operator at head
office types the text onto a machine that converts the
letters into a code of perforations. The code is transmitted
by wire or radio to the other printing center, where the
signals operate a “re-perforator” that produces an
identical code on tape. This tape is fed into a specially
adapted Linotype machine (p. 141 that sets up fresh
type automatically.
Another method is to take a papier-mache imprint of
each page of type. These imprints (or matrices) are sent by
air to the other printing center, where they serve as
molds for casting fresh type. It is by this technique that
each issue of the New York Times is printed in Los Angeles
and in Paris on the day on which it is published in New
York.

The foul blow that brought disqualification in a

boxing contest of 1851. Such drawings accom¬
panied the long accounts that appeared in news¬
papers of the time. By 1900, however, papers were
printing shorter, more exciting reports and
illustrating them with photographs. 233

When Colorado's first newspaper, The Rocky Mountain
News, first appeared in 1859, the publishing of news was a
dangerous profession in American frontier towns. Each
man in this picture has a gun or two handy in case of an
attack by Indians or gangs of ruffians.
Typical of the many prestige periodicals that are produced
by industry is the quarterly magazine, Steel Review.
Published by the British Iron and Steel Federation, it
keeps both industry and public informed of latest develop¬
ments and ideas, such as a hovercraft that, full scale„
could carry 300 people. Below: Strip cartoons are a
familiar feature of the popular press.
Periodicals
Daily newspapers do not make up the whole of the press.
Periodicals and magazines of immense variety weekly,
monthly, quarterly, even annual -cater for all kinds of
interests and perform all kinds of services for which the
daily newspaper, especially the mass-circulation paper, is
unsuited.
Most numerous are the weekly newspapers that serve a
limited locality and publish news of what happens there.
In 1956, according to a UNESCO survey, there were
22,000 non-daily newspapers in the world (some appear
two or three times a week), compared with 8000 daily
papers. Since then the number has increased consider¬
ably, especially in countries where industrialization is
only just getting into its stride.
The local weekly, whether it appears in a London
suburb, a Swiss valley, or a sparsely populated tribal area
of Africa, serves a community and helps to hold that com¬
munity together. People who want to rescue a threatened
theatre or to turn a swamp into a swimming pool can gain
publicity and hence support on issues of too limited con¬
cern to interest a big newspaper. Having as a rule no
competitors and a circulation that does not fluctuate, the
local paper tends to be less concerned for its popularity
and less politically partisan than the mass-circulation
papers.
Another kind of weekly, more akin to the large daily
newspaper, is the Sunday paper. In the United States
and most, countries of Europe except Britain, it is usually
the Sunday edition of a daily paper; but it contains
supplements-—devoted to books, entertainment, sport,
and other subjects— that are fair-sized magazines, and
are sometimes partly in color. American Sunday papers
invariably have a comic supplement, too. The Sunday
edition of a leading paper like the New York Times has
about 300 pages. The popular Sunday papers published
in London have huge sales; in three cases they top the
five million mark.
The largest weekly magazines are those that publish
articles on everything from politics to sport and from
fashion to the arts. They are profusely illustrated, to a
great extent in color. Famous exampLes are Life and Look
in America and Paris-Match in France. Other illustrated
weeklies summarize the news and have a chain of cor¬
respondents like a daily paper. The American magazine
Time, which is distributed all over the world in various
languages, was the pioneer of this kind of journalism, and
has had a number of imitators. Another kind of popular
periodical pioneered in America is the digest.The Reader's
Digest, which leads in this field, is printed in 13 different
languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Ger-
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man, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian,
Finnish, Arabic, and Japanese > and has a circulation of
over 24 million copies.
In Britain such “general interest” magazines have
been ousted by mass-circulation weeklies aimed especi¬
ally at women, and concentrating on fashion and beauty,
romantic stories, and home interests. As well as women’s
papers, many countries have periodicals for children and
others for teenagers. Some of these are comics that aim at
the simplest kind of entertainment and consist solely oi
stories in strip-cartoon form; but, particularly in recent
years, periodicals of high educational value have
flourished.
Another type of weekly paper is the journal of opinion,
which is aimed at a well-educated public and advances a
point of view in social, political, and cultural matters.
Such journals rarely sell more than 100,000 copies, but
weeklies such as UExpress in France, the New Statesman
and The Economist in Britain, or the Nation and the New
Republic in the U.S.A. have an influence out of all propor¬
tion to their circulations and are read widely in other
countries.
Other weeklies, fortnightlies, monthlies, and quarterlies
are devoted to literature and the arts. As well as long and
influential reviews, they print poems, stories, and some¬
times even complete short novels. Many distinguished
writers have gained their first hearing through such
journals. Intellectual life would be much poorer without,
for example, America’s Partisan Review, La Nouvelle NRF
in Paris, and Botteghe Oscure in Rome. The worlds of
music, drama, and the film each have their own journals.
Scientific magazines and journals are numbered by the
thousand. Some, like Scientific American and Britain’s New
Scientist, explain scientific developments to the ordinary
reader. Some notably the medical weeklies in each
country, which are read by the majority of doctors—
provide an exchange of information within a profession.
Others confine themselves to a single branch of science
and are intended for specialists, who can thus keep abreast
of discoveries that are made all over the world.
Other periodicals serve such specialist groups as
lawyers, industrialists, farmers; religious communities;
teachers and educators; the followers of various sports;
and enthusiasts for stamp collecting, photography,
gardening, and many other hobbies.
Some idea of the scope of the periodical press can be
gained from the 1956 UNESCO Survey. Italy, to take
just one country, was listed as having 5107 periodicals,
including 146 literary journals, 1299 political journals,
and 1487 periodicals of a scientific or technical nature.
During Robert Scott's antarctic expedition of
1901-04, the paper pictured above left was
brought out regularly both on board the Discovery
and at the base camp. The Ocean Times {left) is a
daily paper printed and puhlislied on board the
liner Queen Elizabeth. 235

William Hogarth's famous engraving of the
English political reformer John Wilkes (1727
97). Wilkes was a great champion of English
freedom, and by 1772 had won for the press the
right to report parliamentary debates.
Among the freedoms that the revolution of 1789
brought briefly to France was the freedom of
anyone to print what he liked. Enthusiasm ran
riot, and within four years nearly 1000 periodicals
had appeared . . . and disappeared.
Freedom of the press
In no country in the world is the journalist free to write
exactly as he pleases. He has to reckon, in the first place,
with the policy of the paper that employs him. This may
be dictated by the state, by a political body, or by com¬
mercial or other private interests.
In authoritarian countries all newspapers must support
the policies of the regime. In Communist countries the
press is owned by the state, and editors are invariably
loyal Communists. Since the death of Stalin, Soviet
papers have attacked such bureaucratic abuses as high¬
handed actions by the police, but have never questioned
basic policies of the government. In Spain and Portugal
censors scutinize newspapers before they go to press.
Other states do not censor in advance, but put teeth into
disapproval. Under Argentina’s Security Law, persons
who publish information “not intended for publication”
or who “cause the public to be alarmed or depressed” can
be sent to prison for eight years. South African papers may
be censored or banned when a state of emergency is
declared; some have been banned for good under the
Suppression of Communism Act, and journalists have
been forbidden to practice their profession. In many other
parts of the world (for example, Indonesia, South Korea,
South Vietnam, Pakistan, Egypt, the Sudan, Turkey, and
Ghana the press is under varying degrees of government
control. In fact, a really independent press is exceptional.
In countries where opposing points of view may be
openly expressed, leading newspapers sometimes appear
frankly as the organs of political parties. The editors, who
are often also active politicians, naturally give little space
to opinions with which they disagree. Party-owned papers
are common in several European countries and in the new
nations of Asia and Africa, but rare in the English-
speaking world, where most papers are primarily
business enterprises, although they usually give general
support to one party or another. The tone and content of
such papers on social and political issues is partly deter¬
mined by the opinions of the owner and the editor, but
mainly by the supposed opinions and beliefs of the
majority of its readers.
However, “big-name” contributors are allowed to
express themselves freely because their independence
wins the paper prestige and popularity. Columnists
whose articles appear in numerous papers, as in America,
need not worry overmuch about the disapproval of any
one editor; while cartoonists often express views com¬
pletely at variance with the opiniofi of the paper that
employs them.
Where censorship does not exist oi is mild, a paper’s
chief anxiety is the law of libel. It is generally agreed
A man clashes with mounted police during a
demonstration in London against the seizure of
the Suez Canal by British and French troops in
1956. No news of the governments' intentions
reached the public until after the attack on Egypt
had been launched (see text).
 Les ajfairm /mufpfaea
Example of the censorship imposed on French newspapers
during the Algerian war. The article accused army
officers of conspiring against the government; both photo
and text were cut. Editor s postscript asserts that censor¬
ship in fact confirms the article's truth.
HER SPIEGEL
Police guard the offices of the German news magazine
Der Spiegel in October 1962. This followed the arrest of
the magazine's publisher and several of its editors on a
charge of betraying official secrets in an article about the
West German armed forces.
that individuals should have a right to redress when their
characters are defamed in the press; the difficulty is to
decide what constitutes defamation. In some countries,
such as Britain, the libel laws are much stricter than
in others, such as the United States. Tight libel laws can
work in such a way that facts which bring discredit on
anyone and such facts may be of public importance—
cannot be printed unless they are backed by cast-iron
proof. Journalists are not altogether wrong when they say
that any story worth printing is a libel.
In Britain there are very strict laws governing the
reporting of legal cases while they are still sub judice
(awaiting the judgment of a court). They are intended to
ensure a fair, unbiased trial. In contrast, American
papers can publish almost anything they please about
persons awaiting trial. The law has also been used to
compel journalists to disclose their sources of information
information that they could not have obtained except
for a promise of secrecy. In West Germany, Norway, the
Netherlands, and Britain, for example, reporters have
been imprisoned for refusing to name such sources.
In the representative democracies, governments are on
the whole resigned to being criticized, but they frequently
try, both by persuasion and by force, to stop the publica¬
tion of facts that they wish to keep secret. All states have
laws for the prosecution of persons who publish official
secrets. Most often the information to be concealed is of a
military nature, but it may have great political signific¬
ance as well, and the laws for its safeguarding are fre¬
quently used for the suppression of facts embarrassing to
the government concerned. During the Algerian war the
French authorities repeatedly seized issues of newspapers
that were felt to malign the armed forces. In 1962 the
editor and other members of the staff of the West German
paper Der Spiegel were arrested after publishing facts
abput a military exercise. In Britain a retired admiral,
who was chief censor during the war, is employed by the
government to advise editors to suppress certain items of
information. During the Cuban crisis of 1962 American
papers were persuaded not to publish some facts and were
given misleading information by officials, one of whom
later said: “The generation of news by actions taken by
the government becomes one weapon in a strained
situation.”
One consequence of “news management,” as such
practices have been called, is that a government can
prepare and embark on military measures in time of
peace as Britain and France did during the Suez Canal
crisis in 1956, and America did in the Cuban crisis in 1962
without the public knowing what is being done.
During World War II, when many British tankers were
being sunk, the Daily Mirror published this cartoon with
the caption: “ ‘The price of petrol has been increased by
one penny.' OfficialThe government feared that the
implied attack on war profits would undermine morale;
the editor was rebuked, and the paper nearly banned. 237

Many people in the country districts of Switzerland
receive their papers with the post. In fact, 35 of every 100
items delivered by postmen are newspapers or magazines.
Pictures below illustrate changes in relations between
Russia and the West. Upper left: 1945 American
officers chat with Soviet allies in Germany. Lower left:
1948- the West runs air lift to West Berlin during the
Russian blockade. Right: 1958- Russia's spacecraft,
including Sputnik III {model, upper right) have been
tracked by Britain's radio telescope at Jodrell Bank,
Cheshire- symbol of a new spirit of co-operation.
Because few of us can have first-hand knowledge of such
events, our impressions are affected by the way in which
the press reports and interprets them.
Power of the press
In 1702, when Samuel Buckley began to edit the London
paper Daily Courant, he promised his readers that he would
not “take upon himself to give any comments, supposing
other people to have sense enough to make reflections for
themselves/’
But whether they do so deliberately or not, journalists
cannot help influencing their readers. Phrases like “the
free world” or “the Communist-backed government” are
bound to shape our thinking. The reporter selects certain
facts and ignores others when he writes his story, and the
subeditor selects again when he shortens it. The news
editor relies on a sense of news values when he puts one
item rather than another on the front page. Pictures have
to be chosen; two pictures of the same man, or the same
incident, can give opposite impressions. Headlines, too,
may convey an interpretation. If unemployment rises
sharply and then falls back slightly the headline reporting
the fall may stress either that it has dropped, or that it
remains higher than normal.
The presentation of news is one way in which a paper
influences its readers; another is through its editorials and
other opinion articles. Here the attempt to persuade is
obvious, but the facts used to support the comment are
still selected. However, open comment is a valuable part
of a paper’s social role provided there is no attempt at
deception, either through deliberate falsehood or mis¬
interpretation or by the suppression of facts that would
cast quite a different light on the subject.
A paper’s circulation is a very poor guide to its political
influence. If a paper is taken seriously by influential
 people, its influence will be out of all proportion to its
circulation. Conversely, millions of readers vote for a
party to which their daily paper is opposed. Family habit,
taste in presentation, likes and dislikes concerning the
women’s pages, the sports reporting, or the reviews of
books and the arts these factors do more than political
loyalty to decide what paper people buy. Thus it is
possible to win a massive electoral victory despite the
opposition of most of the press, as the British Labour
Party did in 1945 and F. D. Roosevelt 1882 1945) did
four times running in the American presidential elections.
In a controversy that causes divisions within all the parties
(such as the argument in Britain in 1962 over entry into
the European Common Market) papers appear to take a
more independent stance, and so are perhaps more able to
sway their readers (p. 304).
Press influence cannot as a rule be made to take effect
in directly political terms; that is, it cannot cause things to
happen or not to happen. But this does not mean that no
influence exists. As Britain’s Royal Commission on the
Press reported in 1962, it “takes the form of a subtle con¬
ditioning of opinion to the acceptance or rejection of
particular approaches to social and political problems.”
For example, years of news items and feature articles
about the shortcomings of nationalized industries cer¬
tainly did much to make nationalization unpopular with
the British public.
During the Second World War people in the West
admired the Soviet Union as a brave ally. In postwar
years they regarded her with a mixture of fear and con¬
tempt : as a threat and also as a backward and uncivilized
country. In recent years the mood has become slightly
more favorable again. True, the facts have altered, and in
the long run no paper can exert a greater influence than
the facts. Yet it would be impossible not to connect these
changes in attitude with changes in press reporting and
comment on the Soviet Union.
It may well be, however, that the influence of the press
has been more effective in the sphere of individual be¬
havior than in that of politics. Very likely the answers to
“your problems” on the women’s page influence more
people than the leading articles. Attitudes to parental
discipline, to divorce, and to many other questions of
individual morality have changed, in varying measure,
in every country. Tastes in dress, in home decoration, in
holiday travel, and in entertainment have changed too.
The press may merely have kept a jump ahead of changes
that, for all kinds of reasons, were on the way; but, by its
constant pressure on the public mind, it has at the very
least accelerated the pace of change.

Typical easy-to-mcike dress illustrated in a

woman s weekly. As many as 100,000 requests for
a pattern may be received following publication of
such an offer. Women's magazines are big
trend-setters in the fashion world.
Newspaper economics

CORRIERE DELLA SERA

1’Unita

Daily Mirror

NEW -*~YORK

Xeratb smfc ^Tribune

Diagram compares revenue sources of four newspapers—

In Europe and America the launching of a new daily two Italian, one British, one American; blue indicates
paper is now a rare event. One reason is that, as we have how much of the toted revenue comes from advertising.
Rest of revenue {grey) comes mostly from sales, though
seen, almost every family already buys at least one paper,
the Rome Unita is subsidized by the Communist Party.
and a new one can normally succeed only by drawing
readers away from its established rivals— a difficult task.
The other reason is that the venture must be backed by
very large capital.
A big building in the center of a city, and not far from
the railway stations, must be built or at least adapted.
Costly machinery must be installed: To equip a machine
room for a daily paper demands £2 million in Britain,
about the equivalent elsewhere in Europe, and more in
the United States. Weeks before it appears, the new paper
must^dvertise on posters, in other papers, and on tele¬
vision to make the public aware of its existence. News London s Sunday Times {right) has about 100 pages,
gathering is an extremely costly undertaking, and heavy including a color section. On Sundays the New York
Times contains over 300 pages divided into about 12 sec¬
expenses will be incurred from the first day. “First-copy” tions. But it has a much higher proportion of advertise¬
costs (those that are the same whether one copy or a ments and costs over twice as much as the English paper.
million is printed) cover about half the total budget. All
in all, it is unlikely that a mass-circulation paper could be
launched nowadays without a backing of $14 million
{£b million).
Principal running costs fall into four categories:
1. Editorial expenses, which consist mainly of the
salaries of journalists, together with fees to outside con¬
tributors, such as columnists and experts on various sub¬
jects. Other items are telephone and cable bills, traveling
expenses, maintenance of foreign correspondents, sub¬
scriptions to news agencies, and photographic costs. All
these expenses add up to about 15 per cent of total costs.
2. Printers, who are everywhere regarded as skilled
workers, paid at rates well above those in most other in¬
dustries. Their wages take about 25 per cent of total costs.
3. Newsprint —a relatively cheap kind of paper made

Circled on this view of the center of New York

is the 48-story Time and Life Building, which was
completed in 1959 at a cost of 78 million dollars.
Nearly half the floors are used by Time Inc., who
produce Time, Life, Fortune, and a number of
240 other magazines.

1 scattered territory, spends much more than the average
Newsprint the biggest item in a paper's budget
- is made from wood that has been reduced to
pulp by grinding or by boiling in chemicals.
The pulp may be supplied to distant paper mills
in the form of dry sheets. Photo 1 shows these
sheets being dropped into a machine in which the
pulp, mixed with swirling water, quickly becomes
fluid again. 2: The pulp is poured onto a fast-
moving wire-mesh belt through which a lot of
water drains away, leaving a thin web of fibers.
2
3 tinuous subtle pressure than of dramatic intervention
4 requirements and parceled (4) for despatch.
from wood pulp—which is a major item in the budget of a
mass-circulation newspaper, which consumes it in vast
quantities. If the circulation is over a million, newsprint
and ink make up around 40 per cent of total costs.
4. Distribution. Expenses in this category vary greatly. A
British national paper, or an American paper covering a
European paper, 90 per cent of whose readers may live
in the town where it is produced. An average figure for
distribution might be 10 per cent of total costs.
Re-equipment, capital repayments on buildings and
machinery, and the “promotion” or advertising of the
paper itself make up the rest of the budget.
All these costs are heavy and all are steadily rising as
the pace of competition induces a paper to make itself
more attractive to readers and to increase its number of
pages. Even so, many papers are very profitable business
enterprises.
On the revenue side, the most obvious item is sales. But
very few papers, large or small, could pay their way on
sales-alone. In varying degrees the modern newspaper
depends for its life on its role as a medium for advertising.
The average American paper includes page after page
consisting solely of advertisements, and gets at least twice
as much revenue from advertising as from sales. Papers
in France, Germany, and Italy rely more on sales than on
advertising, and therefore sell at relatively high prices.
The rates that a paper can charge its advertisers depend
less on its total circulation than on whether its readers are
drawn from the wealthier classes. In Britain the Daily
Mirror sells thirty times as many copies as the Financial
Times, but the latter charges 10 times as much as the
former for an inch of advertising space. Thus the
“quality” papers depend on advertising even more than
t;he popular press. As a group, the “quality” papers get
some 70 per cent of their revenue from advertising, while
the popular papers get slightly under 50 per cent. Certain
periodicals—especially “glossy” weeklies with many
pages of fashion advertisements—are far more heavily
dependent on advertising than any newspaper.
Much has been written about the power of advertisers
to influence a paper’s policy. As withthe paper’s in¬
fluence over its readers, this is more a n^atter of con¬
(p.2gb . Practically any editor would defy an advertiser
who threatened to take financial sanctions unless his
paper changed its political line. But few papers will
persistently print articles that are unfavorable to business
interests. If they did, their revenue would decline, per¬
haps not dramatically, but none the less dangerously.
The web of paper is transferred from the wire mesh (2) into a long
drying section comprising heated rollers. The paper then passes
through a calender (J), where heavy rollers compress it and smooth
its surface. Next, it is wound into rolls, each about five miles long,
but taking only 20 minutes to form. Rolls are then cut to customers'
Ownership and control

Except in Communist countries, the press is usually

privately owned. Papers published by political parties,
trade-unions, or co-operatives are exceptions, and so to
some extent are those under the permanent control of
trusts that have been created to maintain particular
ideals. But it is broadly true to say that a newspaper is a
piece of property that can be bought and sold like a
factory or a farm.
It can be bought, of course, only by an extremely
wealthy individual or corporation. Usually the owner is
an individual. Personal control, by men whose names are
household words, is more characteristic of the press than
of any other industry. Newspapers are, of course, owned
by companies, but a dominating block of shares is often
held by the members of a single family of whom one
member takes the vital decisions.
This situation poses a problem for democracy. If power
to control those decisions is taken, the independence of
the press is undermined. If not, newspaper owners need
have no responsibility to the community and need obey
no code of ethics beyond what is self-imposed. No nation
has yet resolved this dilemma.
As competition becomes more intense, readers tend to
gravitate to the papers with the largest resources. In the
race for sales the losers either cease publication or are fc‘The Freedom of the Pressf a cartoon in the
bought up by their successful rivals. The market is London magazine Punch {1957) satirizing the
fierce competition between British newspapers.
dominated by a small number of papers and a yet smaller Each paper is represented by a snake with the
number of men. face of its principal owner. The Daily Mail has
since swallowed the News Chronicle.
In Britain, because the press is national rather than
regional, this process has gone further than anywhere
else. The Daily Mirror group (The International Publish¬
ing Corporation), headed by Cecil King, has two daily
papers (Daily Mirror, Daily Herald), with a combined sale
of nearly 6,000,000 copies a day. The two national dailies
built up by Lord Beaverbrook {Daily Express, Evening
Standard) together sell over 5,000,000 copies a day. The
Daily Mail group, controlled by Lord Rothermere, has
three national dailies Daily Mail, Daily Sketch, Evening
News), with a combined circulation of about 4,800,000.
Between them, these three groups reach nine out of every
10 daily-newspaper readers. In the field of Sunday
papers, three groups—the Daily Mirror group Sunday
Mirror, People , the Beaverbrook group (Sunday Express),
and the News of the World—together reach nearly 88 per
cent of all readers.
Two of the groups mentioned the Daily Mail group
and the News of the World group—also own important
subsidiary groups of provincial newspapers; but the
giant in this field in terms of circulation is the Thomson
group, whose score of provincial papers have a combined

A few of more them 300 publications owned by

the Daily Mirror group in Britain. Apart from
newspapers, they range from women s magazines
and children s comics to publications covering
242 almost every interest.
 sale of nearly 2,000,000 copies. Canadian-born Roy
Thomson also controls the Sunday Times, which has a
circulation of well over a million copies, and about 80
other newspapers in Canada, the United States, and
Africa. Like several of the other big British newspaper
groups, he has important interests in television companies
as well.
Periodicals were at one time owned by different in¬
terests from newspapers, and were regarded as a different
branch of journalism. To a great extent they have now
fallen under the same control. Over 300 periodicals one
out of every seven published in Britain including the
biggest women’s and children’s weeklies, belong to the
Daily Mirror group.
Regional papers, too, have in many cases loSt their
independence. Newspaper chains first appeared in the
United States. One, the Scripps-Howard chain, owns 22
papers in all parts of the country. In Britain 47 provincial
daily and evening papers, including many of the largest,
belong to nine big companies with headquarters in
London.
In capital cities, concentration has not reached the
point of absolute monopoly, and probably never will. The
reader can still choose among about half a dozen papers
with different owners. But in other cities “local mono¬ San Simeon, California—one of the “castles” of William
Randolph Hearst (1863 1951). Hearst built up a chain
poly” is increasingly common. Many American cities, for of over 40 newspapers across America; in 1935 his
instance, have only one morning and one evening paper, daily papers accounted for 13.6° 0 of the total daily papa-
circulation. Although it has declined, the group still owns
often under the same ownership.
15 newspapers and 13 magazines.
Concentration of ownership also has an undesirable
effect on the profession of journalism itself. By restricting
P> I C T U R
their choice of employers, it makes it harder for pressmen
to risk dismissal for exercising independent judgment in
reporting and commenting on events.
If in Europe and America only the very rich owner can
stay in business, the problem is even more acute in the
POS Wuertainment as well
«mnalint-41*1 even the most serious, now
,tyle of presentation: To bore
less developed nations of Africa and Asia, where wealth
on the necessary scale is extremely rare. Some newspapers use. This conception has indeed
in these countries belong to European press interests, soviet press; Izvestia, for example,
chiefly British or French. The editor is normally allowed rest stories” and lively news reports,
to decide matters of policy, but national opinion under¬ rom the heavy and didactic Com-
standably resents such remote control. Other papers are 1 the West, sensational handling of
financed, openly or in secret, by governments. «i^scandals, sex, and crime are still a
The trend toward monopoly in the daily press accentu¬ attracting readers, and some papers
ates the importance of weekly papers, especially journals ' in this direction than ever before. On
of opinion. In these the reader is provided both with in¬ higher standards of education are
formation and with views of a kind that he is unlikely to lblic for serious news, and this growing
find in the mass-circulation press. On the whole these e an impact on popular papers as well as
papers have proved their ability to survive and even to irculation of “quality” papers. For good
flourish, and also to remain free from control by the big spapers reflect as well as influence their
newspaper managements.

The final issue of the famous British magazine Picture

Post appeared in June 1957, using the same cover photo as
the first issue. Launched in 1933, the magazine enjoyed
instant success, but rising production costs and competi¬
tion from television finally forced it to close down. 245
 Future of the press

Newspapers have grown, both in circulation and in social

importance, step by step with the economic and political
changes that have remade Europe in the past hundred
years. Decentralized peasant countries have become
tightly welded industrial nations. The growing com¬
plexity of life has demanded the spread both of education
and of general awareness of events. Government by an
inner circle of court and aristocracy has yielded either to
representative democracy or to dictatorship resting on
demagogy or on' an authoritarian ideology. In the
mobilization of mass opinion the press has played a major
part, whether it has been enlisted by competing political
parties or dragooned and manipulated by a single in¬
tolerant authority.
The same changes are now taking place in Asian and
African countries that are emerging from colonial rule
and static social systems. It is natural to expect that in
these countries newspapers will increase in number, in
circulation, and in influence. Even today most of the
population is still dispersed among remote villages, com¬
munications are poor, incomes are miserably low, and
illiteracy is the rule. These conditions are changing, and
the spread of newspaper readership will depend on the
rate at which they change. In the African continent one The only two people who can read in the village of
Tampiong, Ghana: a father and son. They are reading a
daily paper is sold for every 1000 inhabitants; in South
fortnightly newspaper published in six languages by the
America, four papers; in India, six. If we compare these Bureau of Ghana Languages. As literacy increases in
figures with those for industrially advanced countries such countries, the number of papers will rise too.
given on page 231, we can see that there is plenty of room
for growth. 'U.iBamiUi c-mSo

In the older industrial nations, it seems likely that

—-
^OBETCKaa AX ACTCJ
newspapers will become bigger and fewer. There is no sign
pOCCMS
n^AHMCKA l*M
of a slackening in the inexorable process of concentration
AofpCirriership. In Britain, for example, the number of daily,
WAMTPK®-
of nearly 6,000,000 by papers was 134 in 1948 and 122 in
built up by Lord Beaverf Europe, especially in France |p®«ET0TEAW(Al
Standard) together sell over 5rs that were launched at the
Daily Mail group, controlled bnable to survive for more
three national dailies (Daily Mai,
News), with a combined circulation i again after the in-
Between them, these three groups readt these new media
10 daily-newspaper readers. In th to the press. By now
papers, three groups— the Daily MNorth America have
Mirror, People), the Beaverbrook groupr of years, but the
and the News of the World together re me as it was, and in
cent of all readers. however, that the
Two of the groups mentioned the Z^adcast may itself
and the News of the World group—also - instance, in the
subsidiary groups of provincial newspal leader. More-
giant in this field in terms of circulation nat most of their
group, whose score of provincial papers h that they report,

A few of more than 300 pu

the Daily Mirror group in t Back cover of Russian youth magazine (above) invites
newspapers, they range from subscriptions to other publications. In the Soviet Union,
and children s comics to pn as in other one-party states, the press is a major instrument
242 almost every interest. of government propaganda.and education.
 and will indeed have heard of later developments in any
fast-changing crisis.
Papers therefore tend to select the most important or
interesting of the day’s events, and to give a fuller account
than can be conveyed in a broadcast news bulletin. There
is an important distinction here between the serious and
the popular press. In the latter news is selected for
detailed coverage more on the basis of an editor’s assess¬
ment of its interest to his readers than on his own opinion
of its importance. Thus a comparatively trivial incident
may be “splashed” because of its human interest, while
more important but less sensational events may be ignored
or inadequately reported.
An exclusive piece of news, or a description of events by
a well-known special correspondent who has a popularity
of his own, is also much sought after by newspapers. In
fact, after a period of eclipse, style and individuality are
returning to the news columns. Another tendency, which
turns some newspapers almost into daily magazines, is
the carrying of a much wider range of features. It is a sign
of the times that journalists with a background in weekly
magazines now hold the senior positions on such a leading
newspaper as the New York Herald Tribune.
Villagers in the Nile Delta reading a newspaper called The idea is also gaining ground that a paper should
The Waterwheel (title design above). As well as bringing
both report and explain in its news columns as well as in
them local news, the paper gives them some contact with
the world outside. Eagerness for news is a big incentive for features and special articles. To explain without inclining
illiterates to learn to read. toward one interpretation or another is in practice im¬
possible. This means that the distinction between news
and comment, on which a past generation of editors laid
(Sffcm&utgerj S\benDt)Iollg
such stress, is being more and more widely neglected.
Conny Rudhoff afi
Whether newspapers are likely to become more respon¬
6spurig bis Horster Dreieck sible and more genuinely educative, or less so, is hard to
-—-Itototlk&l
lU,i' 'w - StsiteGewiaat forecast, for there are influences working in both direc¬
to CM
E SUNDAY TIMES tions. Newspapers are a medium for entertainment as well
'magazine
as for information. All papers, even the most serious, now
aim at a bright and inviting style of presentation: To bore
the reader is the worst offense. This conception has indeed
begun to influence the Soviet press; Izvestia, for example,
with its “human interest stories” and lively news reports,
departs strikingly from the heavy and didactic Com¬
munist tradition. In the West, sensational handling of
news and stress on scandals, sex, and crime are still a
recognized way of attracting readers, and some papers
are leaning further in this direction than ever before. On
the other hand, higher standards of education are
creating a big public for serious news, and this growing
demand has made an impact on popular papers as well as
increasing the circulation of “quality” papers. For good
§'gsEssSs or for bad, newspapers reflect as well as influence their
readers.

Color is now a regular feature of a number of newspapers.

Some like the London Sunday Times print separate
color supplements {left); others like the Hamburger
Abendblatt print color photos within their pages. 245
Chapter 12

Mass Media 2:

Film, Radio, and TV

In the last 50 years, the face of society has been radically

changed by the rapid growth of three new means of mass
communication: film, radio, and television. These three
interrelated media, offshoots of the technological revolu¬
tion that began late in the 19th century, have already
mushroomed into major industries. And they give a
unique quality to the age in which we live.
Today, film, radio, and television command audiences
of a size that would astonish our grandparents and pro¬
bably surpass the dreams of the individual scientists from
whose research they sprang. Yet these media offer
nothing more concrete than images on the screen and
sounds in the air.
Film, radio, and television have evolved and are
still evolving languages of their own. These languages
are the means by which moving pictures and the spoken
word capture and hold our attention. Bypassing the
conventional language of the written word, they use
their own grammar, punctuation, and figures of speech
to make an immediate impact on the audience. They are
equally effective as means of communication in highly Before the commercial development of
television, both film and radio com¬
literate and in illiterate societies. And because they manded enormous audiences, for each
reach into all our lives all three media may be instru¬ was a unique medium of mass com¬
ments of persuasion and of change. munication. Then, during the 1950s,
television—the exciting combination
In this chapter we survey the development of film, of sound and live images—suddenly
radio, and television, and the systems by which they are began to expand with fantastic speed.
controlled. We examine and compare their languages, Today TV receivers throughout the
world total 130 million, some 12
exploring the nature of their mass appeal and the ways million of which are in use in Japan
in which they are used. Finally, we discuss their impact {right). But although television pre¬
dominates, film and radio still retain
on society, and look at some of the ways in which they their unique value as media of informa¬
affect our everyday lives. tion and entertainment.

246
 ' 4 jp V**

MS#
.-

mia
p%
4 •i -
*
%| &
h
m
Development of film and radio

The techniques of making motion pictures and of broad¬

casting sound were both discovered toward the end of
the 19th century. Of the two, the film was the first to
^X
reach a wide public. The first clear and permanent
photographs had been made in 1839 by two European
inventors who worked independently William Fox
Talbot in England and Louis Daguerre in France. But
the development of the moving picture had to await
three inventions. The first was a flexible strip of film
that could carry a series of images; the second was a
camera that could take hundreds of photographs in
rapid succession; the third was a device for projecting
images onto a screen.
In 1870 the Celluloid roll film appeared on the market.
The American inventor Thomas Edison used this film
in his kinetograph camera (patented in 1889) to carry a
series of one-inch images. These first moving pictures
were not projected; only one person at a time could view
them. The first projection of moving pictures before a
public audience was given in France in 1895 by the
brothers Auguste and Louis Lumi£re, who used a
motion-picture apparatus of their own invention, the
cinematographe.
By the turn of the century, one-minute films, shown in
fairground booths or empty stores, were a popular form
of working-class entertainment. Fact, fantasy, and
fiction were all included in the repertoire. Not only did Top ofpage: picture-strip for showing in zoetrope,
cameramen go out into the streets to film real-life a 19th-century optical toy consisting of a cylinder
with vertical slits. When cylinder was spun round,
incidents, but some film companies actually faked news¬ pictures fused and the figure appeared to move.
reels, employing actors to impersonate public figures. Above: mid-19th-century daguerreotype—an
early form of photograph. It was colored by hand.
The French producer George Melies revealed some of
the cinema’s capacity to create illusions in a series of
such fantastic trick films as A Trip to the Moon 1902).
And Americans flocked to see The Great Train Robbery,
an exciting, 11-minute drama made by Edwin S. Porter
in 1903, which was the main attraction at newly opened
movie theatres for years afterwards.
For explanations and the creation of moods silent films
relied on simple captions and the sound of a piano or
a pedal organ. Because of these restrictions the silent
cinema developed an expressive pictorial language of
its own a language that remains the basis of film
technique today.
The story of radio begins in 1895, when the Italian
engineer Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first
message by radio telegraphy (p. 220), in the Morse code
(p. 216). The human voice was first heard over radio in
1906, in an experimental broadcast by the American
Lee De Forest, who had invented an improved vacuum
tube for amplifying incoming signals. In 1916 De Forest

The famous French-bom actress Sarah Bernhardt

listening to a phonograph recording of her voice
in 1891. Such early recordings were made by
channeling sound down a similar horn—a system
248 that registered speech better than music.
y^k%)r
This fanciful drawing of the 1880s, by France's
Albert Robida, depicts a radio reporter of the
future broadcasting from a camel's back. Only
a few decades later, Robida's dreams were
realized, and live broadcasts from remote lands
became everyday events.
gave the first newscast, a report ot the presidential election
returns in the United States.
By the early 1920s, when regular broadcasting began
in the United States, Britain, and several other European
countries, radio already had a following of hundreds of
enthusiastic amateurs. There was a radio boom in the
United States as early as 1921-22, when broadcasts from
564 newly licensed transmitting stations began to lure
audiences away from the cinema.
So strong was the attraction of radio, that by mid-1928
the big American film companies (who had enormous
commitments in the form of high-salaried stars on
long-term contracts 1 faced a financial crisis. The industry
could survive only by re-equipping its studios and
cinemas for sound. In the first panic, sound effects and
snatches of dialogue were hastily added to unreleased
silent films. The careers of many established stars of the
silent screen crashed overnight, because their voices
failed to match their appearance.
Before the introduction of the technique of recording
sound directly on film, which was developed by Warner
Brothers, movies had sometimes been screened to a
phonograph accompaniment. Americans had heard re¬
corded sound as early as 1876, when Thomas Edison
invented the first phonograph—a rotating cylinder, covered
with tinfoil into which a steel stylus (vibrating in response
to sound waves cut a wavy groove. But it was Emile
Berliner’s invention of wax recording in 1887 that
enabled recorded sound to develop into a medium of
mass entertainment; the familiar flat-surface disk, which
he developed, could easily be molded in large numbers.
The result was the creation of a major industry.
In the late 1940s a new medium television began
to woo American audiences away from the cinema. And
today, although world cinema attendance is on the
increase, attendance continues to decline in the United
States and parts of Europe. The American film companies
unsuccessfully attempted to counter the growing popu¬
larity of television by the rapid development of color,
wide-screen projection (like Cinerama , and three-
dimensional movies, with stereophonic sound.
But experience shows that the cinema cannot maintain
its mass appeal in the television age merely by using such
techniques nor by employing lavish sets, huge casts, or
world-famous stars. Film -like radio and television
owes its mass appeal ultimately to the power it has to
grasp our attention, to heighten our perception, and
make us observe more keenly than we often do in everyday
life. Let us now see how the film-maker achieves such a
transformation of ordinary experience.
The first French experiments in wireless tele¬
graphy being made in July 1898 at the top of
the Eiffel Tower. In the same year, messages were
successfully transmitted across Paris. Regular
radio broadcasting began in 1921. 249
 Language of film

Moving pictures are a language in themselves. They

can tell a story, stir the emotions, and communicate
ideas without the help of the spoken word. On film, a
close-up of a terrified face, for example, can make a
greater impact on us than several minutes of dialogue,
because it shows us the character’s feelings directly. In a
darkened cinema, we are dominated by the larger-than-
life figures that move on the screen; we can not only
read the characters’ thoughts through their facial
expressions, we can even see their surroundings through
their own eyes.
The language of film differs from that of live television
(p. 258) not only in the size of the screen and the condi¬
tions under which it is seen. In the film, the images that Dramatic close-up from Carol Reed's Fallen Idol
the camera registers must be developed and printed (Britain, 1948), in which child sees woman fall downstairs.
The two following shots are pictured below.
before they can be projected. These processes allow the
film-maker time to edit what the camera has recorded.
He can select, prepare, and polish his material before
he releases it. And—equally important he can arrange
what the camera will record and can create an unlimited
number of different moods by the imaginative use of
lighting and design.
Taking advantage of this time lapse, the film-maker
shoots at least twice as much material as he will actually
use, following a detailed shooting script that has been
prepared by himself and his team. Then the images are
edited, that is to say, selected and assembled in the order
that best suits the director’s purpose.
How does the film-maker set about welding an assort¬
ment of film shots, made in different times and places,
into a coherent whole ? Basic film grammar the method
Contrasting mid-shot, taken from child's angle, shows
of composing shots and editing lengths of film was first child hastily drawing buck as man runs downstairs.
outlined by the pioneer American director David Wark
Griffith in such films as The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Following Griffith’s lead, film-makers began to break
free from the cramping techniques of presentation-they
had inherited from the 19th-century theatre. Instead of
photographing actors from a fixed distance and from the
same angle, they took close-ups that dramatically em¬
phasized facial expressions, and mid-shots that picked out
the most important character or'object on the set. And
they organized the shots in a scene into a sequence by
moving the camera and cutting from long shot (a general
view of the set to mid-shot, and then into close-up—the

Long-shot from overhead camera shows terrified child

running down fire escape. The three brief shots, linked
together, give audience a complete picture of events.

Left: two shots from Ernst Niederreiten's Variations

on a Film Theme (Germany, 1955), showing how changes
in lighting can transform a face.
 formula that is still used in most film scenes today.
The next decisive steps toward creating a distinct
language for the cinema were taken in the 1920s by
Sergei Eisenstein in Russia and Robert Flaherty in
America, who showed how skilful editing could transform
sequences shot outside the studio with untrained
“natural” actors instead of theatre-trained professionals.
The process of cutting allows the film editor to make
contrasts, and to vary the pace of sequences, as well as
to establish continuity. A classic example of cutting for
contrast can be seen in D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance 1916,
which tells four stories of intolerance from ancient and
modern history. Beginning with fairly long sequences
from each story, Griffith increases the pace until he is
cutting from Christ’s crucifixion to World War I battle¬
fields. In this way, Griffith makes the point that in¬
tolerance is timeless and universal.
Usually the film editor achieves continuity by arrang¬
ing the shots in their logical order, marking a change of
scene by the well-established techniques of the fade-out,
the fade-in, and the dissolve. These devices prepare the
audience to make whatever leap in time or space the The time lapse inherent in film-making allows the arrange¬
story may demand at that moment, and are, in effect, ment of special effects, in this shot from G. W. Pahsfs
Secrets of a Soul (Germany, 1926), the dreams of a
punctuation marks. On the other hand, directors some¬ sleeping man are represented by multiple exposure.
times choose to forge an imaginative link between
scenes—for example, by cutting from one image to
another that is unrelated in every way except for a rough
similarity in shape. Good examples of this device -which
is a kind of “figure of speech” or “metaphor” in film
terms can be seen in Charles Chaplin’s Modem Times
(U.S.A., 1936 , where it is used as a comment on the
action, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s Thirty-Nine Steps
(U.S.A., 1935).
Editing also determines the film’s time pattern. Movie¬
makers have always experimented with the sequence of
time, both by glancing back into the past and by looking
into the future; such devices allow them to give the
audience a fuller understanding of what is happening in
the present. The flashback, for example, can convey
information about a character’s past that helps us to
understand his present behavior. And the less familiar
dream sequence, or “flash” into the future, can tell us some¬
thing of a character’s hopes and fears. Such devices were
exploited fully in Alain Resnais’s controversial Last Tear
at Marienbad (France, 1961), in which past, present, and
future, reality and fantasy, were so fused that it was
impossible to distinguish between them.
Many modern film directors have re-emphasized the
film’s dependence on the visual image by reducing dia¬
logue to a minimum and by making skilful use of color.

Scene from Sergei Eisenstein s Ivan the Terrible

(U.S.S.R. 1944). In this remarkable film, each shot is
composed with meticulous care. Monumental sets, slump
contrasts in lighting, and echoing sound effects create an
atmosphere of mounting terror.
The film as a mirror

Radio and television both mirror our day-to-day

activities, but few of the programs they transmit are
recorded and preserved. A film, by contrast, is itself a
recording, and in most cases has a longer life. Whether it
be a serious study of social problems, or a happy-go-lucky
musical, a film reflects the mood, as well as the mere
fashions and fads, of its day. It is a mirror-image of society
-but an image that varies in clarity according to the
beliefs and skills of the director. It is also heavily in¬
fluenced by the demands of the public, which may not
want true-to-life stories.
The first full-length film to make serious social com¬
ment was D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (p. 250)—a
Southerner’s interpretation of the American Civil War.
One critic declared: “It gambles on the public ignorance
of our own history.” Many held that the director had
allowed his personal loyalties to distort the facts.
Distortion of a lighter and less controversial kind also
crept into the early movies, hand in hand with the star
system. The cinema, following in the tradition of the
popular theatre, produced its own stock characters—
models of vice and virtue of the kind that have always
figured in fairy tale and folklore. Douglas Fairbanks
rocketed to fame as the dare-devil hero, Mary Pickford
as the baby-blonde heroine, Lon Chaney as the villain,
and Theda Bara as the vamp. Their films transported
audiences into a dream world that had nothing to do with
their everyday lives. Even today, the fairy-tale formula
still underlies many film plots, and the same stock Italian child actor Enzo Staiola withLamberto Maggiorani
characters appear in all kinds of movies, from standard in a scene from Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves. Its new
and startling realism made a world-wide impact, and
Westerns to the cartoon fantasies of Walt Disney.
prompted many postwar film-makers to break away from
From the very first, film directors also exploited the theatrical tradition.
romantic appeal of exotic settings like “gay Paree,”
and the “mysterious East.” So accustomed were people
to fantasies about foreign lands that theatre owners were
reluctant to book Robert Flaherty’s Nauook of the North
(U.S.A., 1922) a sober, sensitive study of Eskimo life
and the first film to be described as a “documentary.”
Learning from this experience, Flaherty’s promoters
advertised his next film, Moana a study of Samoan
taboos), as the love story of a South Sea siren.
During World War I, the middle classes had gradually
become moviegoers. Naturally, then, many films of the
1920s reflected middle-class daydreams. Like Cecil B. de
Mille’s The Golden Bed (1925), many films of the period
portrayed reckless sophisticates who lived in a world of
bizarre luxury. Stories of night-club vice and criminal
violence filled the screens during the depression, until
the revision of the Code of the Motion Picture Industry
p. 261 in 1933. But a rosier picture of society was to

One of the violent, realistic battle scenes from The Seven

Samurai, made by Japan's Akira Kurosawa in 1954. In
1955, Kurosawa made I Live in Fear -a film so powerful
and horrific that exhibitors in some Western countries
252 have refused to handle it.

Peter Sellers in Blake Edwards' comic extravaganza
The Pink Panther (Britain, 1964). In this scene Sellers
(who plays a dedicated detected) disguises himself in
order to catch an international jewel thief at a masked
ball—a plan that ends in chaos and in his own arrest.
Scene from the American musical Seven Brides for Seven
Brothers (1954), directed by Stanley Donen. Like On
The Town (see text), it featured lively modern dance
instead of the conventional chorus line, and was an inter¬
national box-office success.
follow: The wave of optimism produced by President
Roosevelt’s promise of a new deal for the American
people was reflected in a series of “happy family” films
that featured such lovable child stars as Mickey Rooney
and Shirley Temple.
In the 1930s film-makers in the West finally came to
grips with social issues. In America, Mervyn Le Roy’s
Little Caesar (1930) ushered in a series of realistic gangster
films that reflected the spread of organized crime in the
United States. Frank Capra showed the common man
involved in issues of state in comedies like Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington (1939); John Ford filmed The Grapes of
Wrath (1940), John Steinbeck’s depression-era novel;
and Orson Welles satirized an American tycoon in
Citizen Kane (1941). These films were far more than
straightforward studies of social problems; they were
passionate pleas for reform. In France, Rene Clair and
Marcel Carne portrayed the realities of working-class
life in films that were tinged with poetic feeling. In
Britain, John Grierson’s government-sponsored Drifters
(1929) inspired a series of romantic industrial docu¬
mentaries that was followed by such stark film surveys as
Housing Problems (Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey, 1935).
World War II brought its own grim documentaries
and dramas. But the tragic realism of films like San
Demetrio, London (made by the British director Charles
Frend in 1943) was counterbalanced by a cavalcade of
comedies and glittering musicals. After the war, Holly¬
wood tried to meet the challenge of television with such
staple attractions as Westerns, thrillers, romances,
costume dramas, and spectaculars. The musical was
revitalized by Gene Kelly’s On the Town (1949).
In Italy, however, the postwar scene was being
portrayed with grim realism by directors like Roberto
Rossellini (Open City, 1945) and Vittorio de Sica (Bicycle
Thieves, 1948 . And in the last few decades, movie-makers
all over the world have made fresh attempts to film the
true face of society. Directors like France’s Francois
Truffaut (The 400 Blows, 1959), America’s John
Cassavetes (Shadows, 1961) Japan’s Akira Kurosawa
(.Rashomon, 1950), and India’s Satyajit Ray (Father
Panchali, 1955) have taken the film out of the dream
world.
In films like Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni (Italy, 1953),
Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour (France, 1958),
Tony Richardson’s Look Back in Anger (Britain, 1958),
and Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and his Brothers (Italy, 1960),
scenes that seem to be snatches of real life are woven
into sharp images of society. And with this return to
reality, the film has increased in stature as an art form.
253
 Language of radio

From the technical point of view, radio is limited to the

transmission of sounds. But when we look at radio as
a means of mass communication, the word “limited”
seems hardly right.
The broadcaster’s raw material is disembodied sound.
And it is this very fact that gives radio its unique power
as a mass medium —the power to enter the imagination
and to create a vivid picture in the mind’s eye. The
producer has a vast range of sounds at his disposal. It is
his job to select, and to weave the selected sounds into a
meaningful pattern by translating them into the language
of radio.
The vocabulary of radio is made up of three different
kinds of material: speech, sound effects (including music),
and silence. First and foremost among these materials is
speech.
Using a watering can to make diving and splashing effects
for a drama production. In radio drama, most of the back¬ Speech can communicate information and ideas
ground noises are artificially produced. without the aid of sound effects. But on radio it has to
be used in a special way. Simplification is necessary
because abstract phrases that evoke no visual image tend
to lose their impact on the air. Complex arguments
cannot be re-read and considered at leisure as they can
be if they are printed. And variety is needed in pitch,
tempo, and tone of voice if the spoken words are to hold
the listener’s attention. On the other hand, radio
exaggerates peculiarities of speech—a drawback in the
simple communication of facts, but an advantage in
drama, where peculiarities of speech can help to describe
and distinguish between characters.
Sound effects may take the form of music, or of natural
or electronic sounds. They help to bring real or imaginary
scenes vividly to life; but they also present the producer
with problems, for sounds alone rarely suffice to convey
precise information. Is the sound clearly identified? The
During performance, actors lie on floor to give right ticking of a clock can be and has been mistaken for
acoustics for scene taking place in dinghy at sea, while the sound of a horse trotting. Where is the scene set?
“commander” (upper left) shouts instructions.
Without the help of a picture, or a word of explanation,
we may not necessarily be able to tell whether it is a
rainstorm in Rangoon or a burst of applause in the Paris
Opera. One of the vital functions of the spoken word is
to qualify such effects; they must be woven so closely
into the dialogue that there is no room for doubt.
The sounds that make up a radio program are inter¬
woven by means of cutting. In this process, the producer
determines the function of each sound. He decides
whether it will play the part of words or of punctuation
in the completed pattern.
Sound effects play the part of words when they tell
part of a story. For example, the sound of footsteps
followed by the slam of a door are phrases that carry a

A sound effects expert gives u lesson in falling downstairs

on a special staircase, half wo oik half stone. Because such
effects cannot successfully be imitated, they are usually
acted out in the studio during transmission.
 View of sound control cubicle, where sound is modified certain amount of information. Once the sounds are
to required amplitude (excessive amplitude may cause
distortion). In this cubicle, program items from several prefaced or followed by a line of dialogue, the “sentence”
studios, outside broadcasting points, or radio receiving is complete. We know who is performing the action, and
stations can be co-ordinated. Part of an adjacent studio can
why, and a clear picture is formed in our mind’s eye.
be seen through observation window.
Sound effects also play the part of words when they set a
scene or establish a mood a function often performed
by music. They may even serve as figures of speech or
metaphors; a distorted sound, for example, can convey
the state of mind of a character in drama. In radio, as in
film (p. 251), fade-outs and fade-ins form part of basic
grammar. Such devices may be used simply as punctua¬
tion, to mark a time lapse or a change of location. Their
most valuable function, however, is not to punctuate but
to add perspective to a scene. By gradually increasing or
diminishing the volume of a sound, for example, the
producer can create an illusion of movement in space.
Silence, curiously enough, is an important factor in
broadcasting. A silence can emphasize the words it
follows by giving the listener’s imagination time to play
on them. A steady flow of sounds would be monotonous;
silences help to give rhythm and balance to the whole
pattern of sound.
Like the film, radio allows plenty of scope for experi¬
ments with time. It makes free use of flashback and
flashes into the future. Because it appeals directly to the
imagination of the individual listener, it also favors the
expression of private thoughts and of imaginary conversa¬
tions. For example, a character’s secret thoughts, spoken
aloud, are likely to be more convincing in broadcast
drama than in the “soliloquy” of the theatre.
Since the mid-1940s, both radio and film powerful
as they are have been increasingly overshadowed by
television. Let us now see how television began, and how
it became the foremost medium of mass communication.

British comedians Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and

Harry Secombe, pictured in the days of their hilarious
Goon Show broadcasts (1952 60). The series owed its
success chiefly to the imaginative use of sound. 255
Development of television

Television is often regarded as a product of the last two

or three decades. In fact, devices for the transmission, or
“televising,55 of pictures over long distances were known
as early as the 1890s. And by the late 1930s “television55
(from the Greek tele, “far off,55 plus vision) was already
becoming a household word in Britain, where the
world’s first regular public transmissions began in 1936.
The first effective apparatus for televising pictures
was devised and demonstrated in 1925 by a Scotsman,
John Logie Baird. Two years later C. F. Jenkins, an
engineer working for the Bell Telephone Company,
produced the first televised pictures seen in America.
There was a fundamental difference between these
early television systems and the system we use today :
They were mechanical, not electronic. In the studio, a
brilliant light was directed on a perforated disk. The
disk rotated, throwing spots of light onto the scene, thus
scanning it (i.e., separating it into horizontal lines . In
the receiver a beam of light, strong where the televised
scene was bright, weak where it was dark, scanned the Above: Close-up of a color TV picture (from an experi¬
mental 405-line transmission by the B.B.C.) reveals dots
screen in a similar way.
of varied intensity, in groups of three. Seen from normal
The main drawbacks of the mechanical, or “flying viewing distance, colours merge into a recognizable
spot,55 system were the difficulties of maintaining high¬ pattern—here, an eye. Below: Viewer faces live color
TV picture projected onto a screen 20 feet high. Her
speed rotation and of obtaining a satisfactory light multi-colored shadow is caused by the separate projectors
source. And because the pictures were transmitted on that are used for each primary color.

Producing portable TV receivers at a Japanese factory.
Regular TV broadcasting began in Japan in 1953. Only
ten years later, four privately-owned stations were offering
color transmission for about 20 hours a week.
Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin as seen by televiewers in
nine European countries in a live transmission of the
Moscow May Day Parade, 1961 the first program
shared by Intervision, Eurovision, and Nordvision.
only 30 lines, they were far less distinct and detailed
than those of today, which are transmitted on 405, 525,
625, or 819 lines.
Television took its next big step forward in the late
1930s, when the mechanical system was abandoned in
favor of the electronic. The new electronic camera and
receiving tubes (developed by the Marconi-E.M.I.
Company in Britain not only disposed of the old
mechanical problems, but they greatly improved picture
quality and enabled outside broadcasts to be made
successfully in poor light.
Sound had joined hands with vision some years before
this. Ordinary radio transmitters, slightly modified, were
used in the first public TV-with-sound broadcasts, given
in Britain in 1930. And television sound transmitters
remain the same in principle today.
Television proved its versatility from the very first.
Experimental transmissions on both sides of the Atlantic
had covered subjects as different as prize fights and
serious drama. Baird had succeeded in transmitting
pictures from London to New York as early as 1928, and
by 1936 he had televised aboard a train, a ship, and an
airplane. But television was still far from being a mass
medium. In Britain there were only about 300 private
receivers.
As standards of line definition, program planning,
and production improved, television grew in popularity
in Britain. Between 1936 and 1938 about 4000 receivers
were sold. In 1939, 7000 sets were sold in two months.
Regular broadcasting began in France in 1938 and in
America in 1941. But the outbreak of World War II
brought television broadcasting to an abrupt close in
Europe, although experiments continued. When the
services re-opened after the war, the boom began. In
Britain receivers sold four or five times as fast as before.
In 1953 the United States launched the world’s first
regular color broadcasts. Successful relays between
England, France, the Netherlands, and West Germany
were made in 1952, and 1955 saw the official opening
of the Eurovision network, which linked Britain, France,
Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, West Germany, Belgium,
and the Netherlands. In 1962 the first live program
exchanges between Europe and America were made by
satellite relay (p. 222).
In 1961, Eurovision began to exchange programs with
the Eastern European network Intervision, which links
the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany,
Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. And it also
co-operates with the Scandinavian network Nordvision,
set up by Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.
A B.B.C. cameraman prepares to follow a 3000-foot climb
up Mount Snowdon. This ambitious broadcast, which gave
startling proof of the modern TV camera's mobility, was
televised live in Britain and France in September 1963. 257
Language of television

Television combines the immediacy of radio with the

mobility of the cinecamera. It can transmit events as they
happen, and its cameras can reveal new aspects of earth,
sea, and space. This quality of immediacy tends to
remain even in recorded programs, which are often in¬
distinguishable from live broadcasts.
In translating an actual outside event into the language
of his medium, the television producer must improvise.
Unlike the film-maker, he cannot determine the com¬
position or even the. sequence of shots—in advance.
His raw material is the event itself, and the quality of
the program depends to a great extent on the skill and
speed of the cameramen. A drama producer has the
opportunity of arranging the actors’ movements and
the sequence and composition of shots during rehearsal.
But in making a live, unscripted, studio broadcast, the
producer cannot tell when the performers may speak,
fall silent, or change position. All he can do during
rehearsal is to arrange an over-all scheme of lighting
and design, and outline the positions and movements of
each camera. Most of the work must be done during the
transmission itself.
During transmission the producer sits in front of a
battery of monitor screens that show the images registered
by each camera. From these images, he selects the shots
that will be seen by viewers. Editing on the spot, he cuts
from one camera to another, anticipating the per¬
formers’ movements. He can pause to pick out a detail
or to bring in a filmed sequence that will provide viewers
with extra information. Or he can switch to back projection
(showing a filmed sequence at the rear of the studio set).
He tries to ensure that the brightness of all the various
shots is similar so as to create the effect of a continuous Above: typical use of the overlay process, which makes
flowing movement. possible the superimposition of moving shapes. Part of
upper picture is blacked out electronically, using as a
The methods of editing that the television producer “mask” the actual figures (center) to be superimposed.
uses are influenced but not governed -by the grammar Figures are then overlaid onto the blacked-out area
(lower). Below: Producer watches monitor sets during
of the film. For example, he can punctuate by making a transmission of a children’s program from a New York
fade or a mix (i.e., dissolve—p. 251) on the spur of the studio. He can also see rear of studio through observation
window.
moment, to mark a change of time or place. And he
usually adopts the film-maker’s method of organizing
shots into a sequence by cutting from long shot to mid¬
shot, and then into close-up (p. 250). 'There is no feature
of film language that the television producer cannot use,
although certain trick effects, such as the superimposition
of images, must be set up in advance.
The extent to which television can draw on film
grammar is limited only by the size of the screen. Long
shots, for example, lose in depth and perspective when
they are seen on the small television screen; and crowd
scenes lose in clarity. Producers can overcome the
problem of perspective by simplifying the composition
of their long shots. But there is always a tendency to use
close shots more freely in television than in the film. The
result is a frank, highly intimate language that captures
momentary facial expressions and gestures.
This speed and frankness highlights the slightest
awkwardness in performers, and for the inexperienced
performer a television appearance is likely to be an
ordeal. Surrounded by a team of busy technicians and a
forest of cameras, microphones, and lamps, he may find
it difficult to relax and to talk in the easy, conversational
tone that the medium demands. And when there is no
studio audience, he cannot gauge viewers’ reactions.
Television is unique in its power to capture life and
to reproduce it in a highly realistic way. It excels in
reporting on current events of all kinds. But the need to
maintain constant transmission for most of the day
means that, in practice, TV companies have to use a
lot of filmed or pre-recorded material. Filmed sequences
are often included in studio broadcasts; they prevent
that shut-in feeling that grows with long studio sequences.
In dramas, sequences filmed outdoors can be interwoven
with studio sequences to give continuity.
The television producer, ran use speech, sounds, and
silence just as the radio producer can p. 2541. Both in
live broadcasts and in recorded programs, he can cut
and mix the sounds from the microphones just as he can
cut and mix the images from the cameras. He uses music
chiefly for introducing and for punctuating programs.
He finds silence useful for stressing the importance of the
picture which is, after all, the chief element in the
vocabulary of the medium.
Television is still in its infancy, and it tends to rely
largely on the language of film. And the production of
drama still tends to be dominated by theatrical con¬
ventions. As the medium develops, continuing experi¬
ment will almost certainly produce new and more subtle
patterns of sound and vision.

Top: advertising photograph for Candid Camera a

controversial comedy program produced both in the
U.S. A. and in Britain. The program consists of sequences
filmed by hidden cameras (below), and shows people's
spontaneous reactions to the practical jokes of disguised
interviewers.

Upper: shot from an early film sequence showing an
Egyptian dancer performing at the Chicago World Fair
of 1896. Lower: a subsequent shot, in which offending
portions were blocked out by the censor.
Control and censorship
In many countries (including France, Switzerland,
Norway, Denmark, Egypt, India, all the Communist
countries, and almost all the newly independent African
and Asian countries) the state has a monopoly of radio
and television broadcasting. These services are non¬
commercial. They are financed largely by the sale of
receivers and by license fees for their use. Some state
broadcasting corporations, such as the Italian and the
Austrian, derive additional revenue from the sale of
television advertising time.
A state monopoly of broadcasting does not necessarily
mean that opposition or minority viewpoints get no
hearing. The British Broadcasting Corporation, for
example, was set up by the state and is financed mainly
through receiver license fees, yet it remains almost
completely independent. The extent of the B.B.C.’s
independence was strikingly demonstrated in 1956,
when its coverage of the Suez crisis was denounced as
hostile to the government by some of the government’s
supporters.
Radio is extensively used for propaganda. But one-
party states have difficulty in controlling people’s
listening habits, because radio transmissions can be
picked up by anyone who owns a suitable receiver. Thus,
during World War II, Germany’s Nazi government
made listening to foreign broadcasts a capital offense.
And today some governments regularly “censor” certain
broadcasts from foreign stations by jamming, or radiating
interfering signals on the same wave length, so as to
make the incoming signals unintelligible.
In many other countries (including Canada and
Australia), the state shares the right to broadcast with
privately-owned radio and television stations that
operate under government license and are almost
entirely financed by the sale of advertising time.
In a third group of countries, which includes the
United States, Argentine, Brazil, and the Philippines,
television broadcasting is entirely in the hands of private
companies. In America, where there is no legal limit on
the amount of time that can be given to advertising, the
private television companies derived approximately
$1,250,000,000 from advertisers in 1960. In Britain the
Independent Television Authority’s output of advertising
is strictly limited by the terms of its license. But even so,
its program companies have made Large profits; in 1963,
forexampLe, they made over £70,000,000 (8200,000,000).
Government control over broadcasting dates from the
1930s, when the available wave lengths became badly
overcrowded; not only commercial broadcasters, but
also ships, airplanes, emergency services, and amateurs
A scene from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will
(1935)—a propaganda film made for Germany's Nazi
government. It portrayed the massed crowds and parading
troops at the elaborately-staged Nuremberg rally 0/1934.

LITTLE UKELELE
WOfiDS AMO MUSIC BY JACK COTTRELL
HARRISON MUSIC CO ITft
camrmllgSnnvlTt a CO ltd
MMHMMMttflMfiMrtOiiCKHf
w.cjl
Z6
77jm song, recorded in 1963 by a popular vocal group, was
banned by Britain's commercial TV authority because
they considered the lyrics offensive—an opinion not
shared by the B.B.C., who continued to broadcast it.
British TV personality William Rush ton impersonating
the chancellor of the exchequer in That Was The Week
That Was a program of uproarious political satire that
was discontinued in December 1963, on the grounds that
1964 was an election year in Britain.
were competing for space. To solve this problem, each
government assumed control of broadcasting within its
own territory. International organizations were formed,
both in Europe and the United States, to regulate the
division of broadcasting channels along continental lines.
National agencies were set up by most governments to
allocate wave lengths to different users. A system of this
kind is shown in the chart on page 224.
In the United States of America the power to allocate
channels and to issue licenses to broadcast is exercised
by the Federal Communications Commission, which
was set up in 1927 as the Federal Radio Commission
and renamed in 1934. This committee has no control
over the networks (p. 263), but it can refuse licenses to
individual stations.
There is obviously no parallel to this kind of organiza¬
tion where the movies are concerned, since there is no
question of competing for channels. In most countries,
the box-office dictates which films are shown and where.
The distributors who rent the films, and the exhibitors
who show them, select films on the basis of their probable
appeal. A big movie theatre, for example, cannot afford
to screen films that appeal only to a minority.
In Communist countries, the state has a monopoly of
movie-making, which it uses to control the content of
films fairly strictly. In Britain and in the United States,
however, the state plays no official role in film censorship.
In the very early days of the cinema in the West there
were no restrictions on the kind of scene that could be
shown. American film-makers are now bound by the
Code of the Motion Picture Industry (devised by film
companies themselves in 1927-33), which binds them to
keep “within the careful limits of good taste,” and not to
glorify crime and violence. Scenes that violate the code’s
conditions may be cut before the film is publicly shown.
The British Board of Film Censors, an independent body
formed in 1912, operates in a similar way, but also labels
the films it accepts either as “U” (suitable for general
audiences), or as “A” (for children accompanied by
adults), or as e‘X” (for adults only). But both in Britain
and in the United States local authorities reserve the
right to override the censors and to show films that have
been banned by them, or, conversely, to ban films that
they have passed. In most countries films are subject to
state censorship, and in many to unofficial forms of
censorship as well. For instance, in predominantly Roman
Catholic countries like Spain, Italy, and the Republic
of Ireland the Church exercises a restraining influence
on cinema owners, many of whom will not show films
that the Church condemns.
261
Entertainment

The mass media entertain and inform and teach; but

they cannot gain much less inform and teach a mass
audience unless they present their material in an enter¬
taining way. In short, they can never afford tcf neglect
their entertainment function.
In the early days of film, radio, and television, the
entertainment function tended to predominate over all
others even over the presentation of news. In the
cinema, lavish spectacles like Enrico Guazzoni’s Qito
Vadis (Italy, 1912 swelled audiences to an unprecedented
size, both in Europe and in the United States. In radio
and television, most transmission time was devoted to
music, variety, drama, and panel games. And all three
media exploited the pulling power of suspense serials. It
was largely by means of such programs that they first
attracted mass audiences and established themselves as British “pop" singer Billy Fury in the recording studio.
flourishing industries. Today's booming record industry is largely dependent
on radio. Record programs, which form an important
As they developed, both radio and television gradually part of broadcast entertainment, bring new disks to the
gave more and more time to programs of news, back¬ attention of a wide public, and so boost sales.
ground information, and education (p. 264 . But the
cinema has continued to rely almost entirely on enter¬
tainment. The reasons for this lie partly in the nature of
the medium itself, and partly in the way it is financed.
Firstly, the cinema has to induce people to go outside
their own homes; and secondly, unlike broadcasting, it
depends for its revenue entirely on box-office returns.
Of course, both radio and television still devote a
great deal of time to entertainment. For example, in
France during a typical week in i960 67 per cent of
total radio time was filled by such items as music, variety,
and drama. In most of Europe the proportion of enter¬
tainment is more or less the same. In America, however,
the pattern of radio programming is rather different, for
it was radically changed between 1945 and 1955 to
meet the challenge of television. Virtually all drama
and variety were transferred to television; in radio, the
emphasis shifted to news reporting, background informa¬
tion, and record programs.
In most West European countries, government
regulations of one kind or another lay down that enter¬
tainment is not television’s only function. French state
television, for example, divides its time about equally F J M |
• 1 a ^ '
between news and documentaries oh the one hand and 41 \c\
j* H ^
V ■
sport and entertainment on the other. Similarly, the F K.-

B.B.C. devotes about a third of its time to news and |h Ww ■

« a {A
documentary, a third to entertainment, and a third to
sports and children’s programs. Where TV companies im.m! r J
are privately owned, both in Europe and in America,
more time is devoted to entertainment.
Most of television’s entertainment consists of suspense

hi Calcutta cinema goers queue to see an Indian production

that is a comb inn iron of Western and romance. Like
audiences all over the world, Indians are fond of spec¬
tacular musicals; most Indian films include long dream
262 sequences or sang-and-dance interludes.
serials, situation comedies, quiz shows, Westerns, and View of studio during transmission of I Have a Secret, a
popular American TV quiz show networked from New
feature films originally made for the movie theatres. York. Such quizzes—some of which offer big cash prizes
Some civic leaders and educators have protested are a daily feature of TV broadcasting in the U.S.A. and
against television’s emphasis on crime and violence. In in many Western European countries.
reply, the television companies can argue that their
programming is based on extensive research into people’s
viewing habits; statistics show that the offending pro¬
grams often attract the biggest audiences. Head-counting
techniques do not dominate radio programming quite
so much; radio caters more for minority tastes than tele¬
vision does.
In most countries radio broadcasting is divided be¬
tween a number of different companies. In Britain, where
the B.B.C. has a monopoly, broadcasting is organized
into three distinct services, each of which provides
entertainment at a different level. If we take a closer look
at television, we see that the problem of program level
is beginning to solve itself in the same way. Britain and
Finland, for example, have three television networks;
Belgium has two. Japan has 130 television companies,
44 of which are privately owned. In America there are
562 commercial stations, most of which are owned by,
or associated with, one of the three major networks: the
American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Columbia
Broadcasting System (CBS and the National Broad¬
casting Company (NBC). In addition, there are 62
non-commercial educational stations.
As we have seen, entertainment naturally plays an
important part in radio and television, although it does
not always predominate. But broadcast entertainment
includes a great deal of material that might equally well
be described as educational: Serious drama, classical
music, ballet, opera, reviews of art and science, all form
part of a typical evening’s programs. And all three
media also play an important role in formal education.

Keith Rosson and Nadia Nerina in the Royal Ballet's

1963 production o/'Petrushka (seen by British televiewers
in black and white). Entertainment far from being con¬
fined to panel games, suspense serials, and cinema films
includes ballet, opera, and serious drama.
Education

We live in an age when the continuing expansion of

education is delayed by a shortage of teachers. In the
West the lack of trained teachers tends to limit the length
of a child’s formal education; in underdeveloped coun¬
tries it postpones the arrival of universal primary
education. But the mass media offer a means of bypassing
these problems, and of bringing education within the
reach of all.
A lesson that is given on film, radio, or television
may reach an audience of millions, bridging the barrier
of illiteracy and bringing specialist instruction to the
most isolated communities. In the last few decades, film
and radio have been widely used for educating illiterate
communities in all sorts of subjects, from learning to read
and write to the cultivation of crops.
In the West, where primary education has been well-
established for over half a century, film and radio are
used not as substitutes for primary education, but as
At Dounreay atomic station, British scientists watch
means of supplementing and extending it. Films, for
closed-circuit TV pictures of radioactive materials being
example, are widely used by industry, both to inform the handled by “slave” manipulators behind a protective
public and to train employees. Western governments, too, shield. Remote control of TV cameras allows close shots
—an opportunity for detailed study of experiments.
finance the production of educational films for showing
at home and abroad. Most such films are available free,
not only to schools and colleges, but also to clubs,
factories, and private individuals. In America, where
there is the most extensive use of educational films,
there are over 150,000 projectors in schools and colleges,
as well as 350,000 in clubs, factories, libraries, homes,
and churches. Many universities have their own lilm
units, which offer extra-mural courses to the public.
But the high cost of making even a relatively inexpensive
film means that the medium cannot be used so freely by
underdeveloped countries.
In most underdeveloped regions radio is the most
important medium of mass education, because of its
relatively low cost. And it has made giant strides in the
last two decades. For example, Asia has tripled its
transmitting stations since 1948, and the number of
receivers has risen from 10 million to 31 million.
Most Western countries have long provided regular
radio programs for schools, as well as courses in their
own language for foreign listeners. In Australia hundreds
of children on isolated sheep stations receive all their
education by two-way transmission from a central
“school of the air.” And America has a national educa¬
tional television and radio service that supplies special
programs both to privately owned stations and to the
networks.
Television is now an important medium of mass
education in America. Television courses from university

The original “Saucepan Speciala low-priced battery

radio that was introduced into Northern Rhodesia in
1948, and proved an overwhelming success. By 1959,
seven million people in Rhodesia and Ny as a land were
following the educational programs sent out in nine
264 languages by the Central African Broadcasting Station.
A frame from Children of the Sun, an animated film made
for Western audiences by the United Nations Children s
Fund. The film solicits support for UNICEF's war on
want by contrasting the lives of children in prosperous
and in poverty-stricken societies.
Upper: Reproductions like this one (The Return of the
Prodigal Son, by 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt
van Rijn) are received every month by members of the
Netherlands “art by radio” club. The programs, given
by museum directors and art historians, arc enjoyed by
thousands, including hospital patients (lower).
stations are followed by about 250,000 viewers; and
about 3,000,000 children in elementary and secondary
schools get part of their regular daily instruction by
television. Closed-circuit television ip. 221 is helping
to train people for industry and for such professions as
medicine. A laboratory demonstration, for example, can
be watched “live” by hundreds of students at once.
In many countries television is helping to combat
illiteracy. In Italy, for example, a special television
school gives daily lessons in reading and writing to
illiterate adults. Israel and Sierra Leone are just two
of many countries that are organizing educational tele¬
vision services for viewing in halls and classrooms. In
India an experimental service of this kind has already
started; a short program for secondary schools is also
broadcast from Delhi 16 times a week. There are 600
receivers in Delhi schools, and others in community
centers. In Nigeria about 9000 television sets are in use;
1000 of these were provided by the government, for
viewing in schools, hospitals, and community centers.
But the most extensive and systematic use of television
for teaching is probably found in Japan, where educa¬
tional programs are transmitted for an average of 1O2
hours a day and over 10,000 schools are equipped with
receivers.
Education by film, radio, or television may never
match the traditional kind of personal instruction. But
where no schools exist such services can be a powerful
weapon in the fight against mass illiteracy and ignorance
(p. 120). And in our own highly industrialized, highly
literate societies, they offer everyone the opportunity of
using his leisure time to broaden his education.
265

Above: Sandals like this witnesses to the film's
influence on fashion—appeared in British shops
shortly after release of Joseph Mankiewicz's
Cleopatra (U.S.A., 1963). Below: Today's com¬
pact cheap transistor radios attract a teenage
audience whose tastes are reflected in the in¬
creasing number of pop music broadcasts.
Social impact
In every technologically advanced society, film, radio,
and television have made some striking changes in the
pattern of people’s everyday lives. For example, the
growth of the film industry in the West was largely
responsible for the decline of the theatre, which had been
a major source of entertainment since the Middle Ages.
In Hollywood’s pre-television heyday, American films
set patterns of behavior, feminine beauty, fashions, and
furnishings that were imitated all over the world. Holly¬
wood’s enormous outpouring of Westerns, gangster
films, and “success story” films created a partial—and
therefore false—image of America in many other
countries. By 1946 (when cinema attendance in America
reached about 90 million a week) it was beginning to
look as if the cinema might exert an overwhelming in¬
fluence on people’s thinking, as well as on their tastes and
habits.
By 1950, however, television had replaced the cinema
as the focus of interest and concern. In the following
six years weekly cinema attendance in America dropped
to about half the 1946 figure. But television’s effect on
other leisure activities was far less spectacular. For
example, although public libraries in Britain noticed a
distinct slackening in the borrowing of books when a
new television station opened in their area, the total
number of national borrowings has continued to rise
steadily from year to year. Surveys made both in Britain
and in the United States show that in the long run tele¬
vision also stimulates children’s reading, though this
effect is more pronounced in the case of backward
readers than in those of average ability.
In countries where the vast majority of homes have
television receivers it is natural that people should feel
particularly concerned about the effects of programs on
children. But all the available evidence suggests that
television’s influence like that of the film is far less
 profound than people fear. Scenes of crime and violence
appear to make little or no impression on normal
children, whose chief concern is that the story should end
satisfactorily, with the downfall of the criminals. Indeed,
many psychologists and educationalists believe that
(provided they are not horrific they have a beneficial
effect, providing a harmless outlet for aggressive emotions.
Television’s influence on the press is discussed on
page 244. Briefly, television may have put some picture
magazines out of business, but it has not caused a drop
in newspaper sales, as many once feared it would. The
114-day newspaper strike in New York gave opinion
pollsters a rare chance to sample people’s attitudes
toward television in the absence of newspaper com¬
petition. One market-research firm set out to discover
what people felt about news coverage on radio and tele¬
vision. Before the strike 83 per cent of those interviewed
described it as excellent and only 6 per cent as poor; but

rx™ by the time the strike had come to an end 68 per cent
had decided that it was poor and only 16 per cent still

’1 m
thought it was excellent. People complained that they
could not absorb a mass of spoken material; and that
they could not go back to check on anything. In general,
we may say that while television has produced some
brilliant background documentaries it cannot compete
with the press in reporting in depth.
Television, like radio, is extensively used today as an
instrument of political and commercial persuasion. But
here again, research indicates that the power of these
media to manipulate minds is very limited, for people
tend to pay attention only to the material that reinforces
their own preconceived ideas (p. 304). And a survey
taken in one American town showed that women’s choice
of goods, fashions, and films was more heavily influenced
by personal contacts than by any of the mass media.
People who fear the abuse of the mass media as instru¬
ments of political and commercial persuasion base their
fears mainly on the fact that these media are one-way
channels of communication. But this description is only
partly true in most Western societies, where interviews
with ordinary people form an essential part of daily
radio and television broadcasting.
Of course, these interviews are selected by those who
control and operate the mass media. But in many
countries, these powers are widely distributed. On the
whole, our mass media probably give a fairly accurate
reflection of people’s daily activities all over the world.
And in doing so, they enlarge our knowledge, making it
possible for us to play a more intelligent role in our own
society.

The tremendous advances of radio, film, and

television have given us a ringside seat on world
events. Here a crowd at Grand Central Station,
New York, watches the Cape Canaveral blast-off
of Major Cooper, America's sixth astronaut, on
a giant TV screen (May 15th, 1963). 267
Chapter 13

Teaching and Learning

Of the many ways in which man differs from other

animals two are especially important in the study of
how he learns. Firstly, the human offspring is dependent
on its parents for much longer than the young of any
other animal. Secondly, man is unique both in his
almost limitless capacity for learning through com¬
munication with his fellows and in the degree of his need
to do so if a human society is to work.
These two facts are related: The human being takes
so long to grow up just because it takes time to learn how
to develop his great natural versatility. Indeed, this
process goes on throughout his life, although each
individual reaches a peak beyond which his physical
and mental dexterity gradually declines.
Learning is not only, nor probably even mainly, a
formal business. We all learn quite spontaneously from
our parents and relations, our friends and workmates,
as well as from those whose job it is to teach us. But
formal education (in schools, colleges, and so on is
necessary to the individual because of the amount and
complexity of what he needs to know in order to get
along in the modern scientific and industrialized world.
It is also necessary to society. A society that failed to
Learning begins at birth. It is a process
give its members an education adequate to maintain its
of receiving, storing, and relating
state of development would quickly degenerate. impressions. We learn in stages,
One of the purposes of education is to pass on know¬ developing different abilities at dif¬
ferent times. A child's first lessons are
ledge from one generation to another. But people now in walking and talking; later, he
need to learn not only how to live in the world into practices adult behavior in play. Today
which they were born, but also how to adapt themselves we treat play as an important part of
education, realizing that youngsters
to profound and rapid changes in that world. These cannot readily absorb dry facts. And
changes not only affect what is taught, but also call for visual aids like this world map, painted
on the floor of a school playground,
constant re-examination of teaching methods. For good
are used to make lessons both happy
education assumes effective communication. and memorable.

268

A child visiting an exhibition of sculpture stretches out
her hand to touch. Such experiences form part of the
learning process, in which we take in impressions, store
them, and relate them to previous experiences.
A picture drawn by a seven-year-old hoy to illustrate the
story of the phoenix—the fabulous bird that burned to
death and was reborn out of its own ashes. It shows the
impression the story made on the child, and how he related
it to things he had seen in real life.
How do we learn ?
A newborn baby is almost completely helpless. The fact
that, in proportion to its size, it possesses by far the
largest brain of all animals seems to be more of a
hindrance than a help. In fact, in comparison with other
animals a baby is worse off, for newborn animals have
built-in behavior mechanisms (or instincts) that tell
them what to do in order to survive. For instance,
though a baby kangaroo is born long before it is ready
to face the outside world, it “knows” how to crawl up
the outside of its mother’s pouch, get inside, and clamp
itself onto one of its mother’s teats. This mechanism
can show itself throughout an animal’s life: A bird that
has been isolated from its fellows from the day it hatched
out of an egg can nevertheless build the kind of nest char¬
acteristic of its species—however complex the nest.
The human baby, however, has hardly any such
instincts. It will suck if something touches its lips; it will
blink at a sudden bright light and cry at a loud noise; it
will grasp anything that is placed in its hand; it can
kick. And that is about all it can do. A baby is less
equipped to survive alone than many other animals;
but to compensate for this, its parents are prepared to
protect and train it for a large part of its life, until it can
safely function as an independent person.
How then does a baby make any progress from its
helpless condition? The answer lies in the fact that it
gradually reacts to events and things outside itself. It
tries something and sees what happens. The effort and
the result (even a completely negative result become
coupled in the baby’s brain. We call this association.
Favorable results are associated with pleasure, un¬
favorable ones with pain or discomfort. Thus there are
two ways in which the simplest learning processes begin
in a baby trial equals success or trial equals failure.
This goes on all our lives. The human brain has an almost
unlimited capacity for taking in impressions, storing
them, and relating them to other experiences, and this
is essentially what learning is.
The infant’s first steps in learning involve only the
simplest kinds of trial-and-error association; but the
process soon becomes much more complicated. Apart
from the direct association between an act and the child’s
own gratification (or lack of it) there is the indirect
association of pleasure and pain with social approval
or disapproval. Thus if a child succeeds in doing some¬
thing new, and at the same time feels that its parents
are pleased with it which it enjoys , it immediately
has a motive for repeating the action. If, on the other
hand, the action provokes parental disapproval, the
child is less likely to do it again. Of course, the child
may not instantly make such an association; it may try
again so as to get confirmation of pleasure or pain, praise
or disapproval. Indeed, it is very inclined to check up
on the disapproval by trying more than once to see how
much it can get away with.
Children thus learn what to do and what not to do
through a system of “rewards” and “punishments,” and
although the simple rewards of infancy may be replaced
later by other rewards more calculated to appeal to an
older person, the same process accompanies education
through all its stages. The approval of others, rewards
of money or prestige, self-esteem and various other
satisfactions these are the forces that drive people to
spend a large part of their life span on learning.
Here, too, the difference between man and other
animals stands out. A performing sea lion plays a tune
on a set of trumpets because it has been trained to
expect a fish tidbit as a reward; if the fish is not given
immediately after the performance, the sea lion very
soon refuses to go through its routine. Performance and
reward are separated by only a few seconds. But the
trainer who puts the animal through its paces has more
subtle rewards: the satisfaction of a skill that few share;
the esteem of fellow artists; the applause of an audience; A child learns how to build a balanced tower of
and his cut of the box-office takings. Even the hope of bricks by trial and error the simplest of the
such rewards will keep him going through long bouts learning processes that begin in infancy.
Below: Play-acting gives a group of under-fives
of failure and ill luck. No healthy animal will engage in the chance to work out their aggressive feelings
unrewarded activity for long without modifying it. in enjoyable and harmless make-believe.
 Stages of learning

Above: a 17th-century English woodcut depicting Although learning is a continuous process almost from
a Dame School, where poor children were taught
birth, there are some things that can be learned almost
the alphabet, sewing, and a little scripture. Right:
modern schoolboys enjoying a woodwork lesson at once, and other things that can only be learned later.
one of the many creative activities offered in One reason for this is that although a baby is born with
today's primary schools.
a network of nerves, these nerves are unable to carry
messages until they have acquired a coating of insulation
or myelin, a process that is not complete before the
child is a year or so old. A simple example, early in a
baby’s life, concerns its ability to discern moving objects.
This ability comes after about three months, and is
connected with developments in the optic nerve and in
the area of the brain that deals with visual images (p. 83).
Similarly, a child has to learn how to control its
muscles. This is very well seen in the time it takes for
a child to learn to talk. This is, of course, a complex
process. First the child has to relate the sounds its
parents make with certain meanings; then it tries to
reproduce the sounds, and this involves quite complex
movements of vocal cords and of the lips and tongue.
The time a child takes to learn to speak fluently varies
enormously; but during his first couple of years or so
the average child cannot do more than put into words
his simplest wants or feelings.
But it is not only in infancy (literally, “the time of
speechlessness”) that there is a time before which one or
other feat of learning is impossible. The human brain
goes through a series of developments. An abstract sense
of time, for instance, is generally wholly lacking until
the age of five. From then on, the child begins to under¬
stand time in relation to its own experience and to relate
events over greater and greater spans. But normally it
is not until a child is about 11 years old that it can under¬
stand the idea of duration of time and so think of a past
and a future independent of itself'. It is thus mistaken

Between lessons a boy tries out a wrestling hold he has

seen on TV. Most modern schools allow youngsters plenty
of time for such games, realizing that play is an essential
part of their education.

Above: Two ten-year-olds in a music and movement class
make “opposed shapesIn such classes, which replace
formal gymnastics and dancing lessons, children are
encouraged to mime and move freely to music; this helps
them to develop poise and muscle control. Below: a grim
lesson in citizenship for a group of American teenagers.
As part of their high-school syllabus, they visit Indiana
State prison, where they learn from the prisoners them¬
selves that crime doesn't pay.
to expect younger children to understand, say, the time
scale of history. Again, children can make deductions
based on direct observation at about seven years, but
normally they are not capable of abstract thought, the
consideration of ideas themselves, until they are 11 or 12
years old.
Further changes in the brain during adolescence bring
the child’s mind to maturity. The capacity for thought
is as great as it will ever be; all the learner now needs
is more knowledge and more practice in handling
it things that come with further education and
experience.
It is only in recent times that these limitations of
learning capacity at different ages have become generally
understood. Much less time is now wasted than formerly
in trying to teach subjects that are unsuitable for a
particular age group. This is especially true of young
children, who are now encouraged to engage in activities
that help them to become adjusted to the complicated
society in which they have to grow up, before they are
expected to really understand and come to grips with
its problems.
Learning by imitation of our parents, teachers, and
other adults, and of other children, too goes on all the
time. (Indeed, it plays an important part in learning
throughout our whole life.) This kind of learning is
reinforced in schools by allowing young children far
more time for playing. Play is an indispensable part of
growing up because -it helps the child to get control of
its own muscles, while working out real-life situations in
miniature. Running, jumping, climbing, and swimming
are now regarded as an essential part of education, and
in these activities and in other games the child learns
how to cope with situations that involve other people.
It learns to strike a balance between its own desires and
those of the group, that is, to become a social being.
Teaching methods

All the kinds of communication that we have reviewed

in this book play their part in the complex process of
education. That process begins with the oldest and
simplest communication between parent and child,
which is largely a matter of gestures and movements
that the child imitates. Soon this is supplemented by
speech, which remains throughout life one of the most
important means of communicating information and
ideas.
In the early years of his life a child absorbs informa¬
tion about his environment almost unconsciously,
through daily contact with parents, relatives, and other
children. This we call informal education. Later on,
when the child has learned to sit still and to concentrate
for a brief period on a definite subject, teaching becomes
formal and mainly collective, that is, one adult imparts
the same information to every member of a group of
children at the same time. In the modern approach to
education, as time goes on, the emphasis shifts from the
verbal teaching of facts to the teaching of ideas and
attitudes; the factual content of the spoken teaching
becomes less and less, while the teacher talks more and
more about the way in which facts can be understood and
handled. In this way he stimulates the reasoning power
of his pupils.
The teacher is able to move away from facts and
concentrate more on discussion because a child who can
read has access to hundreds of sources of information.
It is a waste of time for the teacher to repeat what
can be learned from books. As soon as his pupils are
capable of understanding more abstract ideas (p. 273),
the teacher can make better use of his and the pupil’s
time by explaining the basic principles of a subject
and generating an interest in it. The creation of interest
is one of a teacher’s most important jobs, because, as we
all know from our own experience, it is much easier for
us to learn and remember the dry facts of a subject
if somebody has first kindled in us a spark of excitement
and the desire to know more.
The debt that education owes to printing (pp. 126-57)
is very great. Before cheap mass-produced books were
available, the pupil had to rely on the knowledge of the
teacher, which might or might not have been adequate.
Printing put an end to that by supplementing the
teacher’s knowledge with the learning of others. Further¬
more, the teacher in the pre-printing age was obliged
to spend much of his time in imparting facts, because
he was the only source of knowledge. Printing made it
possible for the teacher to unload onto the pupil the
mechanical business of absorbing facts, although even

Part of a filmstrip especially produced for schools

illustrating life in Britain from the coming of the Anglo-
Saxon invaders until the Norman Conquest. Like the
other visual aids pictured on these pages, the filmstrip
helps to bring dry facts to life.
now teachers have by no means taken full advantage A multi-flash photo that provides a practical lesson in
of this. physics. It shows the path of a wrench, thrown horizontally.
A cross marks the center of mass, which follows a straight
Books are still the main aid to teachers, and will line. Spaces between crosses are equal, showing that the
probably remain so for as long as one can foresee. But wrench travels with constant velocity.
from the mid 1800s onwards there has been a continuous
increase in the use of new kinds of visual material.
Maps, models, and drawings were supplemented by
lantern slides, photographs, and then films. One of the
greatest problems in teaching has always been to bridge
the gap between the enclosed world of the classroom and
the realities of the world outside. Visual aids help
enormously to make things in books “come alive” to
pupils, and by adding interest make them easier to
absorb and remember.
New visual aids like the photograph were soon followed
by “hearing” machines. The phonograph and the more
recent tape recorder can bring the voices of experts into
the classroom. So can films, radio, and television. The
use of films and broadcasting in education is discussed
more fully on page 264.)
Television makes it possible for one teacher to be in
contact by both sound and sight with millions of pupils.
But however brilliant the teacher and his material, the
radio or television can never replace the teacher in the
classroom. The class teacher alone can know the problem
of each individual pupil, can listen to his questions, and
can go over again those parts of a subject that prove
most difficult to understand or remember.
This reminds us that the teaching of a new subject
proceeds in stages, each one of which must be mastered
before the next one is approached. And it points the
way to a new kind of teaching which may go far to relieve
the teacher of the more mechanical parts of his work.

Two visual teaching aids. Above: a “lay figure,” or jointed

wooden model of the kind used in art schools to demonstrate
the proportions of the body. Left: model of a cone with
cube and sections, designed to help schoolchildren under¬
stand geometrical principles.
Machines that teach

The teaching machine is the latest device for simplifying

the work of both learner and teacher. As the illustrations
on these pages show, this is no infinitely knowledgeable
robot, but simply a device that replaces the physical
presence of a human teacher.
A teaching machine contains, in one form or another,
a lesson that has been prepared by a teacher. It is thus
simply an application of a teacher’s skill; it does nothing
that could not be achieved by a good teacher in the

Left: a British high-school student working with a teaching machine.

She studies microfilmed lessons projected onto a screen like the
example below (part of a course in general mathematics). The student
answers the question at the foot of each frame by pressing one of the
selector buttons. If the answer is correct, the next lesson follows. If it is
wrong, the mistake is explained and the question is repeated. This
method of instruction not only relieves teachers of routine tasks but also
allows the students to progress at their own speed.

ON-OFF switch

Selector buttons
for multiple
choice of answer

High-contrast
viewing screen

RETURN button

Language students at the University of Dakar, Senegal,
working in special booths equipped with tape recorders.
Both the lessons and the students' answers are recorded,
so that each student can have the benefit of individual
tuition throughout the course.
j j { i $ if the pupil gets the wrong answer, and has to retrace
A simplified computer, consisting of transistorized parts—
one of the many mathematical teaching aids used in
modern schools. The student puts information into the
computer by means of push buttons and telephone dial,
and results are shown by the lighting-up of lamps.
traditional way. But it has this advantage: A lesson that
has been prepared for the machine can be multiplied
hundreds of times and used by a much greater number
of pupils. Just as printed books multiplied the original
manuscripts, so the teaching machines (although they
are not suitable for every subject multiply the teachers,
and, as we shall see p. 280 , the need for teachers is
increasing all the time.
The essence of the teaching machine is that, like a
good teacher, it offers information in short stages. At
the end of each stage the learner has to answer a set of
questions. These questions are not an examination or a
test in the usual sense of the words; they are there simply
as a way of finding out if the leaner has understood what
he has read so far. The correct answer to the questions
is shown, and if the learner has given a wrong answer
he is told to go back so many pages and re-read certain
information. If, on the other hand, he answers all the
questions correctly, he can go on to receive further
instruction, followed by further check questions. In this
way the learner can absorb a new subject in a series of
short, logically related steps.
Thus each pupil can work at his own speed, without
either waiting impatiently for the teacher to explain
difficulties to more backward pupils or, on the other
hand, being hurried ahead too fast. Many pupils work
better with a machine than they do with a teacher;
instead of sitting back and being spoon-fed by someone
else, they now have to accept responsibility for their own
progress and this seems to act as a stimulus to better work.
At the heart of this method is the periodical question
and answer. Any good learning program makes use of
this process, but its effect on the pupil goes much further
than merely finding out whether he understands the
argument so far. Just as an immediate reward to a
performing sea lion helps to make sure that he will
perform again and that he will remember what he has
to do, so in the teaching process the satisfaction of getting
the right answers acts as a reward, and the pleasure of
being right helps to fasten the subject matter into the
pupil’s memory and urges him on to further study. This
process (which is called reinforcement) is basic to all lasting
learning.
The teaching machine has the further advantage that,
his steps, this is a matter for himself alone. He does
not run the risk of being told he is stupid in front of his
classmates, a situation that can very well deter a pupil
and impede his progress by acting in the opposite direc¬
tion from reinforcement.
 Spread of education

Informal education, that is, the teaching of social

attitudes, manners, and such skills as are needed in the
everyday life of the society concerned, is universal. It
is found equally in Western cultures and in primitive
societies such as the tribes of New Guinea. But formal
education, which is essentially learning about things
outside one’s immediate practical experience, has until
quite recently been the privilege of a tiny minority. An
exception to this was formal religious education.
In the past the great mass of people needed certain
skills but little formal knowledge to keep the wheels
of society turning. The actual administration was
carried out by the educated minority. The rulers them¬
selves— the kings and nobles in some cases formed part
of this minority, but in other cases simply used it as a
tool, while themselves remaining almost as ignorant as
the humblest of their subjects. This was largely true of
Western medieval society, for example, in which the
Church provided most of the trained administrators
needed by the State.
It is no accident that the first major extension of
education was to the commercial middle classes, for the
ability to read, write, and calculate is useful if not in¬
dispensable as soon as trading has got beyond the stage
at which each man peddles his own goods. The small
middle class—mostly traders, bankers, and merchant
adventurers- that grew fairly rapidly in numbers from Scene from the Creation story, on a 13th-century church
window in Assisi, Italy. Narrative pictures impressed
the 16th century onward could afford to pay to have their Bible stories on the illiterate population in an age when
children educated. But there was a lack of schools. The formal education was largely confined to the nobility and
monasteries had established some schools, but these were to boys who were to become priests.

mainly for boys who intended to enter the Church. The

aristocracy mostly used private tutors. So in many cases
the new commercial classes founded their own schools,
many of which are still flourishing.
The spread of education into areas outside the ruling
class was thus largely a matter of private enterprise.
But it was still true that the average man had no need
to know anything beyond what he could pick up by
informal education, in order to earn a living.
Then from the mid-1700s onward there came the
Industrial Revolution from which the technological
society in which we live has sprung. One of the results
was an almost explosive expansion of the middle class,
who in addition to being traders now also became
industrialists. Members of this expanded middle class
did as their trading ancestors had done: They founded
yet more schools that would ensure the education of their
children so that they could fill positions of responsibility.
Along with the Industrial Revolution, there was a
sharp increase in population, which together with the

An English engraving of 1816 showing the

traditional dress of scholars at Christ's Hospital.
The school, which still flourishes, was founded bv
Edward VI in 1552 to provide a home and an
278 education for orphans and poor children.
 migration of landless peasants to the towns helped to
meet the increased demand for factory workers. There
was thus an enormous expansion of the laboring class;
but the informally taught skills that they needed for
machine-minding in factories were far less than those of
their craftsmen ancestors. Contrary to a widespread
belief, there was actually no need for a worker in a cotton
mill or a steelworks to be able to read or write; nor was
there any incentive to do so, except for a few who had the
opportunity of bettering themselves by promotion to
junior managerial positions such as foreman. For such
men, evening classes and libraries were established in
industrial towns p. 203 . Some of these were financed
by employers who saw the advantage of improving the
knowledge of handpicked men to form a link between
the factory floor and the owners. But in general the vast
majority of workers were illiterate until at least the
middle of the 19th century (p. 119).
Universal education, sponsored and paid for by the
state out of public funds, is relatively new in the world’s
history. Most European countries introduced primary
A British cartoon published in 1863, when school schooling for all their children during the second half
enrolments were increasing rapidly. It portrays
of the 19th century. And it is now accepted in Europe
universal education as a monster that destroys
academic standards, eats up the national income, and in America that a child will spend at least 10 years
and depletes the labor force. at school, from the age of five, six, or seven to the age
of 16 or 17, and that more and more children will go on
to further and higher education.
There are three principal reasons for the spread of
universal education. Firstly, in most countries autocratic
rule gradually gave way to representative government,
and the social pressures that won the right to vote in
European countries were not long in winning also the
right to free education. Secondly, the relatively primitive
engines of the Industrial Revolution have been replaced
by ever more complex machinery whose construction
and maintenance demand greater knowledge and skill.
Thirdly, the administration of the modern state and the
running of modern society require a great army of literate
workers to keep accounts and records, and, indeed, they
require general literacy, so that instructions can be
efficiently communicated to citizens and employees.
Although they now enjoy universal education, most
of the fully industrialized countries still have a long
way to go before all their people have equal oppor¬
tunities for a good education, especially in the field of
higher education. However, they have at least made a
start. In the world as a whole only three adults out of
every five can even read and write (p. 120), and reading
and writing are only the first steps in formal education,
without which further progress is impossible.

African porters at a Belgian-owned diamond mine

in the Congo. Here—as in mid 19th-century
Europe—industrialists ignored the need for
education (p. 119), and most of the native popula¬
tion remains illiterate. 279
 Education for tomorrow

The prosperity of a modern society depends as much on

a good general standard of education as on the greater
capacities of the specially gifted few. Indeed, in a world
in which no advanced country is (or, probably, can be)
self-sufficient, and in which international trading is
highly competitive, educational standards have to be
pushed up all the time or prosperity will decline.
There are two sides to the problem of education in
the modern world. The first is the problem of quantity—
the number of people that can be reached by teaching
methods; the second is the problem of quality the
standard of teaching and the choice of what is to be taught.
As regards quantity, there is a chronic shortage of
fully trained teachers and of adequate school and
university buildings even in highly developed countries;
in the underdeveloped countries the situation is far
worse. It will be at least a generation before these countries
can begin to supply their own teachers in anything like
the required numbers. In the meantime they will have
to rely partly on expatriate teachers from the more
fortunate countries and partly on methods of mass Students at Peking University. To train more
communication like those discussed on pages 264 65. teachers and technologists, China has greatly
increased uni versity enrolment since 1959. Peking
The shortage of teachers, buildings, textbooks, and traditionally the nation's cultural center- has
equipment is forcing the governments of some newly become a center of mass education.
independent countries in Africa and other parts of the
world to choose between quantity and quality. Some
have decided to postpone the introduction of universal
elementary education in order to provide more advanced
education for a minority; without a sufficient number
of people to do the administrative, technical, and pro¬
fessional work, they reason, further development is
impossible.
Most of these countries are underfed as well as under¬
developed; moreover, their populations are increasing
at an alarming rate that mops up the benefits of their
modest economic advances. Their top priority is to
catch up with the advances that Western countries have
made in food production. But the problem is as simple as
this: It is no use providing an African or an Indonesian
with a tractor unless you first teach him how it works,
how to look after it, and what he can do with it.
Industrialization is the next priority, because un¬
processed foods and raw materials seldom command high
enough prices in the international market to enable a
country to import those goods that it needs to raise its
standard of living. This means that almost the whole
range of technical skills has to be learned. The problems
that face the underdeveloped countries are so immense
that unless they receive massive and sustained assistance
from the more advanced countries, they cannot hope to

Nigerian farmers take a practical lesson in

modern methods of agriculture. Such training
schemes are urgently needed in Africa to boost
food production, and take priority over the intro¬
280 duction of universal elementary education.
 This British airman* administering first aid at a
remote Bedouin camp on the Persian Gulf has to
fight ignorance as well as disease. Illiterate tribes¬
men often have more faith in magic than in
Western medicine.
In the streets of Dakar, Senegal, a university
student passes a peasant boy who has never been
to school. Such developing countries look to the
world's more advanced nations to help them create
equal educational opportunities for all.
catch them up in a lifetime, or, indeed, to reach a reason¬
able standard of living at all.
Technical and scientific education are the most
urgent but certainly not the only kinds of education that
the underdeveloped countries need. Until their people
learn more about the rest of the world, they will tend to
see themselves as isolated groups at odds with rather
than part of the human race as a whole. Together,
material progress and greater knowledge should reduce
intolerance within and between groups.
In the more advanced countries the problems of what
and how to teach differ in degree but not in kind. We,
too, need many more scientists and engineers and
widespread general knowledge of science and technology.
But technical prowess is not all; we also need a greater
understanding of man’s behavior and sufficient know¬
ledge to be able to make intelligent decisions both in
personal and social affairs. The humanities are as
essential to such knowledge and understanding as are
the sciences.
All this means that more and more has to be learned
all the time, and it makes the intelligent use of time and
materials by teachers (which we discussed on page 274)
even more vital. We still know comparatively little about
the psychology of teaching and learning. In 1963 the
Carnegie Corporation of America put up a million
dollars for an investigation, with the aid of computers,
into the fundamental processes of human learning. It
will be interesting to see what comes out of this and similar
research projects and if learning can be speeded up.
281
Chapter 14

Advertising

Advertising is drawing attention by public announcement

to a commodity or service with the aim of selling it.
Modern advertising is a child of production for profit.
People in tribal or feudal'societies produce goods for
themselves or for neighbors whose needs they know. What
trade there is, is mainly in the form of barter, and each
man with something to sell or exchange is his own
advertiser. Organized advertising becomes necessary
only when production passes from an individual or com¬
munal to an industrial level- that is, when production is
organized by businessmen who raise capital and hire
labor with it. The larger industries become, and the
further they advance toward mass production, the more
dependent they become on advertising to help sell their
products. Indeed, without its services in communicating
with the public, many industrial and business firms would
be forced to shut up shop, their employees would be
thrown out of work, and our kind of economy would
collapse.
The continued prosperity of highly industrialized
economies depends on the consumption of whatever is
produced. The English socialist John Burns (1858-1943 )
once said that “the tragedy of the working man is the
poverty of his desires.” By stimulating those desires and by
creating new ones, advertising has changed all that. It has The neon signs in Times Square,
New York, perform essentially the
transformed what were once considered luxuries, reserved same task as the 17th-century pedlar;
by fate for the more privileged, into necessities for a bath call people's attention to the
higher standard of living for whole societies. In this and sale of partictikir goods. But while
the pedlar's cries attracted no
other ways, advertising has changed our personal and more than a handful of customers,
social habits. To take just one example, in many parts of a modern neon sign may be seen
the world people now eat processed cereals for breakfast by as many as a million people
in 24 hours. Such highly developed
partly as a result of advertising. advertising reflects the prosperity
Advertising depends absolutely on its power to com¬ brought by mass production. It
is one of the most characteristic—
municate and to persuade. In the following pages we shall
and controversial—features of modern
examine this power and its effect on our daily lives. Western society.

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Advertising in a London street, 1835. Posters pasted
up at random were no more eye-catching than handbills.
Advertisers depended on lengthy verbal messages
delivered in small, difficult-to-read print.
r* ~ ™
jp
The cries of the pedlar and the fairground barker of
medieval times were forerunners of the radio or television
commercial. The striking difference‘between our own and
earlier ages is the scale of advertising in the more advanced
» y, economies. This scale depends on a number of inter¬
related factors: the scale of production, the development

LEVI SWA«SS*
SAN FRANCtSCO.CAU
CO and scope of distribution services and of communication
media, and the size of the potential market. These factors,
in turn, depend on the extent to which a community’s
wealth is distributed among its members. The English
author Dr. Johnson remarked on the “very numerous”
advertisements in the papers of his day; but in fact, like
the papers themselves, they were almost exclusively
addressed to the wealthy minority who formed the market
for such luxuries as books, theatrical entertainments,
hi 4J.S A
houses, servants, wigs, perfumes, tea, coffee, spices, silks,
Lot :>.o i z X X W30 .L36 and medical “remedies.” The typical working man of the
•**> 18th century was lucky if he earned enough to provide

Clothing label used by an American firm that was

founded in the late 19th century, when mass production
released a flood of factory-made goods. At the same
time manufacturers stepped up their advertising and
began to simplify their message in order to sell their
products to a wider public.

Poster of 1900 by French artist Jules Alexandre Grun,
announcing an exhibition and rally of motorboats at
Monaco. Toward the end of the 19th century, poster
advertisements were making a nor impact by presenting
their message mainly in visual terms. The movement for
better poster design pioneered by the Frenchman Jules
Cheret was attracting artists like Toulouse-Lautrec in
France and Aubrey Beardsley in Britain.
his family with the bare necessities of food, clothing, and
shelter -and he could not read anyway.
During the 19th century, in Western Europe and
America, factory production largely replaced craft and
domestic industry in metalworking, food processing,
clothing, and the making of an increasing number of
standardized consumer goods. This created a need both
for a mass market, which could be met only by a wider
dispersal of spending power, and for mass marketing,
which .could be met only by advertising. Starting with
products like soap, tobacco, candy, prepared foods, and
patent medicines all of which had a wide if not universal
appeal advertising was increasingly used to extend the
market for newer inventions such as sewing machines,
typewriters, bicycles, cameras, wrist watches, and safety
razors.
At first the market for such goods was mainly among the
growing middle classes; but by the end of the century the
ordinary worker usually enjoyed a small but increasing
surplus of income above what was necessary to keep him¬
self and his family fed and sheltered. This surplus allowed
him some choice in his spending. This growing spending
power has been supplemented during the last 30 years by
the increasing use of personal- credit facilities, through
which the consumer pays by installment for the goods he
is using.
A striking example of the increasing reliance on
advertising to sell mass-produced goods by the end of the
19th century is provided by Pears’ soap, which was first
produced in 1789. In 1865 only £80 was spent on adver¬
tising it. Twenty years later the annual expenditure was
over £100,000 and the soap was famous all over Britain
and America under the slogans “ ‘How do you spell soap ?’
‘Why P-E-A-R-S, of course.’ ” and “Good morning!
Have you used Pears’ soap?” As for total national ex¬
penditure on advertising, in Britain this rose from
approximately £10 million in 1914 to around £100
million in 1920, and by 1960 had topped £450 million. In
America, between 1948 and i960, advertising expendi¬
ture rose from $4860 million to $11,930 million fp. 292 .
Just as advertising to attract a wealthy minority had
played a vital role in the establishment of the 18th-
century newspapers and periodicals, so, toward the end
of the 19th century, advertising to attract a mass market
made possible the cheap mass-circulation daily paper. In
fact, advertising frequently provides half (and in many
cases three quarters or more) of the total revenue of news¬
papers and magazines. Despite increasing competition
from radio and television, the press remains the main
media for advertising in all countries.
Among the many advertising gimmicks used by
Pears' Soap at the turn of the century was
this sculpture, “ You Dirty Boyf bought from
Giovanni Focardi, an impoverished Italian.
Pears also used the famous oil painting “Bubbles'’
by the English artist Sir John Millais. 285
Language of advertising

Like most new activities, advertising began as a very

rough-and-ready business. To the casual onlooker today,
advertising may seem little more than a matter of con¬
juring with colorful slogans that claim unique ad¬
vantages for the product being advertised and (at least
by implication) sometimes attack rival products in a way
that shows little concern for truth or taste. Certainly most
of the early practitioners adopted this simple approach,
and in America and Europe fortunes were made by
shrewd “salesmen in print” who happened to hit on the
right formula for exploiting their products.
One such was the Englishman Thomas Holloway, the
self-styled “Professor” whose “puffs” for pills and oint¬
ments appeared all over the world -in Europe, North and
South America, China, India, Australia, and even on the
Great Pyramid! The American advertising agent George Poster pillars like this one have formed part
P. Rowell said of him in 1870: “Millions who have never of the Parisian street scene since the late 19th
heard of Napoleon, his victories and defeats, the sad century. They carry advertising for theatres,
cinemas, and other entertainments.
story of his invasion of the frozen North and his woeful
return, have heard of Holloway, the most general ad¬
vertiser of today.”
While drug manufacturers became noted for their loud
claims, many other manufacturers were slow to realize
the possibilities of advertising. And even when they
reluctantly took it up, they contented themselves with
such simple slogans as “Hot Bovril,” or with the mere
repetition of brand names. Nevertheless, in one form or
another, as Dr. Johnson said, “Promise, large promise is
the soul of an Advertisement. . .” One form such promise
has taken is the satisfaction of believing that you are using
the same soap, pen, or whatever it may be as “the great.”
Even Queen Victoria was once portrayed drinking a cup
of Cadbury’s cocoa. This kind of advertising is still used. Scene from a TV pet-food commercial in which
the dogs do the talking. The advertiser speaks
Sometimes it relies on the creation or exploitation of through cartoon characters that are remembered
status symbols, as in the slogan “Top People Take The for their entertainment value—a type of sales
promotion known as the “soft-sell.”
Times” or in the juxtaposition of a bottle of sherry or
whisky with expensive cars and beautifully groomed men
and women. One of the most famous of all such advertise¬
ments says quite simply, “The most expensive perfume
in the world.”
Advertisers often apply other kinds of psychological
pressure. Obvious examples are strip cartoons that sug¬
gest that you will lose your job unless you brighten up
your ideas, but that if you drink so-and-so’s beverage last
thing at night it will give you such energy and drive that
you will be promoted instead. Usually such pressure is
more subtly applied, often by relying on the association of
things with no logical connection. A picture of a pretty
girl is often used in this way. Such an image, advertisers
have found, can help to sell almost anything, from health

Advertisers often seek to “enhance” a product

by suggesting that wealthy and discriminating
people use it. The product itself becomes a
symbol of social status—a fact that helps to
sell articles like this to thousands of people in
286 lower income groups.
foods to cigarettes. Similarly, they use symbols of success
in love. Thus we have advertisements that show, say, a
pair of young lovers smoking cigarettes in idyllic sur¬
roundings. The intention is to implant in the viewer’s
mind the unconscious thought that smoking the brand of
cigarette concerned will confer success in love.
An earlier example of the psychological approach was
an advertisement for Palmolive soap showing a young girl,
her eyes shining with love, talking with her boy friend
on the telephone. It bore the threatening legend: “Will
his eyes confirm what his lips are saying? The kindly
candles of last night, the tell-tale revealments of noon!
Do you fear the contrast they may offer ?” For men, there
was the Gillette razor-blade advertisement headed:
“Keep an eye on your wife !” Having caught the attention
of husbands, it went on : “After all, most wives are loyal
and proud, and rather reluctant to speak up. This may be
far from the fact but there is a chance she’s distressed
because you aren’t as careful about shaving as you were
in times past . . . .”
America, which pioneered psychological persuasion in
advertising, also produced many of the most effective
early slogans relying on a more direct appeal. One of the
cleverest of these was the Kodak slogan devised in the
1880’s to sell the first portable roll-film camera: “You
press the button we do the rest.” Another slogan, which
helped to make its owner a millionaire, was “Dr. William’s
Pink Pills for Pale People.”
Naturally, advertising language is partly shaped by the
particular medium for which it is devised. An advertise¬
ment in a newspaper or magazine may be intended to be
consciously read, and may make a real attempt to tell you
The posters that line the escalators in London's Under¬
why you should buy this or that article; but the message
ground stations may be seen by as many as a hundred
of a street poster, which may only be seen from a passing thousand people a day. As the photograph shows, some
bus, must be taken in almost without realizing it. It will advertisers drive home their message by repeating the
same poster at regular intervals.
probably rely amost entirely on visual impact p. 102),
with onlv a handful of words, such as, “Beer is best.”
Among advertising media that do not rely exclusively
on the printed word or image —radio, television, and
HEALS HEAL^^^heals
film the most characteristic form of advertising is the .E presents forPartie tk _/LE presents FOR Partie

“jingle” (a short, catchy song designed to stick in the *ARTICULAR PEOPLEPRESENTS for PARTICULAR PEOPLEi|
esents for particular people presents for particular
hearer’s mind). One such jingle, a Pepsi-Cola advertise¬ ARTICULAR peOplePRESENTS FOR PARTICULAR peoplePRi
ment sung to the tune of the old English song “John Peel,” PEOPLE PRESENTS**”*™™ PEOPLE PRESEi
was broadcast 296,426 times over 469 American radio
stations in 1941. The massive protest mail provoked by
HEALS HE tt$. --HEALS
.E presents for Particular PEOPLE. presents
HEAL
FOR Partit

this campaign showed how successful radio could be in *ARTIcULAR WOMf PRESENTS for PA RTIcULA R PEOPLEi
catching attention, but that sales do not automatically
esents for particular people presents for particular
ARTICULAR peOplePRESENTS FOR PARTICULAR peoplePR
follow. But selling by jingle realizes its fullest possibilities
PEOPLE PRESENTS*™ «■"*«*■ PEOPLE PRESET
on the TV screen, where the salesman can appear as a
“friend” in the midst of the family circle.
MEALS
.E presents
HEALS
FOR Particular
for
PEOPLE presents
HEAL
FOR Parties
>ARTICULAR PEOPLEpresents for PARTICULAR PEOPLEp
esents for particular people presents for particular
Customers of a leading London store carry ARTICULAR peOplePRESENTS FOR PARTICULAR peoplePR*
away their purchases in bags that bear this
brief slogan. Because it is intended to be read
PEOPLE PRESENTS1* PEOPLE PRESEf

at a glance, the slogan does not advertise a HE^S HEALS for PRESENTS HEAL S HEAL
particular article, but simply associates the
store with good taste and modernity.
 Who is "the customer" ?

The advertising business can be divided into three main

groups: the advertisers themselves (who may be manu¬
facturers, wholesalers, or retailers); the owners of adver¬
tising media; and the makers of advertisements (such as
printers, film producers, photographers, artists, and
advertising agencies). Despite the agencies’ relatively
small share of the total expenditure on advertising, they
are the pivot of the whole business. In Britain, for example,
they handle some 6o per cent of advertising business. In
consultation with the advertiser, and perhaps with a
market-research organization, an agency creates the
advertisements and prepares a campaign for marketing
the product.
When modern advertising was in its infancy, the ad¬
vertising agent was simply a space salesman for news¬
papers and periodicals. He persuaded people with some¬
thing to sell to advertise in the papers he represented. In
return he received a commission (customarily 15 percent]
from the newspaper owners on the cost of the space
booked. Agents are still paid in this way, although
around the i88o’s they began to prepare their clients'
advertisements and to advise them where to place them
to get the best value for money.
One of the first needs of advertisers was to find out how
A British cigarette manufacturer used the many copies were sold of the papers in which he bought
picture and slogan on this poster as the basis of
space, since in those days circulation figures were closely
a nation-wide advertising campaign. Like many
advertisements based on motivational research guarded secrets. The right to know a paper’s circulation
{see text), the poster implies that the product having been established, a great deal of research was still
satisfies deep emotional needs.
needed before advertiser's could feel confident that they
were using the best media for the products they were
Computer cards like those below {prepared
by a market-research company) record consumers' trying to sell. They wanted to know how many people on
opinions of products and provide advertisers average read each copy of a particular newspaper or
with a basis for future campaigns. Lower right: magazine, because this figure may differ considerably
Housewife's reactions to a product are tested in
the company's mobile kitchen. from one paper to another. They also wanted to know
what sort of people the readers were their sex, age,
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lhtnf and loom larje in the publishers’ wruins about, the publishers sub* publisher* f
income, hopes, hobbies, and habits. Tor instance, a
S& The survey carried out in America in 1950 revealed that
By STML only one man in seven shaved everyday (which perhaps
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emphasizes the limitations of such powerful persuasion
as that quoted on p. 287 .
The need to know who the customer was and to antici¬
pate his demands gave rise to the specialized business of
market research, which is concerned in part with the
effectiveness of advertising. Methods for measuring the
impact of advertisements were pioneered by George
Gallup, Daniel Starch, Claude Robinson, and other
Americans. Among these methods are “recall” and
“recognition” tests. In one kind of recall test the people
acting as guinea pigs are shown part of an advertisement
and asked to describe the whole. In recognition tests they
are shown the advertisement and asked if they have seen
it before. The findings from these and similar tests are
then used to devise advertisements that will have the best
chance of being noticed and remembered.
But advertisements must do more than attract attention
if they are to help to sell the product. They must persuade.
The kinds of impact measurement just described have
been criticized by psychologists whose researches have
confirmed that people who remember advertisements are
not necessarily convinced by them, and that those who
are persuaded to buy by advertisements are not neces¬
These two contrasting posters for the French Riviera
sarily able to recall them. Furthermore, people often show how the customer has changed in the last 60 years.
remember best those advertisements that please them. The 1913 example {above) appealed to a leisured minority;
To make a person buy a product, an advertisement but the modern example {below) invites a wider public
by picturing the same resort as a popular tourist center.
must make him feel it will satisfy some want. So research is
increasingly designed to discover the qualities the public
want and then to modify the product and frame the
advertising accordingly. But many desires are sub¬
conscious, and this led to the development of motivational
research. One of its pioneers, the Vienna-born American
psychologist Ernest Dichter, has counseled the advertising
agency to think of itself as “one of the most advanced
laboratories in psychology.” In essence, motivational
research is the application of techniques of psycho¬
analysis to problems of market research. “Depth inter¬
views” are conducted, in w hich the subject does not know
what the interviewer is trying to find out. These may
reveal, for example, associations between one thing and
another in the subject’s mind of which he is not aware, but
which can be used as elements of persuasion in an
advertisement.
Yet despite the development of increasingly effective
methods of market research and of increasingly subtle
techniques of persuasion, advertising is still very much a
hit-and-miss affair. It has been estimated that some 90
per cent of new products launched in America are
failures, and many of these failures are probably caused
by bad or inappropriate advertising.
 Indirect promotion

One of the findings of market-research specialists is that

the more an advertisement gives the impression of being
a news item, the more effective it tends to be. Getting free
publicity for a firm in the news columns of newspapers
and magazines is, indeed, an old advertising device.
Sometimes it has been achieved by stunts, such as the
dispatch by Thomas J. Lipton in 1881, from America to
his main store, in Glasgow, Scotland, of the largest cheese
in the world. Another method is “teaser” advertising
either withholding the name of the advertiser or saying
nothing about the product. A notable example of the
latter was the Ford advertising campaign for their first
streamlined automobile, which replaced the Model T.
For five days, full-page advertisements were run in 2000
newspapers at a cost of 81,300,000. They said almost
nothing at all, with the result that everybody, including
the newspapermen, speculated about the new model and
a million people in New York tried to see it on the day of
the unveiling.
Making news is one of the tasks of advertising’s sister
profession, public relations. Some large corporations have
their own public-relations department. Others have
contracts with firms that specialize in this kind of work.
In August 1963 many Londoners were puzzled PROs (public relations officers! supply information,
by the appearance of this unidentified poster—a arrange press conferences, write letters to newspapers,
striking example of “teaser” advertising. The and in many other ways try to create a favorable image of
mystery was solved by a companion poster, which
appeared a few days later. It advertised a newly the firm they represent. They also play an important part
released film—The Running Man, directed by in communication between public corporations, state-
Carol Reed.
owned industries (such as, in many countries, the railways
and the postal services), government departments, and
the public they serve, including, of course, private firms.
Unfortunately the natural preference of their employers
for favorable publicity encourages PROs to conceal or
l«$, -Hcu^UC foaA' deny mistakes or failures, and instead of explaining, to
S«*-
concentrate on explaining away. Furthermore, the
j)'&w V\oAo^^, methods they use sometimes amount to concealed adver¬
tising. Media dependent on advertising for the bulk of
\f “tU-t- cc tvv Ttwvl
CUaA T)au\.e cl'ItUA.WS kaOe their revenue may be tempted by PROs to make favor¬
able references to a firm or its products- -and advertising
disguised as news is more likely to be effective because it is
more likely to be believed without question. However,
large-scale organizations, whether private or public,
fo 4'i-<- ^ 44'*-
would be more likely to become indifferent to public
opinion without the services of PROs. As well as in¬
fluencing the public, a good PRO may be able to persuade
his firm to modify its products and policies in the interests
of good public relations.
In some cases PROs may buy space to explain the
policy of the firm (or government department) that em¬
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Printed copies of this publicity letter were
sent to hundreds of housewives by a British
dry-cleaning firm. Direct mail is widely used
as a method of sales promotion; this example
is particularly persuasive because it appears
to be handwritten.

A sweater designed to publicize a popular
vocal group. When a PRO arranges for the
name of his client to appear on such com¬
modities, the licensed manufacturer may also
benefit by an increase in sales.
The leaflet below (addressed to doctors) uses
a cartoon drawing to advertise a treatment
for the common cold. Because doctors are in
a unique position to recommend pharmaceutical
products, they receive hundreds of such leaflets
from drug companies.
when rhinoviruses fill your surgery...
caused to the public by some kind of constructional work,
perhaps to put the firm’s case in a dispute with people
working for it, perhaps just in the normal course of opera¬
tions. Thus public-relations work shades off into a kind of
advertising which is still not directly concerned with the
promotion of sales. Leading firms or organizations often
go in for what is called “institutional promotion.” That is,
they buy space, usually in quality newspapers and maga¬
zines read by influential people, to tell about theii
achievements, their expenditure on research, their welfare
schemes for their employees, their contributions to “good
causes,” such as education or cancer research, and so on.
In another form of indirect promotion a firm sponsors a
radio or television program without actually advertising
any product. The quality or popularity of the program is,
of course, completely unrelated to the quality of the
sponsor’s products, but it is hoped that the virtues of the
former will be reflected unconsciously in the sales figures
of the latter.
The purpose of all forms of indirect promotion by
business organizations is the same as that of any other
kind of advertising: to make more money by selling more
products. One feature of most advertising that clearly
distinguishes it from editorial matter in papers or radio
and television programs is the prominence of a brand
name. The danger of indirect promotion is that we are
not always too sure who is trying to get us to do what.

HERE NOW... BUT NOT... FOR LONG!
A poster designed to speed the sale of Australian fruit
in Britain. Such advertising is necessary because some
ten thousand tons of Australian pears are exported
to the U.K. between April and June, and must be sold
during this short season.
Advertisement for an Olivetti accounting machine,
planned with the international market in mind. It
depends on an eye-catching numerical design coupled
with the brand name, which needs no translation.
ChEMSTRAISD
Why advertise ?
Thousands of millions of dollars are spent every year on
advertising throughout the world. In 1960, for example,
the amount spent in America amounted to 2 • 9 per cent
of the net national income. In Britain the figure was 2 * 1
per cent, in Australia 1 • 9 per cent, in Japan 1 • 5 per cent,
in Argentina 1 per cent, in France and Belgium 0 8 per
cent. Other countries spend similar proportions of their
wealth on advertising. Many individual firms spend
millions of dollars a year on promoting sales. For ex¬
ample, in 1959 three American car manufacturers
General Motors, fiord, and Chrysler spent $110 million,
$61 million, and $47 million respectively; four firms
producing drugs and cosmetics - Proctor & Gamble,
Lever, American Home Products, and Colgate-Palmolive
spent $105 million, $56 million, $52 million, and $50
million respectively; and two tobacco firms—Reynolds
and American Tobacco- spent $39 million and $35
million respectively. It has been calculated that the
average American sees something like 1500 advertise¬
ments a day.
Does such huge-scale advertising really pay ? Professor
Neil Borden, an American economist who studied the
effects of advertising on the demand for a wide range of
products, came to the conclusion that its influence was
greatly exaggerated: ‘‘Basic trends of demands for pro¬
ducts, which are determined by underlying social and
environmental conditions, are more significant in
determining the expansion or contraction of primary
demand than is the use or lack of use of advertising.” He
considered that the main effect of advertising was to
speed up demands or slow down adverse trends. An
example of the latter is the milk-advertising campaign
begun in Britain in 1954, which first arrested a downward
trend in sales, and then helped to build them up to a new
record level. Other slumps, of a seasonal nature- such as
those of ice-cream sales in the winter and radio sales in
the summer have also been partly overcome by
advertising.
It has also been used successfully to dispose of surplus
crops. Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California, faced with
an immense glut of raisins in 1920, spent half a million
dollars on advertising in Britain, a campaign that,
according to their advertising agent, saved them seven
to eight million dollars. Similarly, the Walnut Growers
Association of California trebled their sales in Britain as a
result of a five-year advertising campaign. But the relative
failure of advertising to make America a nation of tea
drinkers and Britain a nation of gum chewers show's the
difficulty of creating, as opposed to stimulating, a demand.
One of the most striking facts about expenditure on
When this advertisement for a firm of fiber
manufacturers appeared in a Greek magazine,
it carried a Greek slogan Your second
skin . . . Acrilan fiber”). But the actual design
including the trade-mark—was identical with
English-language versions.
advertising is that it varies so much between one kind of
product and another. For example, in America in 1959
the average proportion of advertising costs to sales in¬
comes was 1.6 per cent; but it varied from 0.3 per cent in
the case of gasoline and oil and industrial metals to 1.2
for automobiles, 2.5 for foods and beverages, 5.3 for
alcoholic drinks, 6.9 for tobacco, and 8.7 for drugs and
cosmetics. These differences are partly accounted for by
different marketing methods. For instance, some kinds of
product depend more on shop-window display or door-to-
door salesmen to maintain and increase sales than on
advertising. In other cases, the differences reflect fierce
competition between rival firms or the higher costs of
opening up a new market. The detergent war of recent
years shows both these factors at work. It has also given us
an example of the creation of new products whose only
important differences from the old ones are different
brand names.
There is some evidence that too much competition in
advertising cancels itself out and only results in higher
prices. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that in general
advertising helps to increase sales. A striking example of
how effective advertising can be was provided recently
by a small American company—Alberto-Culver which
launched a television campaign for a new hairspray. In
under a year it captured 10 per cent of the hairspray
market.
The main justification for advertising is that the
possibility of producing more means the possibility of
producing more cheaply. In 1925 Life magazine carried a
full-page advertisement advertising the virtues of adver¬
tising. “Andy Consumer” has just been ticking-off his
wife for wanting to buy an electric washing machine
when the light suddenly dawns on him. “I begin to see
that it’s advertising that makes America hum,” he says.
“It gives ginks like me a goal. Makes us want something.
And the world is so much the better for our heaving a little
harder. Looking at the advertisements makes me think
I’ve GOT to succeed. Every advertisement is an advertise¬
ment for success. I guess one reason there is so much success
in America is because there is so much advertising —of
things to want—things to work for.”
We don’t have to accept this as an adequate philosophy
of life in order to be convinced that advertising works, and
that it has an important part to play in any capitalist
economy. Between March 1953 and September 1954,
when national income fell by 2.6 per cent in the U.S.A.,
advertising expenditure was increased by 7 per cent. If
advertising had fallen off instead of rising, the slump
might have been a good deal worse.

In a typical supermarket today's shopper

meets a bewildering variety of special offers,
including price reductions and gifts. Manu¬
facturers' agents publicize such powerful sales-
promotion gimmicks by advertising in the press,
on television, or by direct mail. 293
Advertising and planning

Western visitors to Communist countries, or to new

African and Asian states, are often struck by the small
part that advertising plays in such societies. The main
reason is that in both Communist-controlled countries
and in countries that are still economically under¬
developed the consumer has relatively little freedom of
choice in spending his income.
Consumer choice is essential to the development of
advertising. Until manufacturers have a variety of
products that have a wide potential appeal and are
sufficiently cheap to win a mass market, they do not need
to communicate with large numbers of consumers. And
when they begin to think of doing so, they need mass
media to carry their message. It is the lack of abundant
consumer goods and of a large newspaper readership that
sets limits to advertising in, say, West Africa. In the towns,
goods ranging from branded foods, drink, and tobacco,
to clothes, bicycles, and kitchenware may be marketed
with the help of posters and display. But in the larger
villages, the advertiser of patent remedies, beverages, and
even of banking facilities may rely on traveling vans with
pictures, films, cartoons, and records to communicate in
the form, language, and even dialect that will be most
readily understood. Advertising is used by governments for social education
as well as for political propaganda. This Russian poster
Attitudes, habits, and choices in the under-developed
reads: “To forestall old age: After 45-50, eat less starch,
countries are still largely determined by ancestral, tribal, fat, liquids, and salt. Eat more milk products, cooked
racial, and religious customs that foster opposition to vegetables and fruit, lean meat, and fish."
change. In these parts of the world advertisers have some¬
times found that it takes much time and effort, as well as
knowledge of the ways of the people, to induce them to Below: West African children watch a woman at work
on the village's only sewing machine. As the text
adopt devices developed in the West that raise standards explains, advertising can play a part in the economic
of hygiene, save labor in the home, and give pleasure advance of the world* s underdeveloped countries.
 (NIMCHID

generally. Advertising has acted as a civilizing agent in

persuading primitive peoples to replace wood or charcoal
by kerosene or oil lamps and later by gas stoves, and, in
more recent years, to adopt detergents for washing home
utensils and clothes.
Since the growth of the press and the spread of literacy
usually go hand in hand with the raising of living
standards and widening of choice, we would normally
expect that in all these countries economic development
would be accompanied by increased use of advertising
and other marketing methods. In most under-developed
countries, however, the priorities for production are
determined not so much by consumer preferences as by
government planning similar to that found in Communist
economies. The main reason why Soviet Russia, for
example, has so far made little use of advertising is that
the Five Year Plans have concentrated on investment in
heavy industry. As a result consumer goods have been
scarce enough to be eagerly bought by those who could
afford them, without any urging through advertising. In
place of commercial advertising, press and posters have
been generally devoted to political propaganda to sell the
idea of the plan and the leaders behind it.
In recent years, however, the European Communist
governments have begun to allow more room for the pro¬
duction of consumer goods in their economic plans. The
people of these countries now have a wider choice, and
there is growing interest in the use of market research to
find out what goods they would like to buy and what
faults they find with those available. Advertising, for¬
merly almost entirely restricted to general campaigns to
drink more milk, save more money, and so forth, is
beginning to produce brand names. According to an
opinion poll conducted in i960, radio advertisements are
among the most popular broadcasts in Poland. However,
the criticisms by a Russian marketing expert, Professor
P. Maslov, of advertising in his country suggest that the
Communists have much to learn from the West about the
arts of commercial persuasion. “It is unfortunate,” he
says, “that in our country intelligent and lively advertising
is so rare and that instead of advertising one comes across
unwieldy and dull information masquerading as adver¬
tising ...”
It seems likely that in both Communist and less-
developed countries, as economic development provides
bigger supplies and more varieties of consumer goods,
governments will use or allow competing suppliers to use
many of the advertising techniques and marketing
methods that have long been familiar in advanced
Western economies.

tasaJ The extent to which we use advertising depends

on our production of consumer goods. Right:
only part of the wide range of shampoos on
sale in one Western country. Left: Russian
shampoo—the only brand in the country.
 Advertising and society

As long ago as 1924 an International Advertising Con¬

vention held at Wembley in England adopted a code of
ethics exhorting advertising practitioners “to seek the
truth and to live it,” and “to tell the Advertising story
simply and without exaggeration and to avoid even a
tendency to mislead.” But admirable though these senti-
* ments are, it is almost impossible for those involved to
fulfill them. They earn their incomes by selling particular
goods, and one can hardly expect them to say they think
somebody else’s goods are better.
All the same, advertising men have played a consider¬
able part in cleaning up their profession. One of the
earliest moves against the scandalous claims of patent-
medicine proprietors was the refusal of an American Above: two examples of fraudulent advertising.
advertising agency to handle their business. In 1892 the Fake testimonial for a 19th-century remedy;
and a 17th-century medical quack (right).
campaign against the medicine men was taken up by the
Ladies' Home Journal, and later by Collier's and many other
papers, all of which undertook to ban or censor patent-
medicine advertisements. In time, strict food and drug
laws were passed in the United States. A similar campaign
carried on in Britain led to the setting up of a Select Com¬
mittee of the House of Commons, but its recommenda¬
tion, published in 1914, that the sale or advertisement of
cures for cancer, consumption, paralysis, and a number of
other serious illnesses should be banned was not made law
until 27 years later. In fact in this, as in other cases,
voluntary codes of practice framed by advertising associa¬
tions have kept ahead of the tardy progress of legal
reform.
The attitude of advertising media to fraudulent claims
has differed as much as that of the advertising profession
itself. The British journal Athenaeum declared in 1830: “It
is the duty of an independent journal to protect as far as
possible the credulous, confiding, and unwary from the
wily arts of the advertiser.” But advertisers could say what
they liked in the New York Herald in those early days, and
to criticism of this policy, which had made his paper the
leading advertising medium in America, the editor re¬
torted: “Business is business, money is money ... we THEROTYENREICH
permit no blockhead to interfere with our business.” Willi Frischauer strips the mask off
Adenauer’s Germany
It is, of course, perfectly consistent with this attitude
that some media owners have been quite prepared to ban
advertisements that might offend important clients. In
1938 national newspapers in Britain, at that time carrying
“Drink More Milk” advertisements, refused to accept a
British Medical Association advertisement that asked “Is
ALL MILK Safe to Drink?” and advocated testing for
tuberculosis germs. The London Daily Express even
turned down the modified advertisement counseling
“Drink Safe Milk.” More recently a British company

In December 1962 this poster advertising a

British newspaper series provoked an extra¬
ordinary act of censorship. Soon after it
appeared, it was banned by the major space
sellers and by the billposting companies, pre-
296 sumably in response to political pressure.

"*/*,<*
Below: a modem example of intrusive adver¬
tising—a giant, three-dimensional construction
on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
owning hoardings for posters refused to exhibit a Ministry
of Health poster warning that cigarette smoking may lead
to cancer, partly no doubt because the tobacco firms are
one of its major sources of revenue.
Poster advertisements have long been a target of
critics on other grounds. Their siting has sometimes made
them one of civilization’s major eyesores. They have also
been a hazard to road safety by distracting motorists from
the road ahead. In recent years, however, much has been
done, both by legislation and by people in advertising
itself, to meet these criticisms.
Far more obtrusive than poster advertising is loud¬
speaker advertising, which enjoys what has been des¬
cribed as a “captive audience.” The victims can only
endure or flee. The late Harold Ross, editor of the New
Yorker, who led a successful campaign against the use of
this kind of advertising on public transport in Washing¬
ton, summed up the issue in these words: “The issue of
the captive audience is simply the issue of the life con¬
templative . . . whether a citizen has a right to twirl his
thoughts around as he pleases, or whether his thoughts
may be twirled around at the pleasure (and profit) of a
transit company. ...”
Equally strong objections have been made to “sub¬
liminal” advertising, which depends on the fact that both
aural and visual impressions can be made on the mind
without the person concerned being aware of them. The
first operational experiment in subliminal advertising was
in a movie theatre in New Jersey, U.S.A., in 1957* The
words “Coca-Cola” and “Eat Popcorn” were flashed on
to the screen so rapidly that the audience was not con¬
scious of them, but according to the company that made
the experiment, sales of Coca-Cola went up by a sixth
and sales of popcorn by a half. Although it is doubtful
that subliminal communication could make anyone do
anything they did not want to do, the advertising pro¬
fession as a whole has shunned it because of the fears of
unconscious indoctrination, especially in the field of
political ideas, that it has raised.
Legislation and the conscience of advertising men have
between them curbed many of the worst excesses of
advertising. But the question still remains: “What is a
fair claim?” It is here that the advice of consumer-
protection societies which test and compare goods can be
invaluable. Their activities encourage the public to view
advertisements dispassionately and impel the men who
make them to moderate their claims. Behind the work of
such organizations lies the belief that, as in politics, free¬
dom of choice is meaningless unless we really understand
what we are choosing between.
Sky-writing over Paris. The use of this spec¬
tacular form of advertising (common in the
United States) is controlled in many European
countries. In France and Italy it cannot be
practiced without a special permit; and it has been
banned in Britain since 1962. 297
Chapter 15

Propaganda and Opinion

Both science and history teach us that what one genera¬

tion considers to be irrefutable may be refuted by the
next. But when men believe passionately in something, it
becomes for them not opinion, but truth. What is more,
in the service of what they consider to be a greater truth,
they are often prepared to ignore or suppress “lesser”
truths. We have seen this both in the modern totalitarian
State and in the medieval Church. Martin Luther
(l4:^3 !546), the leading figure of the Reformation,
advising Philip of Hesse, one of the Protestant princes of
Germany, to conceal his remarriage after he had
divorced his first wife, exhorted him to tell “a great bold
lie for the good of the Christian Church.” The Spaniard,
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556 , who founded the Jesuit
order as the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation,
declared: “If the Church preaches that a thing which
appears to us as white is black, we must proclaim it black
immediately.”
It has always been the duty of the true believer to
spread the faith by propaganda. Indeed, the word itself
came into the language from the Congregatio de Propa¬
ganda Fide, a committee of cardinals set up by the pope
in 1633 to oversee the work of missionaries of the Church
of Rome. (The Latin words mean literally, “council con¬
cerning the faith that should be propagated.” Nowadays
we say, “Oh, it’s all propaganda,” meaning that we don’t
believe a word of it. But propaganda simply means a more
or less systematic effort to spread a doctrine or practice.
The word has become derogatory because men have
seldom scrupled to lie or to distort the truth in order to
persuade others that their cause is right, and so to gather
power behind it. In fact, propaganda can be honest or “Vote Yes [for Algerian independ¬
dishonest; while its purpose might be to appeal for our ence]” exhorted 1961 French refer¬
help for the hungry or . to make us hate another race of endum posters. Political slogans—
printed, painted, or scrawled—are a
people. familiar sight in city streets all over
We are apt to attribute an almost magical power to the world; but a chat over a drink in a
propaganda. In this chapter we examine its powers and local bar often plays a bigger part in
forming our opinions than party
its limitations in forming and changing our opinions. propaganda or mass-media journalism.

298
Forming opinions

We all tend to hold opinions in clusters. People who

think, say, that the main emphasis in the treatment of
criminals should be on reform instead of on punishment,
are also likely to hold liberal opinions about the up¬
bringing of children and the divorce laws. These clusters
of opinion reflect basic attitudes rooted in the character of
the individual by his own upbringing.
The individual’s basic or “nuclear” personality is
largely formed in the first five or six years of his life. It is
during these early years that he acquires his basic
attitudes or outlook. If he is very strictly brought up, he
will tend to become intolerant in his attitude toward
others. Too rigorous pot-training in infanthood, for
instance, often engenders a lifelong obsession with
cleanliness, order, and discipline. On the other hand, of
course, he may react against his upbringing.
Normally, throughout life a person will be attracted to
only those particular creeds or ideologies that are (or at
least appear to him to be) consistent with the basic
attitudes instilled in him during his childhood. If he has
learned, for instance, always to be submissive to the An Australian aborigine boy painted for an initiation
authority of his father, he will probably have an authori¬ ceremony to mark his entry into another age group. All
tarian outlook in later life. He may be converted from one races and religions use rituals to reinforce the individual's
emotional identification with the group. Christian
authoritarian creed to another (as Communists have confirmation is one example; another is the daily flag¬
been converted to fascism and fascists to Communism, or raising ceremony in American schools.
as political bigotry has been swapped for religious
bigotry). But a genuine change from an authoritarian to
a libertarian outlook rarely, if ever, takes place.
There are two main reasons for the stability of these
basic attitudes. The first is that they are based on the
emotional need that a child has for its parents’ love and
approval; a need that it transfers, as it grows up, to
particular social groups and to society as a whole. The
second is that earlier experiences are particularly power¬
ful because they influence our interpretation of later
4ri*'t*.
experiences.
The formation of attitudes is part of the process that
psychologists call socialization. It begins with the child’s
relations with its parents. It is the largely unconscious
function of the family to mold the child to fit the society
into which he has been born. His code of sexual
morality, for example, will not be the same if he has been
brought up in Samoa (where sexual relationships are in
some ways freer as if he is a product of Western society.
A child’s class background is equally important. For
instance, in industrial societies the attitude of working-
class people to the police tends to be different from that of
the middle classes. In the portrait of the working classes in
Northern England that Richard Hoggart draws in The
Uses of Literacy, he remarks that “they tend to regard the

Beneath a portrait of the Chinese Communist leader Mao

Tse-tung and the slogan “Educate yourself to become a
cultured workerchildren learn about the “new” China.
State nursery school education gives the Communist
Party influence over the minds of citizens from a tender age.
 Conservatives Whole electorate Labor

policeman primarily as someone who is watching them,

who represents the authority which has its eye on them,
rather than as a member of the public services whose job
it is to help them. They are close to the police and know
something of the bullying and petty corruption that can
sometimes exist.”
The view that we do not adopt opinions simply because
they strike us as good ideas, is borne out by the close
correspondence between social class and voting patterns.,
In some European countries the relationship is compli¬
cated by the existence of political parties that (like the
Christian Democrats in Italy and West Germany
base their appeal to the electorate partly on allegiance
I Higher professional Lower white-collar

■
to the Roman Catholic Church. But in America and 1 and business and lower professional
Britain the general pattern is clear: Most working-class
people vote for the radical parties (the Democratic Party 1 Middle professional
1 and business Manual workers
in the United States and the Labour Party in Britain
while most middle- and upper-class people vote for Small business and
the conservative parties (the Republican Party in higher white-collar

the United States and the Conservative & Unionist

Party in Britain). In Britain s traditional voting pattern, manual workers
vote Labour, middle and upper classes vote Conservative.
Of course, these patterns not only reflect social back¬
As this 1950 analysis shows, however, that pattern has
ground but correspond to self-interest, too. In general, a long since changed. Between 30 % and 40 % of manual
radical party will give more to the lower classes and take workers now vote Conservative. As the text explains,
changes of this kind may reflect increased affluence.
more from the higher classes, while a conservative party
will benefit the middle and upper classes more. We would
expect to see a change in social status effect a change in
political opinions. And, as a general rule, the more
prosperous working-class people become, the more
moderate become their opinions, although this tendency
is partially offset by the force of habit and of group
loyalties.
In a nationwide sample of the political attitude of
11 oo people from different occupational groups, the
American sociologist Richard Centers found that whereas
five sevenths of the semi-skilled manual workers had a
clear preference for radical political action, only three
sevenths of the skilled manual workers held radical
opinions. In another sample Paul Lazarfeld, of Columbia
University, reported: “And with each step down the SES
(socio-economic scale the proportion of Republicans
decreased and the proportion of Democrats corres¬
pondingly increased.”
Many other factors beside social class affect voting
behavior. For example, women tend to be more con¬
servative than men, while the proportion of radical
voters is greater generally among the young and the old
than among the middle-aged. But it is broadly true that,
to quote Lazarfeld again, “Social characteristics deter¬
mine political preferences.”

A congregation of more than 30,000 worshipers at an

Easter service in the Hollywood Bowl amphitheatre. Some
80 per cent of Americans belong to one church or another.
Such group loyalties {p. 304) will influence the individual's
attitudes, helping both to mold and to reinforce them.
 Measuring public opinion

SOFTBSSETTC

CHRIST RBEL
PfcNKHURST

No government, whether it be autocratic or representa¬ In London in 1913 suffragettes parade with sandwich
boards bearing propaganda slogans in three languages
tive, can afford completely to ignore public opinion. during their campaign for the vote for women. Before
Even a dictator may be swept away by the unforseen public-opinion polling was developed, it was very difficult
to measure the support for such campaigns.
violence of public reaction to an unpopular policy, and
the way that modern dictators such as Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini used propaganda to mold people’s
thoughts showed that they were well aware of this. But
the need to know accurately what people are thinking is
much greater where rulers are elected by the whole
country in open competition with candidates supporting
different policies. Votes themselves are an expression of
public opinion, but the politician wants to know its
strength and mood long before elections take place, so
that he can trim his policies to suit it or do his utmost to
counter opposition before it is too late.
Before the development of scientifically conducted
public opinion polling in the 1930s, various methods were
used to measure public opinion. Some of these methods
such as the size of the White House mailbag the
number of letters or telegrams sent to the American
president to express views on particular issues—or the
number of telephone calls to a broadcasting organization
commenting on programs) are still used as rough and
ready guides. But how misleading the results of such
methods can be was shown during the American presiden¬
tial election campaign of 1936. On the strength of two
million replies to a postcard ballot, the Literary Digest
predicted a win for Landon, the Republic candidate.
Its prediction proved to have an error of no less than 19
per cent, whereas the Gallup Poll, based on a sample of

The late U.S. president John F. Kennedy answers a

reporter s question at a press conference. The president's
periodic press conferences help the American government
to gauge public reaction to its policies.
only 3000 people, correctly forecast Roosevelt’s victory,
with an error of under 5 per cent.
The main reason for the Literary Digest's failure was that
its sample, despite its size, was unrepresentative; like its
readers, it was mainly drawn from middle-class people.
Gallup’s small sample, on the other hand, was drawn in
about the right proportions from each class and region.
That is to say, the numbers polled in each class were in
the same ratio to the total number of people in the
country who belonged to that class.
The average error in election forecasts is now about
3 per cent. Of course, any error may be enough to in¬
validated forecast in a close fight, as happened in the U.S.
presidential election of 1948, when Truman’s victory
refuted the predictions of the pollsters. But small errors
are less important where general expressions of opinion
are concerned, and they can be largely eliminated by the
careful use of good polling techniques.
Sampling (deciding whom to ask) is one of the three
main problems of polling; the others are interviewing
(deciding what to ask and interpreting (deciding how dhrisJfic*
to assess the answers). The second problem is not as sozial
simple as it sounds. Questions have to be formulated so
that they will be clearly understood and will not suggest
that one answer is right and any other wrong. They may
require a simple “yes” or “no,” or they may pose
alternatives. One factor that may falsify the results is an
unconscious wish to please the interviewer or to conceal
from him an opinion that is commonly regarded as
discreditable. And when it comes to assessing the
answers, it is quite easy to draw unjustified conclusions.
For instance, transient opinions, or opinions that would
normally be qualified, may be misinterpreted as general
attitudes.
Politicians sometimes complain that the publication
of a poll of voting intentions affects the actual voting.
Since public opinion fluctuates, it is difficult either to
prove or to disprove this contention, though it is certainly
a human tendency to want to be on the winning side.
But in any case, public opinion polling has many more
practical uses than forecasting the results, of elections.
Just as market research (p. 289 helps manufacturers to
gauge the demand for a particular product, so the
techniques of polling are being increasingly used by
government agencies in economic planning. For example,
the British post office found out through polling that
London telephone subscribers hardly ever used the Outer
London directories. They were therefore withdrawn,
saving several thousand tons of paper and over £150,000
($420,000 every year.

Opposing parties call for support in Swiss federal

elections. Switzerland is one of the countries where,
apart from elections, public feeling may be directly
gauged by holding referendums on specific issues.

MUST
CHILDREN DIE
AND MOTHERS
PLEAD IN VAIN
, ? «
A U.S. Government poster of World War I appealing for
saving to help the war effort. The initial Liberty Bond
campaigns were a great success but, as the organizers
discovered, in propaganda as in advertising over¬
reinforcement leads to a falling-off of support.
Persuasion and resistance
From the moment of his birth the individual is a member
of a group- the family. As he grows up he joins other
groups— groups of playmates, of schoolfellows, of work¬
mates, and so on. He also belongs to a class, which is
itself one of the major divisions of a national society. His
class is generally determined by the social status of his
father. Most of his other memberships are also rather the
result of things that have happened to him than of
decisions that he has taken, though he may have deli¬
berately joined those more formal groups to which he
probably belongs (trade unions, political parties, clubs,
Churches, and so forth . He will identify himself with all
of these groups in varying degrees, but in general the
informal groups—beginning with the family itself will
influence him most.
Except in very small closely-knit societies where
tradition has never seriously been questioned, the groups
that collectively constitute a national society will have at
least partially conflicting interests. The individual’s
loyalty to the groups to which he belongs points to one of
the major limitations of the mass media as a means of
persuading people. A classic study of a sample of 600
inhabitants of Erie County, Ohio, during the American
presidential campaign of 1940 found that party propa¬
ganda through the press and broadcasting failed almost
entirely to change people’s minds as to which way they
would vote. On the contrary, its main effect was to
reinforce their original views. The fact that those who
favored the Republicans in the first place read and
listened to Republican propaganda almost exclusively,
while those who favored the Democrats read and listened
to Democrat propaganda almost exclusively, suggests
that they were seeking for reassurance that they were
right rathe; than enlightenment.
The study also showed that people who belonged to the
same group (family, Church, club, and so on usually
voted the same way. In effect, group decisions were taken
after discussion between the members, who were more
influenced by their own “opinion leaders” than by the
mass media campaign itself. This suggests concern for the
approval of the group rather than strong feelings about
the issues involved, especially as much of the members’
knowledge of the issues reached them at second hand, as
interpreted by the opinion leaders.
The opinion leaders themselves were found to read
more political reviews and news magazines such as Time
and to listen and look at radio and television programs
dealing with politics and current affairs more often
than the average person in the group. The status of an
opinion leader in the group naturally depends on his
Young “Pioneers” distribute swatters to passers-by in
Urumchi, Sinkiang, during a vast and successful campaign
to reduce the number of flies in Communist China.
The planning and co-ordination of national efforts to
improve living conditions is one of the biggest problems
in underdeveloped countries.

A person s tastes and opinions are intimately related
to his group affiliations and especially to his “key
reference group." These Japanese teenagers have more in
common with Western teenagers (their key reference
group) than with most other Japanese groups.
being better informed than the average member. Thus he
is more open to direct influence through the mass media.
Nevertheless, the opinion leader is as firmly anchored in
the group as any other member; he shares its standards
and outlook, and in the long run it influences him more
than he influences it.
The resistance of the group to outside influences that
do not fit into its general outlook applies not only to
political propaganda but also to the most objectively
presented information and reasoned argument. In 1947 a
six-months5 campaign was waged to tell the people of
Cincinnati, Ohio, about the United Nations. Public
meetings, pamphlets, posters, press features, and broad¬
casts were all brought into play. But at the end of the
campaign the percentage of the adult population that
was almost wholly ignorant of the general aims of the
United Nations had been reduced by only 2 from 30
to 28.
Group resistance is seen again in the relative failure of
efforts to eradicate social prejudice, as with the Indian
Government’s campaign to change the attitude of higher
Hindu castes towards the Harijans, or “Untouchables,”
or with the ceaseless efforts to improve the status of
Negroes in America, where the great weight of open
propaganda is against the color bar. Psychologists are in
general agreed that since anti-social attitudes are held by
groups rather than by isolated individuals they can be
effectively tackled only through the group, and then only
by suggestion and by encouraging the group to find out
for itself, not by direct instruction, for to imply that
people are wrong is to arouse their resistance.
The great success of advertising as a form of persuasion
p. 282 may seem to contradict these findings, but ad¬
vertisements exploit rather than challenge a person’s
more deeply rooted attitudes, and so do not set up resist¬
ance. And as we shall see, propagandists also employ this
technique.
But if the mass media are much less potent than is
popularly supposed in forming our opinions, they can
still be effective in persuading us to act on them. All sorts
of campaigns are carried on with their help, both by
government agencies and by private organizations. They
range from campaigns for road safety and health and
hygiene to appeals for donations to good causes. The
mass media are also valuable tools for teaching both
general subjects and special skills. (Their use in this role
is discussed more fully on pages 264 arid 275.) However,
the possibilities of using the mass media for teaching are
still largely unexplored, while as a channel for political
propaganda they have already been fully exploited.
Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
Negro children of a Black Muslim community gaze at
Egyptian art created, they are taught, by their ancestors.
In opposition to the call for integration between America's
Negroes and whites, the anti-white, anti-Christian Black
Muslims advocate total separation. 305
 Ej i |*V
jQ Group propaganda

jiTfli
mm tgL
As this 1881 news picture of the mobbing of a procession
in a London street shows, in its early days the Salvation
Army met with much hostility in working-class areas;
but it gradually won respect through its concern for
material as well as spiritual welfare.
We have seen that a person’s opinions are largely for¬
mulated through discussion with other members of the
groups to which he belongs (p. 304 . The main purpose
of some groups is to propagate their own views and to
further their own interests. Those views and interests
may be relatively limited in scope (as, for example, with
a trade association or an association for the protection of
children or animals , or they may be more or less all-
embracing. The program of a political party, for instance,
usually touches on most aspects of community life.
The British Conservative prime minister Benjamin
Disraeli 1804-81 described the political party as
“organized opinion.” But a party must do much more
than organize already existing opinions if it is to win
power and achieve its ends. It must persuade as many
people as it can to accept its policy and to vote for it.
Many of the most successful politicians have intui¬
tively understood what the psychologists confirm that
facts and reason are seldom the most effective tools of
persuasion. In 1963 the chairman of the Republican
Party in Colorado advised Republicans: “Be emotional.
Reach for people’s guts; that’s where they live. If people
thought before they voted, Nixon would be President.”
His concluding words illustrate one important role of
party propaganda. Their purpose is not conversion but
reinforcement. They aim to rally the forces of those already
convinced that the party is right.
Richard Nixon himself gave one of the most masterly
performances of emotional propaganda in modern times
in 1952, when he was running for the U.S. vice-presi¬
dency alongside General Eisenhower, the Republican
candidate for the presidency. Nixon had been accused of
unfair practices in raising funds to support his campaign.
He replied to the charges in a nation-wide television
broadcast that has been described by the American com¬
mentator Edward R. Murrow as “probably the single
most effective use of television in politics.” One of the
most telling parts of his reply was his confession that he
had accepted the gift of a cocker spaniel from a supporter.
Saying that his six-year-old daughter, Tricia, had named
it Checkers, he told viewers: “And you know, the kids
love that dog.” Another key point was his reference to his
Irish-American wife. “I’m not a quitter,” he said, “and
incidentally Pat is not a quitter. After all, her name was
Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and
you know the Irish never quit.”
Ed Murrow reports: “The result was sensational
telegrams, telephone calls, came pouring in, Eisenhower
and Nixon staged a reunion, posed for pictures with arms
around each other . . . Without question, Nixon was

Many groups of an authoritarian nature build up an

almost religious cult around the figure of their leader
{p. 313). Thus the ruling party in Ghana calls Kwame
Nkrumah Osagyefo (“savior”) and has erected a giant
statue (drawing left) to his honor in Accra.
 YEARS OF DUST
saved by television . . . the climate of opinion could not
have been changed so quickly had television not been
available to transmit throughout the country this
amazing performance which caused many people to
weep, and only a few to laugh.”
It is interesting to compare this television performance
with another emotional but otherwise very different
political campaign of the days before broadcasting. This
was the campaign of William Ewart Gladstone 1809 98),
leader of the British Liberal Party and Disraeli’s great
rival, to win sympathy for the Bulgarian people, whose
revolt against the Turks had been savagely suppiessed in
1875 76. The massacre of 12,000 Bulgarian Christians
was denounced by Gladstone in a pamphlet that sold
40,000 copies in four days and roused anti-Turkish anger.
But only 20 years earlier Britain and France had been
allied with Turkey in fighting against the Russians in
RESETTLEMENT
the Crimea. The British people had been taught to fear
Rescues Victims
the Russian “bogey” and to think of Turkey as a bulwark Restores Land to
against Russian imperialism. A year after the Turkish
massacre of the Bulgarians, Russia went to war against
Turkey, compelled her to accept the creation of a big
Bulgarian state, and virtually forced the Turks out of
Europe. Almost at once feeling in Britain changed in
Turkey’s favor. A popular music-hall song summed up
the mood:

“We don’t want to fight,

During the world-wide depression of the 1930s the
But by jingo if we do, plight oj America's small farmers was aggravated
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve by severe soil erosion. The poster above by Ben
Shahn publicized New Deal efforts of the adminis¬
got the money too!” trations of President Roosevelt (inset).

Under pressure from Britain, Prussia, and Austria,

Russia backed down, and accepted the Treaty of Berlin,
which gave back two thirds of Bulgaria to the Turks.
Prime Minister Disraeli came home from Berlin claiming
that he had won “Peace with Honour.” But Gladstone
continued to demand the expulsion of “the unspeakable
Turk” from Europe “bag and baggage.” His passionate
speeches against Disraeli’s pro-Turkish policies swept the
Conservatives from office in the general election of 1880.
Gladstone showed that it was possible for a politician
to win support from the general public by appealing to
the highest moral sentiments. Half a century earlier such
a campaign would have been neither necessary nor
possible. It would not have been necessary because the
electorate was then confined to a very small section of
the population; it would not have been possible because
the first means of reaching a large public quickly and
repeatedly the mass-circulation newspaper had not
yet been developed. SEND HELP SOON
****»«»

Advertising techniques nutv he harnessed to

political, economic, social, or even moral per¬
suasion as in this Oxford Committee for Famine
OXFAM
Relief poster calling on those who have to give
generously to those who have not. OXFORD COMMITTEE FOR FAMINE RELIEF

Above: “Swim if you can, and if you re too wc/A,
go under!" -a maxim from The Robbers by the
German poet Schiller savagely illustrated by Ger¬
many's George Grosz (1893-1959). Grosz dedi¬
cated his talents to the struggle for a just society,
proclaiming to his fellow artists: “ Your brushes
and your pens which should be weapons are hollow
straws." Below: “... He took water and washed
his hands . . a comment by David Low (see
text) on the democracies' appeasement of fascism.
Britain's recognition of Italy's conquest of
Abyssinia is symbolized by Neville Chamberlain
playing Pilate to Mussolini's Roman emperor.
Political cartoons
The cartoon is one of the most effective forms of propa¬
ganda; yet it cannot argue and its capacity to inform
is very limited. This in fact is its strength. It presupposes
knowledge and understanding of a social or political
situation. It is a sort of visual slogan that, if successful,
tells the reader what he already knows or believes to be
true but in a way that sums up his feelings and expresses
his opinion to perfection. And it can only do this because
of its simplicity, its distillation of the essence of a particu¬
lar case that is almost bound to be only one side of the
story. So subtle in form that to change a single stroke by a
hair breadth could weaken its effect, it is essentially
unsubtle in content. But unlike a slogan, it stands no
chance of convincing us with a lie or a distortion. If we
do not instantly feel that we recognize a truth in it
because we have already had similar thoughts ourselves,
we reject it out of hand.
Caricature (p. ioo is one common device in political
cartoons. Another is symbolism, which is one of the
means that enable an artist to say so much in purely
visual terms. Some symbols have become part of the
common vocabulary of cartoonists, although they are
not used as often as they used to be. Examples are the
stereotyped figures representing different nations, such as
Uncle Sam for America, John Bull or Britannia for Great
Britain. Sometimes animals are used, such as a bear for
Russia, an eagle for America, a cock or a pekinese for
France, a dachshund for Germany, and a bulldog or a
lion for Britain. Other human figures or animals stand
for ideas: a dove or a woman holding an olive branch for
peace, a huge armed and bearded warrior for war, a
blindfolded woman holding a pair of scales for justice,
and so on.
At other times cartoonists invent some of the symbols
they need, as the great British cartoonist David Low
(1891 1963 did, for instance, with the carthorse stand¬
ing for the trade unions) and Colonel Blimp ia choleric
and reactionary empire-builder . Other symbols like
those of the fat cigar-smoking boss, the brawny worker,
and the little man in the bowler hat who represents the
bureaucrat—are immediately obvious. Unless and
until a symbol becomes universally recognized by the
cartoonist’s public, it is not really fully effective, because
the cartoon’s power comes partly from instantaneous
response.
Most political cartoons are too closely linked with the
time and place in which they were created to stir us long
after the event on which they are commenting has passed
(although, as those reproduced on these pages show they
can form a vivid permanent record of a historical period.
A few, touching us more deeply by their passionate
concern for mankind, may move future as well as present
generations.

“The Russian bear—the most dangerous of all
bears" so the great French satirical artist
Honore Daumier (1808 79) saw the menace of
Russian imperialism one hundred years ago, at
the time of the Crimean War.
“The Workers' Paradise." In this cartoon, with
Stalin perched on top of a pyramid supported by
the workers, the English artist John Olday
depicts Stalin's Russia as a mockery of the equali-
tarian ideals of its Communist rulers.

These Indian Army officers, dressed for the hunt, conform
to the habits and attitudes of a social class that has its
counterpart in every country. The Ootacumund Hunt,
to which they belong, .v//// imports hounds from famous
English hunts so as to keep up the local breed.
Conforming and dissenting
The personality is a social product. It is not developed in
isolation, but in interaction, in communication with
others. And to a great extent our views of ourselves are
reflections though often distorted reflections of other
people’s views of us. In a very real sense, we get to know
ourselves through others.
The nuclear or basic personality (p. 300 is normally
formed in a relatively small group— the family or clan
and is more or less permanent. But each of us belongs to
many groups (p. 304 , and our role in each of them is
different. This is not only because the groups themselves
have different functions, but because in order to fit into
them we adapt our personalities to some extent at
least. We may, for instance, be shy in one group and
ebullient or even overbearing in another, according to the
measure of confidence we feel in our acceptance by the
group.
These adaptations are largely unconscious, though of
course we sometimes consciously suppress some part of
our character (for example, a tendency to make flippant
or ribald jokes) that is not acceptable to a particular
group in which we find ourselves, while giving it free rein
in other situations. Our characters are not, in any case,
all of a piece, but contain diverse and contradictory traits
that will flourish or wither in different circumstances. The
important point is that personality adaptations are
changes in emphasis rather than changes in basic
attitudes. They form part of what psychologists call the
peripheral personality.
It is a natural tendency to conform to already estab¬
lished patterns of behavior and belief. “When in Rome,
do as the Romans do,” we say. We hold many of our
opinions as a matter of course, because they are normal
in our particular society, social class, or group. We may
express genuine surprise if they are called in question,
because we have simply accepted them from others
without ever really thinking about them. On the other
hand, we may profess to hold opinions that, consciously
or unconsciously, we reject, because we are frightened or
ashamed to admit our real views, even perhaps to
ourselves.
For one reason or another, then, it is normal to con¬
form. Though, as we pointed out on p. 304, in complex
societies the effects of this tendency are partly counter¬
acted by the division into different social and functional
groups groups that expect to differ and to conflict with
other groups. General acceptance of certain standards
of behavior is, of course, necessary to the stability of
society. But a society in which all dissent was suppressed
would be unable to adapt itself to changes in the world.
In protest against a society that tolerates the hardships
and poverty of life in places like this small Sicilian
town, Danilo Dolci {above) gave up a promising career
as an architect to help people win a better life.

In Soviet Russia abstract art is still officially condemned
as mimicking “decadent” Western culture. Some artists,
however, like the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, who is an
admirer of the work of the British sculptor Henry Moore,
refuse to follow the Party line.
Nor could it make internal social, cultural, or economic
progress. It would not be a living society but a fossil. Such
a society is, in fact, inconceivable, but there is an ob¬
servable (though not directi relationship between the
degree of dissent tolerated in societies and their rate of
economic and cultural development. Medieval society,
for instance, was relatively stagnant, but the flood of new
ideas and opinions that we call the Renaissance and
Reformation movements broke through the barriers of
traditional thought and carried society along with it.
In most ages new ideas have usually been slow to win
acceptance, but like the developments in techniques of
communication (such as printing and broadcasting) that
have so greatly speeded up their dissemination, ideas
have a cumulative effect. The more one grows accus¬
tomed to hearing new ideas, the less automatically strange
and alien do all new ideas seem. In our own times, new
states in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean are adopting
new ideas (of organization and production, for instance'
very rapidly indeed, especially when one considers how
relatively simple their traditional forms of society have in
many cases been. However, these newly adopted ideas
sometimes harden into rigid orthodoxies, deviations from
which are not permitted by the ruling party.
One way or another, dissenting opinions always find
an outlet and so play their part in changing a society.
Their influence may gradually bring about a more
tolerant and flexible form of society, as they have begun
to do in Soviet Russia since World War II (and especially
since the death of Stalin). But suppression of opinion
always carries with it the danger of violent social ex¬
plosion —of political assassination, riot, and revolution.
Most of the countries of Western Europe and those over¬
seas nations mainly peopled by Europeans have evolved
institutions—channels, you might say to allow (within
certain limits) free expression to conflicts of interest and
opinion. Examples of such institutions are free elections,
parliamentary lobbying, demonstrations, and a press
free from direct state control. They act as safety valves,
but have a more positive value too. The free play of
opinion allows individuals to find out what ideas suit
them best and to try to modify the groups and society to
which they belong.
What may happen when dissent can find no peace¬
ful outlet was shown dramatically in Hungary in
October 1956, when a whole nation rose against
internal tyranny and foreign oppression. Here
rebels in Budapest destroy the huge statue oj
Stalin—symbol of Russian domination.
311
Indoctrination and authority

Like the word propaganda, indoctrination has come to

have a derogatory meaning. It comes from the Medieval
Latin word doctrinare, to teach, and of course, in this
sense we all undergo indoctrination by our parents, by
our teachers, and by those with some kind of authority
over us in later life. (And in our turn we, too, indoctrinate
others. This authority may be one of social status or of
power, or it may be an intellectual authority—the
authority of one who knows or appears to know more. To
the young child, for instance, the parent embodies both
the authority of power and that of knowledge.
The veneration that people have for intellectual
authority was strikingly illustrated by two American
sociologists, Sorokin and Boldyreff, who on two separate
occasions played the same recording of part of Brahm’s
First Symphony to the same group of nearly 1500
American students. On the first occasion the music was
praised in an introductory talk; while on the second the
students were told that it was a poor imitation of a well-
known masterpiece. Only 4 per cent of the students
recognized that the recordings were identical; while 59
A Russian-built tank rumbles through Liberation Square,
per cent of them accepted the statement that they were Baghdad, beneath a mural praising peace. Like many new
poles apart in musical quality, merely because they nations, the Republic of Iraq has had strong-man or father-
figure government since its establishment in 1958.
believed their informants to be authorities on music. Of
the others, 16 per cent disagreed with the judgment of
the “experts” and 21 per cent could not make up their
minds which was better. Experiments show that even
on such questions as which of two lines is longer people
may be afraid to express a correct minority opinion.
The appeal to authority is one of the basic techniques
of persuasion. Advertisers use it to sell their products
perhaps by simply referring to its use by some celebrity,
perhaps by claiming that it is recommended by experts

“Beneath the mask of peace." So runs this 1920 Soviet
poster denouncing the anti-Soviet Western entente.
Posters play a big part in Soviet mass-indoctrination.
Unmasked figure is a typical capitalist “werewolf"
(who usually remain anonymous , perhaps by the use of
high-sounding scientific terms; churchmen and politi¬
cians use it to “sell” their doctrines. The emotional
strength of this kind of appeal springs from childhood
conditioning from the child’s love for and submission to
its parents, and especially to its father. Of course, we
accept statements on many subjects because, from what
we already know about the subjects, the statements do
not seem fantastic, and because we have no reason to
doubt the knowledge and honesty of the person who
makes them. But in other cases the authority may be
accepted as a kind of unconscious father-substitute.
It is not surprising, then, that creeds and ideologies of
an authoritarian nature openly exploit the image of the
father-figure. Some nations, like Russia, have hardly
ever been without a father-figure. The tsar used to be
called the Russian people’s “Little Father,” and many of
them, especially among the peasants, had a pathetic faith
in his power and willingness to help them.
New nations often accept a father-figure as a symbol
of their unity; so do old nations that have lost confidence
in themselves after periods of intense civil strife. Usually
the man who fills this role is the leader of the ruling party
in a state in which opposition parties are not allowed. To
maintain a unity that is really felt to be precarious, mass
indoctrination is practiced, and the central tenet in such
indoctrination is that the leader is both very good and
very wise, and that he should be trusted absolutely an
extension, in fact, of “Daddy (or Mummy) knows what is
best for you.” But this kind of appeal is not made only by
totalitarian parties. The human tendency to accept the
judgment of established authority on trust is the basis of
all organizations, parties, and groups in which members
have different ranks or degrees of authority.
Deliberate indoctrination apart, it is now widely
recognized that in a sense we are also indoctrinated by
our whole environment, and particularly by our child¬
hood environment. (Nazi propaganda, for example, bred
on the galloping inflation and mass unemployment that
plagued Germany after World War I.) Beside its general
influence on the kind of society we shape as adults, this
sort of indoctrination has a particular bearing on such
important problems as delinquency and crime. Only
a healthy environment can produce a healthy society.
An important part of this kind of health is a general
attitude of independent-mindedness. It is not a question
of whether we accept or reject what an authority says,
but of whether we do so out of our own knowledge and
judgment, or simply because we have abdicated from the
responsibility of making independent decisions.
“Who buys from the Jews is a traitor" says the poster on the extreme
left. The Nazis whipped up fear and hatred of the Jews to unify Germany
under their leadership—symbolized by Goring's famous “we can't
have guns and butter" speech {left). Their indoctrination of youth
was so successful that children spied even on their own parents.
Brainwashing

Shortly after the outbreak of war between North and

South Korea in June 1950, an American officer who had
been captured by the North Koreans broadcast a
propaganda message on their behalf denouncing the
“aggression” of the “capitalist monopolies of the U.S.A.”
This was the first sign to the outside world that the
Communists were subjecting prisoners of war to the
process of indoctrination that has been called brain¬
washing. It later turned out that one third of all American
prisoners and a slightly lower proportion of British
prisoners had collaborated with the enemy. This revela¬
tion intensified fears that mind control was a practical
possibility fears aroused by such extraordinary events
as the great Communist Party show trials in Soviet
Russia during the 1930s.
These fears have some scientific basis. For instance,
during this century the treatment of mental disorders
by cerebral surgery, drugs, and shock treatment has
sometimes produced apparent personality changes. And,
too, there are the experiments of the Russian physiologist
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov 1849-1936 on the nervous
systems of dogs. Pavlov found that if an association
between a stimulus and an event (such as a ringing bell
and the provision of food were first established in a dog’s
mind and then confused for example, by altering the Above: The power of group emotion to overeome normal
reactions is shown by the snake-handling Christian cults
period between stimulus and event or by altering the of America. When a state of trance has been induced
strength of the stimulus), the nervous stress set up even¬ by music, dancing, and rhythmic hand clapping, devotees
tually caused a mental breakdown. The time it took for a show no fear of the poisonous snakes.

breakdown to occur varied not only according to the Below: A remarkable feature of the great Communist
way the dog was treated, but also according to its tem¬ purge trials in Russia in 1936 38 was the success the
prosecutors had in inducing veteran revolutionaries, who
perament and physical condition. A dog weakened by showed no signs of ill-treatment, to confess to having
fever or exhausting work broke down more quickly than a betrayed their ideals. The fact that the brainwashed
dog in good condition. victims were swiftly executed, however, makes it im¬
possible for us to judge whether the effects of the brain¬
Pavlov’s discoveries help us to understand the behavior washing would have been permanent. {Photos of the trials
of human beings in situations that cause strong excite¬ are no longer available.)
ment or anxiety. The use of stimuli to assist in . the in¬
doctrination of beliefs is probably as old as man himself.
Examples are drumming and chanting, military bands
and torchlight processions, narcotic drugs, alcohol, and
incense. In many of these examples the stimuli are
strengthened by the contagiousness of crowd emotions,
so that each individual becomes not only an object but a
source of stimulus. The physical condition of the partici¬
pants is also important. Thus fasting is an aid to worship;
while tribal dancing is frequently performed to the
point of utter exhaustion.
In the above cases, the participants presumably are
more or less willing. But the same kinds of stimuli can
be used to force a prisoner to break down and “confess.”
Fierce lights and shrill noises, for instance, have been

314
used in this way and we all know from everyday life
how such things “get on one’s nerves.” During Com¬
munist campaigns in East Germany to force farmers to
accept collective farming, platoons of party workers
moved into the villages and bombarded the inhabitants
with a ceaseless stream of propaganda. Stubborn farmers
were kept awake at night by bright lights and loud¬
speakers; the propagandists hardly left their sides or
stopped talking at them until they gave in.
Harrying by unpleasant stimulation of the senses may
be alternated by the withdrawal of normal stimuli. Such
deprivation is a normal element of prison life, and in¬
deed of most institutional life, from that of convents and
monasteries to that of hospitals, reformatories, military
camps, and so on. For example, the individual loses his
own clothes and nobody asks him what he would like to
eat; and naturally there is less variety of social stimuli.
All this may eventually lead to neurosis, as it sometimes
does among people who spend long periods in hospital.
In the case of a prisoner a refusal to cooperate fully with
the authorities may be punished by more extreme forms
of deprivation, such as solitary confinement. Such con¬
ditions, especially if combined with lack of food and
physical weakness, may give rise to hallucinations and to
a mental state in which critical powers are reduced and Above: 23-year-old Frenchman Michel Siffre is brought to
the surface after spending 17 days alone in a cave in
the prisoner is open to almost any suggestion.
1962. Such experiments show that isolation from normal
Some of the findings and techniques described here sights and sounds can produce severe mental instability
have been applied in brainwashing. First the victim’s and a state of extreme credulity. One psychiatrist who
acted as a guinea pig in an experiment was so disturbed
resistance is worn down through the infliction of pain, after a few minutes alone in a sound-absorbing room that
fear, and humiliation; then he is made to feel guilty, he had to be let out.
unclean, unworthy; and then, when he feels utterly
Below: At the end of the Korean War, prisoners are
degraded, he is offered the chance to redeem himself. In exchanged at Panmunjon. The Chinese successfully
this way an agonising need to confess everything is in¬ (though temporarily) brainwashed many United Nations
prisoners- except for the Turks, whose powerful tradi¬
stilled in the victim. The full confession he finally makes tions of group loyalty made them difficult subjects for the
is not so much of crimes committed as of thoughts and brainwashing techniques described in the text.
feelings not formerly recognized as crimes at all.
As practiced by the Chinese Communists on civilian
prisoners (a very much more intensive process than the
treatment of the Korean prisoners-of-war , the process
has sometimes apparently succeeded in destroying the
old personality and replacing it by a new one. But the
changes are probably more apparent than real. Brain¬
washed Europeans who have returned to the West have
sloughed off the beliefs imposed on them, because they
no longer suited their social background. The only excep¬
tions have been where both new beliefs and old were
authoritarian. The evidence we have at present, then,
suggests that while the peripheral personality fp. 310 can
be changed by brainwashing and other forms of persua¬
sion, the nuclear personality cannot.

315

This cartoon, which appeared in the British humorous
magazine Punch a few weeks after the outbreak of World
War /, depicts the Kaiser as “The Great Goth” (i.e.
barbarian). Nations at war almost always simplify issues
and present them in black-and-white terms.
Psychological warfare
The people who make up a nation have quite a lot of
things in common, of which a sense of belonging to the
same group is itself one of the most important. Most of us
feel that we belong to a nation; but in normal times our
identification with' some sectional group or groups
within that nation is probably even stronger (p. 3041.
When these groups are in conflict they wage a kind of
psychological warfare against one another. Their mem¬
bers tend to look at things from a restricted point of view
that may impair their sense of fairness and incline them
to misrepresent their opponents. We see this in all sorts
of situations, from parliamentary debates and negotia¬
tions between trade unions and employers to backyard
slanging matches between hostile neighbors. The same
thing happens on a larger and more tragic scale between
nations at war. At such times loyalty to the nation
usually overrides sectional loyalties. In the Western
democracies, for instance, the normal rivalry between
political parties is generally suspended in favor of a
coalition government.
Modern warfare involves the whole nation, and propa¬
ganda is an essential instrument in this total involve¬
ment. Indeed, the main role of wartime propaganda is
not to persuade the other side that they are wrong, but
to instil and maintain the will to fight in one’s own
side. Such propaganda has both positive and negative
sides. The positive side is concerned with convincing
the whole nation that its cause is just and that it is going
to win in the end; the negative side with uniting the
nation in hatred of the enemy.
Morale is boosted by making the most of victories and
minimizing defeats and setbacks. The horrifying figures
of Allied casualties in each major battle of World War I
were regularly scaled down before being released to the
public. The other side, of course, did the same thing with
their casualties; while both sides put out grossly exag¬
gerated estimates of enemy casualties. Similarly,, in
World War II the populations of both sides were en¬
couraged to overestimate the effect of bombing attacks on
the enemy.
On the negative side, the enemy is painted in the
blackest possible colors. War invariably produces a crop
of atrocities, but some of the atrocity stories spread in
Allied countries in World War I (that the Germans were
using Belgian priests as bell-clappers and that they boiled
corpses to make soap, for example) sound as if they have
come straight out of a horror comic. These stories were
probably not officially inspired; but their circulation was
encouraged by their acceptance as authentic by a British
government commission.
“Prepare vigorously to maintain
the peace of East Asia,” cries this
poster put out by the Japanese war
office in 1930, a year before Japan
launched an all-out attack on China.

A good example of propaganda designed to demoralize
front-line troops is this American leaflet dropped on
enemy positions during the war in Korea. The threat of
swift obliteration by air attack is made both graphic
and personal. Result: Koreans dug themselves in.
This cartoon from Krokodil (U.S.S.R., 1941) mocks the
gullibility of the German people in believing official
reports of military operations. Nazi wartime propaganda
was in the long run self-defeating. Long accustomed to
lying news reports, the Germans eventually believed little
they were told officially.
When people realized that they had been deceived,
their distrust probably made it easy for them to dismiss
as fables the perfectly true accounts of Nazi atrocities
against the Jews. And while that distrust discouraged the
invention of atrocities in World War II, it did not stop
hate propaganda. The Japanese, for example, were
portrayed by their enemies as sub-human, which no
doubt helped many people to repress pangs of conscience
when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by
atomic bombs in 1945.
The primitive moral code that warfare imposes on us
produces a feeling of guilt. One of the main purposes of
war propaganda is to ease that feeling. The individual
feels absolved of personal guilt because the whole nation
takes the guilt upon itself, which is why men will do
things “in the service of their country” that they would
never dream of doing in private life.
The nation clears its conscience by reassuring itself
that it is defending good against evil. Everybody takes
part in this process, from leaders of Church and State to
professional communicators and “the man in the street.”
The more the nation’s fighting spirit flags, the more
idealistic its declared war aims are likely to become. Thus
World War I, which the Allies had entered simply to
keep “the balance of power,” became “a war to secure
the right to national self-determination,” “a war to
spread democracy,” and, above all, “a war to end war”;
while promises to the fighting citizens ranged from “votes
for women” to “homes fit for heroes.”
What about propaganda directed at the enemy? Its
main aim is to undermine his morale and sow division in
his ranks. In World War I such propaganda was most
effective, as one would have expected, in subverting the
subject races of the Austrian and Turkish empires by
promising them national independence. In World War
II, Japanese propagandists effectively exploited the
declaration of Britain’s war leader, Winston Churchill,
that he had not become prime minister in order to preside
over the dissolution of the British Empire.
Generally speaking, propaganda aimed at weakening
the enemy’s morale cannot compete successfully with
propaganda aimed at keeping it high, unless and until the
facts themselves are clearly and overwhelmingly demora¬
lizing. In World War I, for example, German propaganda
kept up morale at home long after it* had broken down at
the front. By giving the nation’s citizens a sense of
common purpose, war breaks down class barriers and
sweeps away the doubts, frustrations, and petty jealousies
of everyday life. But that unity is short-lived; it does not
outlast either defeat or victory.
317
Agreeing to differ

Three things are neeessary for the free circulation of ideas

and opinions that freedom of communication implies:
i freedom of access to information; (2) freedom of
access to the channels of communication; 3 freedom
from the fear of unpleasant consequences that may
result from speaking out. In all countries there are legal,
economic, and social limitations to these freedoms.
The most obvious, and perhaps the most serious,
limitation to the first freedom is the withholding of in¬
formation by states. We have already spoken of this in
relation to freedom of the press p. 237 . All that it is
necessary to add here is that it gives rise to a partial, and
therefore distorted, view of the world, and is thus a kind
of negative propaganda.
The major limitation to the second freedom lies in the
control by a handful of individuals or groups of the
means of mass communication. The American president
Andrew Jackson 1767 1845 described the democratic
state as one in which “the citizen has the right to cuss the
government, and all the government can do is to cuss
back or go fishing.5’ But the right to talk back is only These workers ore assembling the first of an order of
meaningful to the extent that the citizen can make his 400 British buses for export to Cuba. European trade
voice heard and before, not after, decisions are taken with Cuba runs counter to U.S. policy and is a point
of disagreement among allies. Even so, there are so
that may affect his life. Yet in no country is public many points of agreement that no single issue is likely
communication a real dialogue between the citizen and to split the alliance.
the government or the individual and those who control
the mass media.
Limitations to the third freedom range from fear of
being punched on the nose to fear of being sacked by the
Soon after coming into power in 1933, the Nazis showed
boss and fear of prosecution and imprisonment. A less their fear of the way that free speech threatened then-
obvious but very real limitation is caused by social pres¬ regime. They imposed a rigorous censorship and organized
the destruction of all books written by Jewish, Marxist,
sures to conform. The great 18th-century French writer
pacifist, and libertarian authors. Here Nazi youths join
Voltaire once remarked to an opponent or so the story in a symbolic burning of “decadent” books.
goes : “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to
the death your right to say it.” This saying perhaps ex¬
presses better than any other the spirit of tolerance
necessary to any society based on the right to dissent.
But the legal right to dissent is not enough. Thomas
Jefferson 1743 1826 , third president of the United
States, wrote: “The country which has given to the world
the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral
emancipation also, for as yet it is but nominal with us.
The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms, in prac¬
tice, the freedom asserted by the law in theory.” In our
time, fear of those who follow alien ideologies has in¬
creased pressures to conform, leading, for instance, to
anti-Communist hysteria in America and South Africa
and to anti-American hysteria in China and the Soviet
Union.
Group loyalty can be of great value to society. It is the
need for the approval of the group, for instance, rather
than the law, that provided the group itself is not
delinquent ensures that the individual will behave in a
responsible manner toward his fellows. And the resistance
of the group to outside pressures is some safeguard against
the dangers of mind control by totalitarian groups. But
it also makes it more difficult to comince people by
factual and rational argument if that argument cuts
across their prejudices (p. 305 . But though such argu¬
ment can be adapted to our knowledge of the way the
mind works, fact and reason alone offer us the hope of
developing rational attitudes.
We have seen that people who have adopted authori¬
tarian doctrines of one kind or another are the least
susceptible to persuasion by rational arguments based on
facts. For such forms of persuasion to be effective, the
individual at whom they are directed must have de¬
veloped the capacity to select from the arguments of
others in the light of his own reason and assessment of the
situation. An “all-or-nothing” acceptance or rejection of
doctrines based on the authority of anyone whoever it is
—can never give him this capacity.
As the British psychologist J. A. C. Brown has put it:
“Attitudes are influenced by the social structure itself and
may be changed by changing the type of social structure
within which the individual is functioning.” Only by
altering this structure in a libertarian direction, by en¬
couraging the individual from an early age to make his
own judgments, can the power of reason be given full play.
Then we may continue to differ, but at least we shall agree
to differ and not try to settle our differences by force.
Force is what is left when rational communication has
broken down.

At London s Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, sym¬

bol of the right of free speech, anyone may get up
and say anything, provided it is not blasphemous,
defamatory, or seditious. Differences between the
speaker and his audience are nearly always
settled verbally and rarely end in a fight.
Appendix

Twenty years ago, few people would have thought of

“communication” as a single subject; certainly, no
one then thought of writing a popular book about it.
Twenty years hence, we can be sure, a book on
communication will be vastly different from the book
you are now reading. For one thing, it will be more
scientific in its treatment. Much of what we can only
present as tentative conclusions and fascinating
speculations will soon be confirmed or denied—or
modified. The result will be a much more coherent
philosophy-cum-science of communication than we
can hope to have today.
Two factors, which we single out in special
explanatory essays in the following pages, will play a
big part in this change: (1) our ability to measure
information in mathematical terms; (2) our use of
computers for tasks that involve thought-like
processes. Our achievements with computers are
already causing us to revise some of our long-held
notions—about the nature of thought, of language,
and of creativity, for instance. In the long term, these
effects may prove as earth-shaking in the world of
ideas as were the achievements in mechanics of the
16th and 17th centuries.
Our growing knowledge of the facts, too, will help
us to see the subject of communication as a
coherent whole. From the patient accumulations of
facts of all kinds, like those we tabulate between
pages 342 and 349, we can discern trends.
Gradually, we can relate the trends one to another
and begin to discuss their causes. Later we can
make predictions that will put our reasoning to the
test of events. In this way, too, we advance from fact
to speculation to a coherent picture.

321
Scientists measure information

The^concept of “information” seems to be so Giv oss idag v&ri dagliga brod

abstract—like “love” or “encouragement”— Swedish
that any chance of measuring it in precise
terms is, you might think, remote indeed. Yet Unser taglich Brot gib uns heute
it costs money to send information and it is german
important for us to be able to measure any¬
thing that costs money. We can easily make Give us this day our daily bread
rough-and-ready assessments. It needs no engiish
technical knowledge to realize that some
messages are more expensive to transmit than Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano
others—that, for instance, a typical cable italian
might be able to carry 1000 telephone calls
simultaneously but only one television pro¬ □rn uV in ui?n on1? nx
gram at a time. But if we want to be more hebrew
precise than that, we must be able to measure
two things: (i) the amount of information in a r>JI LiJ Lius' L>i. 1
message; (2) the rate at which a communica¬
a'raBTc “
tion system can transmit that information. A
single communication link is usually called a The text explains how the communications engineer
channel, and its rate of passing information is ean define the amount of information in a message.
The above sentences from six different languages
called the channel capacity. Channel capacity is
carry the same message, but their information, in
measured as information passed per second. the technical sense, varies: Swedish 155 bits, German
The word “information” is used here in a 165 bits, English 165 bits, Italian 185 bits, Hebrew
120 bits, and Arabic 155 bits. (Each space, character,
technical sense that is a little different from
or accent in these six languages carries five bits.)
everyday usage. The amount of information
in a message is not a measure of its significance
or importance. For example, the message “a
rose is a rose” has only a trivial significance,
but to send it would cost as much effort and
take as much equipment as would the most
important message of the same length. Simi¬
larly, it costs no more per word to send hot
news than to send last year’s football results.
Obviously significance is not a suitable engin¬
eering measure of information.
In 1948 the American Claude E. Shannon,
working at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in
the U.S.A., developed a theory of information.
It is a highly mathematical theory but even
without mathematics we can understand the Above: the two channels that are used as examples
in the text. Channel A is a teleprinter circuit with
principles behind Shannon’s work and so gain 32 choices of message; channel B is a simple circuit
a clear idea of how information is measured. with only two choices: on and off.

322
The measurement of channel capacity
To see how we can measure different channel
capacities, let us compare two channels. One,
which we shall call channel A, is a simple
teleprinter circuit. The other, channel B, is
simpler still: a single on-off key connected to
a light bulb. When the keys at the sending end
of channel A are pushed down, the letters that
correspond to those keys are printed on the
typewriter at a remote station (see diagram at
bottom of page 322). For the convenience of
a later argument, let us suppose that there are
31 keys. This allows us to include punctuation
and spacer keys. Only one key can be punched
at a time, and each punching can be thought
of as a possible signal.
There are, in fact, 32 different positions or
states for such a keyboard, because the state
when it has no key depressed at all must be
also counted. It is a possible signal (meaning
“do nothing”), like all the other signals that
can be transmitted down the channel.
Let us fix the speed of channel A by saying
that a key can be depressed and a letter
printed five times a second. This is a reason¬
able speed for an operator.
Shannon’s basic idea, which though very
simple is very important, is that the informa¬
tion actually sent down a channel can be
measured by counting how many different
alternative messages could be sent. The idea is
a little more complicated than it may seem.
Over channel A in the first one fifth of a second,
one of 32 messages can be sent: A, B, C, . . .
etc. (including the no-key message). For a
|-second message, then, there are 32 alterna¬
tives. In the next fifth of a second there are,
again, 32 alternatives. But the message that
could be sent in the two fifths of a second
consists of all the possible pairs of keys AA, AB,
AC . . . ; BA, BB, BC . . . ; CA . . . etc. and
these (again including the no-key alternative)
number 32 x 32, or 1024, alternatives. In
this way, each further fifth of a second multi¬
plies the numbers of alternatives for the whole
message by 32. After three fifths of a second the
number is 1024 X. 32, or 32,768. The number
of alternatives increases very rapidly indeed.
This number would not, as it stands, be a
good measure of information. Common sense
tells us that in three fifths of a second we can
send just three times as much as in one fifth of
a second. Nevertheless, a means of measuring
information can be obtained from these large
numbers of alternatives. To see how this is
done, let us compare channels A and B.
Channel B can transmit only two signals,
the key can be up or down—turning the lamp
off or on in sympathy. Again, we assume that
the key can be changed to a different position
five times a second. With the use of Morse
code, such a channel can carry messages in
ordinary language, just like channel A.
For each fifth of a second, channel B has two
alternatives; for the first two fifths of a second,
2 x 2, or 4; and for each subsequent fifth of a
second, the number of possible messages is
multiplied by 2. The table at the foot of this
page shows how this number mounts up for
15 steps, each one fifth of a second long—a
period of 3 seconds in all. The figures for
channel A during the first three fifths of a
second are included for comparison.
steps (bits) alternatives
channel B channel A
1 2 32
2 4 1,024
3 8 32,768
4 16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
9 512
10 1,024
11 2,048
12 4,096
13 8,192
14 16,384
15 32,768
This table shows how the nu mber of possible alternative
messages over channel A and channel B mounts
up in the course of time. The left-hand column lists
the number of steps (examples in the text assume
that there are five such steps per second). The other
columns list cumulatively the total choices for the
two channels. The text explains why these cumu¬
lative totals are poor measures of channel capacity.
Our actual measuring system depends on the fact
that channel B is the simplest possible channel and
can therefore be used as a standard for all channels.
323
 number of alternative channel B channel A 5*6 bits. To calculate this you have to use
messages time time
logarithms. (For the technically minded: Take
32 1 second 1/5 second the logarithm of the number of alternatives
1,024 2 „ 2/5 „ and divide by the logarithm of 2. Thus log 49
32,768 3 „ 3/5 „ -y log 2 = 5-6 approximately.) And if we can
punch five keys a second, our 48-key channel
One fact immediately stands out: The has a capacity of 5 ■ 6 x 5, or 28 bits a second.
number of alternatives for channel B after 3 The figures of 5 bits a second for channel B
seconds—32,768—is the same as for channel A and 25 bits a second for A are the channel
after three fifths of a second. Similarly, the capacities of B and A. Any message containing
number of alternatives for channel B after two 1000 bits of information would be expected to
seconds is 1024—the same as for channel A take 1000 -y 5, or 200 seconds to transmit
after two fifths of a second. Furthermore, for along channel B, and 1000 A 25, or 40
channel B after one second the figure is 32, the seconds along channel A. But this is only true
same as for channel A after one fifth of a if the message is suitably coded for the channel.
second. These findings are summarized in the To illustrate, let us take an extreme case:
table at the top of this page. Channel B Suppose that our earth were visited by
takes just five times as long as channel A to Martians who had evolved in such a way that
accumulate any given number of alternatives. they communicated only in a kind of Morse. As
The conclusion is obvious: Channel A’s intelligent beings, they would have discovered
capacity is five times that of channel B. that the simplest way of writing their language
Channel B is quite the simplest that could was in two symbols, say, 0 and 1. They would
be devised, because no system with less than also have devised their language so that these
two alternatives could carry information. This symbols occurred with equal probability.
simplest, so-called “binary,55 channel (from They would be very happy with channel B, in
Latin bini, two-by-two) is used as the standard which “off55 and “on55 translate easily into 0
on which we base our unit of measurement for and 1. But channel A would face them with a
information. The information sent by channel problem: How could they use its greater
B at each step is called a bit, which is short for capacity in the most effective way ?
“binary digit.55 Channel B, we say, carries one If they made use of only one key, they would
bit in each one fifth of a second, or five bits a merely reduce the rate of transmission to five
second. Channel A, therefore, has a capacity of bits a second, the rate of channel B. The
25 bits per second, five times as much. Martian information theorist would quickly
Now that we know that each step in channel arrive at a better solution. He would note that
B transmits one bit, we can use the table five Martian symbols together form a message
for channel B on page 323 to calculate how with 32 possibilities (see diagram directly
many bits correspond to a given number of below). With each of his five-symbol groups
alternatives for any channel. For example,
how many bits are carried by channel A in 00000 A 01000 1 10000 Q 11000 Y
two fifths of a second ? The number of alterna¬
00001 B 01001 J 10001 R 11001 Z
tives is 32 x 32 = 1024. Looking this up in
the table we get 10 bits. (To confirm this: 00010 C 01010 K 10010 S 11010 /
Channel A’s rate of 25 bits a second for two
fifths of a second is 25 -y f, or 10 bits.) 00011 D 01011 L 10011 T 11011
What if the number of alternatives does not 00100 01100 M 10100 !
E U moo
appear in the table? Suppose a channel has
48 keys, that is, 49 alternatives at each step. 00101 F 01101 N 10101 V 11101 ?
How many bits correspond to 49 alternatives ?
00110 G 01110 O 10110 W 11110
In the table, 49 lies between 32 and 64, i.e.,
between 5 and 6 bits. The answer is about 00111 H 01111 P 10111 X 11111 $

324

the Martian would thus associate a letter
or other symbol of our language, and each
group of five Martian symbols would be
sent as one of ours. In practice, the com¬
munication channel would include coding and
decoding machines to match it to the channel-
A equipment.
The American inventor Samuel F. B. Morse and a
drawing of his original telegraph. An operator
translated the message into Morse’s code and
“wrote” it down in the form of pegs on a bar
(bottom . The crank pulled the bar through the
sender and made it tap out the code. Electrical
impulses jerked a pen in the receiver, and wrote
out a wavy-line version of the code on moving paper.
The amount of information in a message
Now that we can measure a channel’s capacity
for carrying information, we turn to the more
difficult task of measuring the amount of in¬
formation in a message. Anything that
reduces the range of choice in a message will
reduce its information rate. An example will
show how this happens.
Take again the binary channel, such as our
imaginary Martians used, in which all the
messages are series of Os and Is. Take sequences
of 12 of these symbols in combinations like
110110111100,000100011011, 111101010111,
000110100110. There are 4096 such combina¬
tions, corresponding to 12 bits of information
if all the alternatives are used. Now let us try
the effect of making various restrictions on our
choice. If we insist that there should always
be equal numbers of Is and 0s, six of each in
every 12-symbol group, the number of alterna¬
tives comes down to 924. If we restrict the
make-up of the groups of 12 symbols to three
Is and nine 0s, the number of alternatives is
as low as 220. Now 924 alternatives correspond
(see the table) to nearly 10 bits (actually
about 9*9), and 220 alternatives correspond
to 7*8 bits. In short, whereas 12 symbols with
a free choice of 0s or Is carry 12 bits of infor¬
mation, the restriction to fixed ratios of 0s and
Is makes them carry less.
The reduction in information for a 50/50
ratio of 0s and Is (from 12 to 9 *9) is not great,
and for longer and longer sequences it becomes
negligible. The loss is more serious if one of the
symbols is used less often than the other.
Can we apply such knowledge to find out
the information rate for a message in ordinary
language? Not with any precision, but some
estimates put the rate as low as one bit per
letter. An unrestricted choice of letters would
give about five times this amount of informa¬
tion. All the structural features of language
help to reduce the information content. Spel¬
ling rules, such things as the use of “u” always
after “q,” the need for pronounceable words,
grammatical rules, and even the effect of
context over several sentences - all serve to
limit the choice.
In information theory such limitations of
choice give rise to what is called redundancy;
because the text carries less information than it
 0 110 0 10 110
A signal on channel B shown as a graph of signal
strength (vertical scale) against time (horizontal).
In channel B all pulses are of equal strength and
duration. By using a code like that at the foot of page
324, we could show messages on channel A in exactly
the same way. In fact, using that code, the first five
digits above (11001) become Z in channel A. All such
signals are digital ones.
could carry, part of it must be, in theory, un¬
necessary. As an example of redundancy in a
single word, consider “fanatic.” No other
English word uses just these consonants in this
order: f, n, t, and c. Its nearest-sounding
neighbor, “phonetic,” uses p, h, n, t, and c. So
that if we want simply to identify the two words
(and in most messages that is all we seek to do),
the consonants alone are enough. In short, of
fanatic’s seven letters, no fewer than three—43
per cent—are redundant.
In actual practice, a certain amount of re¬
dundancy is essential to accurate transmission.
We could theoretically devise a code that
would cut out redundancy and so compress
ordinary language into one fifth of the space.
But what would happen if we encoded words in
such a language to send by telegram? If a
single error were made in transmission, the
decoding machine at the receiver would pro¬
duce a faulty message that would nevertheless
read perfectly. Suppose we send the word
“fanatic” in no-redundancy code as “fntc”
and that an error made this “fncr.” In the
same code, this erroneous word would mean
“fancier”—the only English word that uses
just those particular consonants. (True, the
326
A
The above diagram explains some of die terms in the
text. The curve is of a continuous signal. The vertical
distance between A and B (heavy bar on vertical
scale) measures the strength of the signal. The part
of the curve that is shown solid represents one cycle.
The frequency of a signal is the number of such cycles
per second. The text tells how we measure the channel
capacity of such signals.
context would help us decide whether the
message referred to, say, a pigeon fancier or to
a political fanatic; but in a rigorous no¬
redundancy code even such context inter¬
pretation would be impossible.)
To eliminate redundancy, then, is danger¬
ous in any practical communication system. A
telegram in qrdinary language can usually
have an odd letter or two wrong and still,
because of redundancy, be perfectly intellig¬
ible. In short, redundancy helps to protect us
aga,inst errors. The information theorist
spends much of his time in finding out just how
much redundancy is needed to guard against
errors. Ordinary language, with its great
redundancy, may not be ideal, but it will be a
long time before we can devise good methods
of compressing it and retaining some im¬
munity from error.
The channels we have described have two
features that make the counting of all the
alternatives particularly easy. They transmit
in terms of separate “discrete” states (on or
off, this key or that key). Furthermore, these
states follow one another at a regular rate.
Such signals are often called digital. Trans¬
missions on channels A and B could be shown
a

as graphs of signal against time (see diagram Four-part diagram above (a to d) shows the same
continuous signal being sampled at different rates.
on facing page).
The horizontal, or time, scale represents one
Telephone channels, or television channels second. In a four samples (black) are made.. To the
carry quite a different sort of signal, one that right is shown, the kind of signal that could be
electronically reconstructed from those four samples—
changes in strength continually over a whole it is none too accurate. In b there are eight samples,
range of values (see diagram on facing page). and the reconstructed signal is slightly more
accurate. In c there are 16 samples, and the recon¬
Signals of this kind are usually called con¬
structed signal is completely accurate. You can
tinuous signals. Information theory can be check this by looking at d, where 32 samples give
extended to these important types of signals. no greater accuracy to the reconstructed signal.
The bandwidth of this signal (see text) is eight
The first problem with continuous signals is cycles per second. Diagram illustrates point made in
that there exists no convenient step-by-step the text that for any bandwith B, the maximum useful
sampling rate is 2B samples per second.
division of time. But we can introduce such
steps by “sampling” the signal (see illustration
at the top of this page). Sampling techniques
measure the strength of the signal only at fixed
regular intervals. (Such sampling techniques
are actually used in some communications
devices—e.g., modern telephone systems. But
we are not, here, concerned with such practical
applications. For us, sampling is an entirely
theoretical exercise that simply enables us to
measure the information in a continuous
signal.) Each measurement is like a single
digital signal in a telegraphic system.
The diagram that explains sampling also
shows that the information we can gain from
such samples increases as the sampling rate

327
Each of the top squares contains 15 dots arranged
as in A. Square B has five random dots “noise”
to the communications engineer. Square C has 10
such “noisy” dots; square D, 20; and E, 40. Each
square can be thought of as a communications
channel. A is a perfect channel. In B, the signal-
increases up to a certain point. There is an
upward limit to this increase in accuracy. To
put it another way: There is a point beyond
which it is futile to increase the sampling rate
we gain no extra information thereby. That
point is governed by the frequency of the
signal that is to be sampled. (Terms like
“frequency,” “cycles per second,” and so on
are explained in the caption to the illustration
at the top right of page 326.)
In practice, continuous signals cover a
certain band of frequencies called the “band¬
width.” For example, audio signals typically
have a bandwidth of 10,000 cycles per second.
The maximum useful sampling rate for such a
signal is 20,000 times per second. For video
signals the bandwidth is typically 5 million
328
to-noise in ratio (see text is 15 to 5 the signal
is three times as strong as the noise. In E it is 15 to
40 the noise is nearly three times as strong as the
signal. The crowd pictures detail the same deterioration
in more everyday terms; here, the “signal” is the
lone figure, the crowd the “noise.”
cycles per second and the maximum useful
sampling rate is 1 o million times a second. This
relation between sampling rate and the band¬
width gives us a way of dividing time into
step-by-step intervals for continuous signals:
For any bandwidth B, the maximum useful
sampling rate is 2B samples a second.
Now that we have a way of dividing up the
time scale of continuous signals (the horizontal
scale in the diagram at the top of page 327),
we need a way of dividing the strength or
amplitude scale, too (the vertical scale in the
same diagram;. How finely do we need to
express the strength of any given sample?
Suppose we say that the maximum strength of
a given signal is one unit; do we express a half¬
strength signal as half a unit, five tenths of a
A
Both the above graphs plot the strength of signal
(plain curve) and noise (filled-in curve) against
time (horizontal scale). The effect of the noise
is to distort the signal (broken curve). In A the
noise is less than in B. Bars at the right show
the average signal strength and the average noise
strength (black) for these graphs. Scale on
extreme right takes the average noise strength
unit, eight sixteenths, or 500,000 millionths?
Each of these expressions represents half a
unit, but each represents a finer and finer
definition of signal strength. If our com¬
munication channel were perfect, there is no
limit to the fineness of definition that we can
choose. In practice, however, there is always a
certain amount of noise in any channel, and the
strength of that noise will limit the fineness of
definition that we can usefully choose.
Noise, to the communications engineer, has
a wider than normal meaning. (The illustra¬
tions on page 328 diagram noise visually.) In
electronic communication, noise is the “snow”
on a TV screen, the hiss in a radio tuned to a
distant station, the crackle in a telephone.
Some of this noise is caused by electrical
as its unit. We can use such a scale to specify
units to help us measure any samples that we take
of a signal (see text). It would be useless to
specify units that' are finer than the average
noise strength; such distinctions would be too
fine and the noise would drown them. Note, though,
that we can make the units finer and finer as the
noise level is reduced.
apparatus outside the communications chan¬
nel, but the most important part of it is an
unavoidable part of the channel itself. In a
radio set designed to receive very weak signals,
all avoidable sources of noise are removed.
The remaining noise is caused by heat—and
“heat” here applies to anything that is
“warmer” than — 273°c. (Absolute Zero, the
coldest possible temperature). Thus wires,
coils, resistors, transistors, tubes—all these are
“hot.” They all contain electrons that move
back and forth in random patterns. (Heat is
the random movement of the molecules that
make up materials. The electrons in metals, or
in vacuum tubes, share these movements.) A
radio signal is an organized movement of
electrons. The amplifier in a radio set amplifies
329
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monday
tuesday 1110 1
Wednesday
thursday 10 00 1
friday 0101 0

1001 0

1 0 1 0 0
9.10 14.10
1 8.70 13.50 1 1 1 0 1

1 0 1 0 1

0 1 0 1 0

1 0 0 1 0

both the organized signal and the random
(noise) movements of the electrons in the set.
Obviously it is useless for us to choose a
definition of signal strength that is finer than
the average strength of the noise; too-fine
distinctions would be “drowned” in the
random pattern of the noise. The diagram at
the top of page 329 shows how, by finding
the average strength of the signal and of the
noise, we can work out useful units that will
define the strength of the samples.
Above are two simple error-detecting and correcting
systems: for an expense account left and for an
array of binary digits right . In the expense
account the horizontal and vertical total columns
allow us to check on the accuracy of the items
which, in turn, are summaries of receipts like
those at the top . Similar check columns appear
in the binary array you add a i if the number of
is in the line or column is uneven, a o if the is
are already even. If the two sets of information were
transmitted and one error crept into each, the
check columns would allow us to find where that
error lay and to correct it. The lower diagrams
highlight the errors and the check digits.

330

A child’s toy illustrates the principle behind
time-sharing communications devices that use sampling
techniques. Two animals, a lion and a wolf
i corresponding to two messages , are painted on
one board (A). When it is placed in a cage whose
bars are as thick as the spaces between them (B ,
the wolf disappears (C). Move the board out again
by the thickness of a cage bar, though, and now the
lion has gone D . The cage represents telecommunica¬
tions switching devices that sort out shared calls to
the appropriate callers and give each- the feeling that
he is holding an unshared conversation.
To sum up, then: We can draw a continuous
signal as a graph of signal strength (vertical
scale) against time (horizontal scale). We can
divide the time scale into units that depend on
the bandwidth of the signal. We can divide
the signal-strength scale into units that depend
on the ratio between signal strength and noise
strength (commonly called the signal-to-noise
ratio). These units allow us to measure the in¬
formation rate of any continuous signal.
The mathematics of such measurement are
very complex, but the result can be stated in
terms that are now familiar bandwidth and
signal-to-noise ratio. If the bandwidth is B and
the signal-to-noise ratio is S/JV, the information
rate is B log i -f- S/JSI) ; log 2 t given certain
assumptions about signal and noise . It needs
little mathematics to see that if either the
bandwidth or the signal strength increases,
the information rate increases, too just as
you would expect.
The importance of all this to practical tele¬
communications is immense. Shannon’s work
has given us a precise means of measuring what
was once a very vague term: information.
Actually, it has done even more than that. It
has proved that we can transmit messages that
are completely error-free even through a noisy
channel. This part of Shannon’s theory has
proved very difficult to apply to existing com¬
munications channels. Briefly, our ability to
eliminate error depends on our devising
error-detecting and error-correcting codes.
We use such codes often in daily life. An
example is the expense-account form shown
in the illustration on the opposite page.
Beside it is an example of a similar code that
can be used for checking sequences of binary
digits. Unfortunately, it has proved difficult to
devise efficient codes that combat the kind of
noise that arises in practice. Also the most
efficient codes mathematically speaking
often prove too complex to be useful. But the
theory of coding is developing rapidly.
Thanks to Shannon’s work, we know pre¬
cisely the maximum capacity that we can
expect to achieve from any given channel.
And, in an age that depends more than most
of us realize on the accurate transmission of
data, such knowledge is invaluable.
331
 Translation by computer

Long before recorded history, the clans and

tribes of primitive men wandered from place
to place speaking in numberless languages
and dialects. We can only guess at how
different groups overcame this barrier to
understanding between thjem; probably they
used expressive signs and gestures, simple sand
drawings, and so on. Even so, their lack of
mutual understanding must often have frus¬
trated concerted action at vital moments.
Certainly the great civilizations of the Middle
East could never have risen much less have
kept going, if men had not developed the
ability to translate directly from language to
language. Sailors, merchants, traders, am¬
bassadors, message bearers, military scouts,
wandering craftsmen all these must have
found that ability useful and perhaps essential;
all must have been, to some extent, translators.
The earliest American settlers and America’s Indian
inhabitants could converse only by simple signs and
Ever since then, translators have played a
gestures below . Scenes like this must have been vital part in keeping the machinery of
enacted billions of times in mankind’s history. From international exchange political, cultural,
such contacts men developed the multilingual skills
on which international commerce and civilization and commercial moving. Today, in an age
depend. Today, the demands for people with such when knowledge, opinion, and propaganda
skills are so heavy that we are learning to use
are disseminated on a more massive scale
data-processing machines to handle translation tasks.
than ever, the need for good translators has
never been so great. In fact, the last 20-odd
years have seen such a colossal increase in
communications of all kinds that there are
simply not enough human translators to cope
with the task. Because of this, scientists and
engineers in many countries have, during the
last decade, been trying to use electronic
computers to handle translation tasks.
After many setbacks, the first encouraging
results are beginning to come in. There is
now little doubt that computers will be able
to do the job. True, the translations they do
now are crude, but the refinements will come.
We do not need to develop special com¬
puters for this task; the computers that are
now so common in industry, government, and
academic work will do. There is no reason why
a single computer could not spend the
morning in solving complex nuclear-reactor
design problems, the afternoon in translating
Russian into English, and then pass the night
in stores accounting and in calculating pay¬
rolls. Common to these diverse-seeming tasks
are two basic sorts of operation: (i) mathe-

332
matical, (2) logical operations like com¬
paring, contrasting, tabulating, analyzing,
sorting, eliminating, and storing. For all such
operations we can specify rules and set out a
working order. These are tasks that a com¬
puter is specifically designed to handle.
Moreover, it is tireless, accurate, and fast.
Computers do not ‘"think”; they carry out
programs that are written out to the minutest
detail by specialists called programmers. The
programmer’s job is to think for the machine.
He breaks down long and complex operations
into small sequences; he decides on the order
in which the machine will work; and his
program tells the computer when to stop and
“write out’5 an answer. To understand how
this happens, let us look at a computer.
A computer has five basic units (see photo¬
diagram at the foot of this page). The program
and other information (for example, a text
to be translated! are fed into the computer
through the input section. The diagram at
the foot of page 335 shows how the informa¬
tion is translated into a series of holes in
punched cards (some computers use punched
tape instead). The input "‘reader,55 in turn,
translates the pattern of holes into a pattern
This photodiagram shows the parts of a computer
like that described in the text. The arrows show the
paths of communication between the parts.
of electrical pulses that set the various parts
of the computer to work. The program and
the information, now a series of such pulses,
are both stored on magnetic tape or disks
in the storage section, which, without going
into the complex electronics involved, can
be thought of as several thousand million
“pigeonholes.” (If you are especially inter¬
ested in computers, you can see how complex
the storage section is by looking at the
diagrams on page 334. However, the account
that follows can be understood without any
such detailed knowledge.) The program is
fed from storage into the control section, which
“orders” some of the information out of
storage into the arithmetic section. The
arithmetic section carries out the mathe¬
matical or logical operations in the program.
The results are passed back to storage; control
orders more information into arithmetic; the
results, again, pass back into storage until,
stage by stage, the program is completed.
Control then “orders” all the accumulated
results out of storage and into the output
section, where they are “written out” either
as punched cards or in words. How do we use
these processes to translate ?
333
Decimal Binary
xIO xl x16 x8 x4 x2 xl

0 1 0 0 0 0 1
0 2 0 0 0 1 0
0 3 0 0 0 1 1
0 4 0 0 1 0 0
0 5 0 0 1 0 1
0 6 0 0 1 1 0
0 7 0 0 1 1 1
0 8 0 1 0 0 0
0 9 0 1 0 0 1
1 0 0 1 0 1 0
2 0 1 0 1 0 0
3 0 1 1 1 1 0

Alosl computers do their calculations in a two-digit
or binary code like that described on page 324. The
above table shows how you can convert figures from
our familiar 10-digit or decimal system into binary.
In the decimal system, each column is 10 times greater
than its right hand neighbor. In binary, each column
is only two times greater.
The above diagram shows how holes in paper tape,
or recordings on magnetic tape, can be converted
into electrical pulses of the kind that course through
the circuits in a computer. Each hole or magnetic
mark becomes a pulse represented by a 1 in binary ;
the absence of a hole or mark becomes the absence
of a pulse a o in binary terms .

Center and bottom rows: two kinds

of storage sections used by com¬
puters. Center row: Core storage
stores pulses is and os as mag¬
netized and unmagnetized ferrite
rings. Photo shows complexity
of wiring in such storage. Center
diagram shows how a ring is
magnetized when a pulse is split
and sent through the ring
horizontally and vertically.
Diagonal wires not shown can
“read” the ring without affecting
its magnetic state. Each ring
measures about a fiftieth of an
inch. Diagram above shows how a
train of pulses is located in
corresponding rings in a vertical
stack. Disk storage left uses
devices like those in a tape
recorder to store pulses on stacks
of magnetic disks. Record head is
located above disk, play-back
head below it, in drawing at left.

334
01 A A 09 1 M 17 Q p 25 Y UI
02 B B 10 J Y\ 18 R c 26 Z Iff
03 C B 11 K K 19 S T 27 t T
04 D r 12 L n 20 T y 28 . bl that all the letters that follow it are in roman,
05 E A 13 M M 21 U cb 29 ! b the group 332001021205 is table; but
06 F E 14 N H 22 V X 30 ? 3 3418191512 is ctoji, Russian for “table.”
)K w Lf 31 ; K) In the computer, all numbers are usually
07 G 15 0 0 23
stored and transferred in units of fixed length
08 H 3 16 P n 24 X 4 32 space 51
that are known technically as “words.” To
avoid confusion here, however, we shall call
33 all the letters that follow are in roman these computer “words” packets and use word
34 all the letters that follow are in cyrillic only in its everyday sense. The length of such
packets is determined by the capacity of the
The key lies in coding. Computers work on computer’s arithmetic unit: If its capacity is
numbers, so we must find a code in which, all such that it can handle up to 15 digits in any
letters, punctuation, identification signs (such given operation, the packet length is 15 digits.
as “noun”), and information (such as: “All When any set of numerals is smaller than a
the letters that follow are in the roman packet, the extra space is filled with zeros.
alphabet”) are expressed in numbers. Such a A word longer than a packet is carried over
code for both roman and cyrillic (Russian into the next packet and any extra space is
letters is shown in the diagram at the top again filled with zeros. The storage section
of this page. In this code, the phrase: of a computer can be thought of schematically
“numbers as letters.” would appear: as a series of pigeonholes each one packet long
14211302051819320119321205202005181928. (see diagram at the foot of page 339). When
Because every figure in this code has two we use a computer for mathematical work,
numerals, there is no need to put a space the information and the results of its calcula¬
between any of the sets of figures. The “func¬ tions are all stored in these packet-sized
tion symbols” (33 and 34 in our code) perform pigeonholes. And when we use a computer
a valuable task: They enable us to use the for translation, all the information the
symbols from 01 to 32 for both roman and computer needs plus the text it is to trans¬
cyrillic alphabets. Thus, because 33 indicates late is stored in exactly the same way.

MacTh cojimjeu aHeprHK na#aeT Ha Hamy nnaHefy

The holes in this card spell out the sentence:

Hacmb uiAynemou co/myeM jnepeuu nadaem na nauty
n/iaHemy to a computer. The code used here is
different from the one at the top of the page, which
chosen for its simplicity is, in engineering terms,
very inefficient. In fact, the code on this page would
need two punched cards to hold the sentence above. 335
 Start: “pipe” No choice
‘‘Yes” answer

What sort of information does a computer

1 “No” answer

Search preceding and

following four words
need before it can begin to translate from one
language to another? To help answer that
question, let us look at some of the difficulties
that face any translator, machine or human. Does "water" occur?
Take the simple-seeming sentence: “The
pipe filled with water.” The word “pipe” has
at least three meanings, as in “water pipe,”
Use translation at
“pipe and tobacco,” and “organ pipe.” address 1017103 Does "metal” occur?
Though English has the same word for all
three objects, another language may have
three quite different words for them. Further¬
more, pipe figures in idiomatic phrases that Does "buried” occur?

may translate into quite different foreign

equivalents. The nearest foreign equivalent
Similar questions for
for “to smoke the pipe of peace” might be
"steel,” "aluminum,”
“to eat peace bread”; or for “pipe dreams,” "steam,” "lead,” etc.
“cloud thoughts”; and for “piping hot,”
“bakestone-hot”; and so on.
The word “filled” has similar pitfalls—plus Does "tobacco” occur?
the fact that it has no separate entry of its own
in the dictionary; you have to look it up under
its root word: “fill.” And “water,” too, has Use translation at
address 473973 Does "smoke” occur?
many meanings that may translate into some¬
thing different from water in the sense of
H20. Yet these are three fairly simple words
Similar questions for
in a very simple sentence. The scope of the "light,” "puff,”
task that faces the pioneers of machine "inhale,” etc.
translation begins to become clear. For while
the human translator can understand at once
which of a word’s many senses is intended, Does "music” occur?
the machine cannot understand a single word
of what it translates. Its work is automatic.
The success of the result depends entirely on
the skill with which the programmer thinks Does "tune” occur?
out all the pitfalls, and programs the machine Use translation at
to avoid them. How? He could, of course, address 3658203

program the machine to do in a laborious

way what the human translator seemingly
does without thought: interpret the word by
the context in which it occurs.
If, say, “pipe” occurs in the sense “tube,”
it is highly likely that in the same sentence
there will be words like: oil, high-pressure
steam, stainless-steel, underground, welded,
and so on. Such words, which occur frequently
with “pipe” in this sense, are said to correlate
highly with “pipe” ( = tube). Similarly, words
that correlate highly with “pipe” ( — smoker’s
pipe) are: smoker, tobacco, light, puff, cigar,
Does "play” occur?
Similar questions for
"dance,” "piper,”
"merry,” etc.
This diagram spells out laboriously the kind of
split-second thinking that goes on in a translator’s
mind. If a computer were to simulate the human
process, it would have to be programed in exactly
this tedious way for hundreds of thousands of
words. In practice, as the text explains, the
programmer restricts the translation in the com¬
puter’s dictionary to the meanings that are likely
to crop up in a given field—in metallurgy or
biochemistry, for instance.

336
 inhale, etc. And with "pipe” {-= musical
instrument) : organ, piper, music, merry, tune,
dance, etc.
The programmer could compile lists of
such correlations and then frame his program
in such a way that the computer will use the
translation that correlates best with the other
words in the text it is translating. The diagram
on the opposite page shows in principle part
of such a program for the correct translation
of the word ‘‘pipe’5 in any of these three
senses. It also shows why this sort of routine
would be impractical—with present-day com¬
puters, anyway : For the single word “pipe”
we have no less than 20 correlating words.
Multiplied throughout the computer’s dic¬
tionary (the part of the storage section where
words and their foreign-language equivalents
are stored) this would mean that a 400,000-
word list would need over 8 million entries
in the program for correlating words alone—
and many times that number to cover all the
other necessary information. Nevertheless,
the diagram does show the complexity of the
problems that will have to be solved if we are
to translate all kinds of text successfully.
Actually, the programmer can often ignore
multiple meanings. If he is writing a program
for the translation of, say, papers on electrical
engineering, he can safely forget any variant
meanings that words may have in the fields
of psychology, biology, organic chemistry,
and so on. He similarly pares the entries in
the computer’s dictionary to those words that
are likely to appear. Thus from a program for
electrical-engineering translations, words like
“parasite,” “phenol,” “Oedipus complex,”
and so on can safely be omitted. By limiting
the scope in this way, the programmer reduces
the problem to manageable proportions.
Idiomatic phrases could also be sorted out
by question-and-answer routines. Thus, to
translate “rain cats and dogs,” the program
could ask: “Is the next word [after cats]
‘and’?”; “Is the next word ‘dogs’?”; “Is the
previous word ‘rain’?” If the answer to all
three questions were “yes” the program
could direct the computer to a location in
which the correct idiomatic translation was
stored. But, again, it takes far less storage
space to list “rain cats and dogs” as a separate
entry in the dictionary and to put the correct
translation next to it.
Meaning and idiom are only part of the
business of translation. No two languages
always use the same word equivalents in the
same order. If we took the sentence “The
pipe filled with water” in a foreign language
and translated it word for word, we might
end up with something as outlandish as
“Pipe-the of water itself-filled.” You can’t
say that the result is completely unintelligible,
but you can’t say that it is an acceptable
translation, either. Clearly, the computer
program must include routines to sort words
out into their correct order.
It is here that workers in the field of machine
translation disagree among themselves. Some
maintain that where syntax (that is, the
permissible and nonpermissible word orders
in a language) is concerned, only a full
analysis of each sentence will deliver a
successful translation. Others hold that, since
machines will mainly be used for translating
scientific papers to be read by scientists (for
whom questions of literary style have a low
priority), we need to program the computer
only for the commonest syntactical differ¬
ences between the two languages concerned.
Thus, familiar question-and-answer routines
will sort out the Russian TeMnepaTypa ra30B
(literally “temperature” followed by the
genitive for “gas”) into “temperature of
the/a gas.” (Similar routines that are used for
the English word endings -.y, -ed, and -ing are
diagramed on page 338.) According to this
second group, syntactical differences that are
less common will, when translated literally,
give the reader little difficulty—simply be¬
cause they are so rare.
Here, for interest’s sake, is an actual
sample of machine translation into English
from Russian: “However, only the first steps
were made, which allowed not so much to
solve the huge number of referring here
scientific and technical problems as to
correctly formulate them and notice ways of
solving them.” The human translator might
have written: “However, only the first steps
were taken—so that, though we did not solve
337
 **"* ■**•*,

are vital in a prefix- and suffix-rich language

like Russian. Even with English they save us a
lot of valuable storage space in the computer’s
dictionary. The above routine, for instance,
would allow us to store walkj, walking, and walked
all under the stem walk.

the vast number of scientific and technical

problems that were involved, we were able
sort
to formulate those problems correctly and to stems look up
discover ways of solving them.” Though the into stems in
second version is clearer, the first is by no alphabetical dictionary
means so ambiguous as to be unintelligible. order
(It would take a present-day computer about
one second to make the above translation.)
Now that we have seen some of the daunting
input
problems that face the programmer of a text for
translating machine, and how he overcomes translation split affixes sort
or avoids some of them, let us follow a single from stems translated
sentence, in Russian, through the mechanical- stems back
translation process. Take the sentence: into text
assemble
Macxb H3JiyHeHHOH cojmiteM OHeprHH nattaeT translation order
Ha Hauiy njiaHeTy. print out for output
which means: translation
“A part of the energy generated by the sun
falls on our planet.”
The diagram at the foot of this page shows
stage by stage the processes through which
any sentence goes during translation. First,
the sentence is typed out on a punched-card
correct check
machine, which produces a card like that
syntax idioms

This diagram charts the nine major steps through

338 which all sentences pass during machine translation.
shown at the foot of page 335. This is '‘read
into” the computer by the input section, from
which the electrical pulses pass to the storage
section. The program, which is also in the
storage section, then passes into the control
section and sets the machine to work.
Before the words can be looked up in the
dictionary, any affixes to them must be split
away to leave only the stem. The English
stem “walk,” for instance, has the affixes
walks', walkwg, and walk^. These are called
the inflected forms of the stem “walk.” In
Russian there are up to 12 inflected forms for
nouns, 20 for adjectives, and nearly 100 for
verbs. To put every such form in the dictionary
as a separate entry would be an inefficient
use of storage space. So we economize by
storing only the stem in the dictionary and
programing a standard routine for splitting
the affixes from every word that has them
(see diagram, facing page). The diagram at
the foot of this page shows our Russian
sentence with the affixes printed in grey.
When the affixes are split away, all the
words are sorted out into their alphabetical
order. This is because the dictionary is stored
in alphabetical order on magnetic tape. It
MACTh 113JfyMEHHOn COJfHLl M
3HEPEHH flAHA hi HA HAW flJIAHET
^ACT-
PART
would obviously waste a lot of time if the
machine had to jump back and forth through
the dictionary for every single word. Our
sentence would probably be split up among
several thousand words from the same text
all sorted in alphabetical order.
Each entry in the dictionary takes up a
fixed number of computer packets. That
fixed number, which is standard for all words,
is called a block. One is diagramed at the foot
of this page. In this case, the block consists
of 10 packets labeled with the consecutive
addresses 1000 to 1009. The previous word
would have the addresses 990 to 999; and
the next word will have 1010 to 1019, and so
on. Within each block, there is a standard
arrangement. In this case the first three
packets (with addresses ending in o, 1, 2)
contain the code for the Russian word. The
next three (addresses ending in 3, 4, and 5)
contain the code for the English word. The
remaining blocks (addresses ending 6 to 9)
contain in coded form the grammatical and
idiomatic information that is needed for
translation. Examples of such information
are: “This noun inflects according to the
inflectional pattern of type 17,” “This verb
Left: The Russian sentence is the one used in the
text. Affixes to each of the words are in grey,
stems in black. The grid below it is a schematic
representation of a block in the computer’s
storage section. Each line in the block is one
“packet” long. The number to the right of the line
is that line’s address. As the text explains, all
lines with addresses ending in o, 1, and 2 contain
a Russian word (in this case naan ; those ending in
3, 4, and 5 hold its English equivalent (in this
case part . The remaining lines hold the idiomatic
and grammatical information that the computer
needs in order to translate the Russian word.
This arrangement is standard for all words in
the dictionary. The first five “pigeonholes” of
line 1006 (and of all lines with addresses ending in
6 hold the serial number for this block. The sixth
pigeonhole contains a code number for the part of
speech of the Russian word. The remaining pigeon¬
holes in this line hold grammatical information.
All lines ending in 7 and 8 contain idiomatic
information about the Russian word. Line 1009 holds
idiomatic information about verbs and prepositions.
A detailed example for the word uacm is worked
out on page 340.
339
takes the genitive case for its direct object,”
“The correct translation for this idiom is
located at . . . (followed by the address),”
and so on. This is the standard pattern for
every entry in the dictionary. Thus in every
entry the Russian word will have addresses
ending in o, i, and 2; the English equivalent
will have addresses ending in 3, 4, and 5; and
the remaining blocks will contain gram¬
matical and idiomatic information in the same
standard order.
When the computer looks up a word in
the dictionary, it simply compares the
numerical code for that word with the
numerical codes in the dictionaries. (Briefly:
It subtracts the one set of numbers from the
other; if the result is zero, the two sets of
numbers match and the word has been
correctly located. This, incidentally, is an
example of how a computer can perform one
of the stages of translation without under¬
standing what it is doing.) When the diction¬
ary lookup is completed, the words are sorted
back into their original order and stored
Diagram below shows how grammatical and idiomatic information about the word uacm might be stored in the computer.
1 4 7 3 2 1
14732 is the dictionary serial number for this
block. 1 means that nacm is a noun; 05 that it
belongs to inflexion class 05 for nouns; 2 that it
3 3 0 8 3 6
0 0 0 0 0 6
Line 1007: 3 means that nacm figures in an idiom
three words 'long; 3 that it is the third word in
that idiom; 08365 and 00989 are the serial numbers
for the other two words in the idiom TJo and
60/ibmeu respectively. TJo 60/ibiueu nacmb literally
means “according to the greater part” i.e.,
mostly. Line 1008: 00000 means that there is no
0 0 0 0 0 0
340
together with the grammatical and idiomatic
information and the interpretations of any
affixes that were split off. Next, if further
idiomatic information is needed, it is taken
from storage elsewhere in the dictionary and
added to the stored word.
To return to our original Russian sentence,
we now have the following English words
stored in this order:
“Part generated sun energy fall on our
planet.”
With a thorough syntactical routine, the com¬
puter would reorder and amend this to make:
“Part of the energy generated by the sun falls
on our planet.”
But with the rather simpler routines that are
at present used in machine translation, we
are more likely to get something like:
“Part of generated by sun energy falls on our
planet.”
As we said earlier, machine translations
read crudely as yet. But with greater ex¬
perience and better programming, the refine¬
ments will come.
0 5 2 2 1 0 1006
is feminine; 2 that it is inanimate; 1 that it has
both singular and plural forms. How we arive at
these codes is explained in the diagram on page 341.
5 0 0 9 8 9 1007
2 1 9 6 0 0 1008
fourth word in this idiom. 6219 is the address of
the storage location where the word “mostly” the
English translation of TIo oonbiueu nacmb is stored;
6 means that “mostly” is an adverb. Remaining
zeros show that there is no further information
to record. Line 1009 is used only when the word
in addresses o, 1, and 2 is a verb or preposition.
0 0 0 0 0 0 1009
 1 masculine and plural
1 animate
Noun 2
3
feminine
neuter
2 inanimate
2
3
has sing, only
has plural
only

1 perfective
2 imperfective
Verb 3 momentary
4 iterative
1 1st person
not used
1 reflexive
2 otherwise
2 used in
impersonal
constructions

1 both forms 1 masculine

possible 1 animate 2 feminine
2 long form 1 can be used 2 inanimate
Adj. only as noun (when used
3 neuter
(when used
3 short form as noun) as noun)
only

1 personal
2 reflexive 1 functions
3 possessive nominally
Pron. 4
5
relative
interrogative
2 functions
adjectivally
6 demonstrative
7 negative

Above: four examples of the codes used to fill The next four detail other grammatical information.
the 6th and the gth through 12 th pigeonholes in With a noun, for instance, the code numerals 3 1 2
line 6 in the block on page 339. The 6th hole would show that the noun is neuter, is animate,
(extreme left in each case' holds a code numeral and has the singular form only. The same code
that indicates part of speech: 1 noun; 2 verb; numerals for a verb, would show that the verb is
3 adjective; 4 pronoun. Code numerals 5, 6, 7, momentary, reflexive, and is used in impersonal
8, and 9 would stand for preposition, adverb, constructions. In a way, these codes are rather like
conjunction, numeral, and particle respectively. commands to the computer to do one thing rather
The next two pigeonholes (shown blank, contain than another with the words it is translating.
similar codes for the word’s inflexion class.

••• • • •••• ••
**•*••••• • •• •• • ••• • ••• ••• ••• •• • •
• ••
• • •• •••••••••• •• • •••••• •

Britain’s Doctor Michael Levison has used word¬ Greek of 1 Corinthians XIII, 12 “For now we see
handling techniques like those described in the through a glass darkly” . Using a system that was
text in order to study the texts of all the perfected on works whose authorship was beyond
epistles that tradition says were written by Saint doubt, Morton found that only five epistles were
Paul (seen, right, in an old mosaic; behind him, an certainly by Saint Paul. (Rom., I & II Cor.,
ancient papyrus copy of the epistle to the Gal., and Philo.) This is just one of many ways in
Hebrews and a punch-tape rendering of the original which computers can shed new light on old problems.
 Literacy and education

In the West the growth of literacy has gone

hand in hand with the growth of industrialism
and the decline in employment on farms. As
more and more people have left the country to
settle in towns, illiteracy rates have gradually
dropped. Graphs show the decline of illiteracy
and of agricultural employment in four
countries during the past hundred years (T
represents percentage of illiterates; ‘A’ re¬
presents percentage of male population en¬
gaged in agriculture). The close connection
between the two trends is most marked in
England and Wales, and in Belgium.

1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950
ENGLAND AND WALES FRANCE

1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950
UNITED STATES BELGIUM
Right: schoolchildren in Senegal, West Africa. Only about
13 per cent of Senegalese children in the 5 to 14 age-group
are receiving formal education. Below: chart comparing
education in 23 countries in the year 1959. (7) School
enrolment as a percentage of the 5- to 19-year-old
population; (2) public expenditure on education as a
percentage of national income; (3) average number of
pupils per teacher in the 5 to 14 age-group. Not all these
statistics are available for all the countries shown.

country enrolment as cost of education as pupils per teacher

percentage of percentage of in Junior schools
school-age population national income

ICELAND 69 3-1 ibis id 24

FINLAND 69 6-3 1§I§1§1§I§I§8 23 mtmtmmtmttm

SWEDEN 71 1 3-2 Ills hi 19 ttttttttttmtttro

NORWAY 69 5-5 hhhhhl 21 ♦ttttttttmmttmt

DENMARK 73 1 2-9 hhh 33

W. GERMANY 73 1 3-6 Iglglil

NETHERLANDS 69 5-2 hhhhhl 34 mmttttmmmttmmttttm

BELGIUM 72 1 5-6 SaisSsigiili 24 ttmmtttmtttmtm

FRANCE 76 ■ 30 Islsig

SWITZERLAND 61 3-1 hhh!

ITALY 51 3-2 Sglilgi 24 ttmttttmmtmtmt

SPAIN 58 1-4 40 wmttmttmtmmmttttmtttmt

PORTUGAL 43 ■ ■■■1 20 35 tttmwmmimttmmtttmtt

BRITAIN 78 ■■ 4-2 high is 1 29

U.S.A. 83 ■ ■1 4-6 high hi

CANADA 80 ■■ 4-5 hhhhl 30 ttttttttttrottttmttrottro

BRAZIL 38 ■ ■■■ 2-6 hhl 35 ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

NIGERIA 24 ■ ■1 1-9 h It 32 ttmtttmmtttmmmtmtt

ISRAEL 69 ■ 30 tslsSg 24 ttfttttttttttttttttttttt

INDIA 28 ■ ■■ 1-7 hi

JAPAN 77 ■■ 5-7 hhhhhl 35 ttmtttwttmtmtttttttttmwt

tttwmttttmttmwmtttwmtttm
MEXICO 40 ■ ■■■ 1-4 hi 45
tmt
U.S.S.R. 53 7-1 h hh high hi 24 ttmtwtttttttmtmt

■ 10% Sg -i% ^ 1 pupil

Literacy and wealth

In the middle of the 20th century, some 45

per cent of the world’s adult population re¬
mains illiterate. Distribution of the world’s
illiterates is shown on the map. Comparison
with the table below shows that illiteracy is
generally highest in underdeveloped countries,
lowest in countries that have a large national
product. In the U.S.A., New Zealand,
Sweden, and France illiteracy is confined to
between 1 and 4 per cent of the population;
and in Japan—the most productive Asian
country—it is 2-3 per cent. It is much greater
(45-50 per cent) in Colombia, most of whose
relatively large national income goes into a
small number of pockets. Illiteracy per¬
centages of other countries whose productivity
is indicated below are: Philippines 35-40,
Portugal 40-45, Thailand 45-50, Egypt
75-80. Nigeria and India—both non-in-
dustrialized countries—have illiteracy rates of
over 80 per cent.

gross product
per head in
U.S. dollars

U.S.A. 2410

NEW ZEALAND 1350

SWEDEN 1320

FRANCE 1110

COLOMBIA 317

JAPAN 290

PHILIPPINES 223

PORTUGAL 220

EGYPT 124

THAILAND 91

NIGERIA 85

INDIA 77

344
 What the world reads

Left: Russian holidaymakers reading on the beach.

Russia’s book production accounts for about one fifth
of the world’s total. Below: details of newspaper and book
publishing in 23 countries in 1959. (1) Number of daily
general interest newspapers and (2) their estimated daily
circulation per thousand inhabitants; (3) total number
of books and pamphlets and (4) of translations published.
Opposite page (upper): authors most frequently trans¬
lated in 1959, and total of translations published through¬
out the world. Lower: (1) number of public libraries in
1959 j (2) circulation of volumes in thousands; (3) number
of registered borrowers as a percentage of population.

country number of estimated total production of books number of translations

daily newspapers circulation excluding periodicals published in 1959
per 1000 inhabitants

ICELAND 5 389 620 126

FINLAND 101 420 2493 585

SWEDEN 123 462 5825 1023

NORWAY 80 370 3256 611

DENMARK 145 357 3531 809

GERMANY 412 388 26734 2069

NETHERLANDS 107 277 7893 1228

BELGIUM 47 275 3645 1250

FRANCE 116 243 11872 1463

SWITZERLAND 128 395 4899 567

ITALY 109 103 7297 1226

SPAIN 104 73 6085 1209

PORTUGAL 28 68 6646 842

BRITAIN 129 582 23783 751

U.S.A. 1755 328 15012 1111

CANADA 106 232 2743 35

BRAZIL 268 64 4911 502

NIGERIA 20 8

ISRAEL 28 210 1567 656

INDIA 420 11 10741 683

JAPAN 146 398 23682 1133

MEXICO 173 51 1964 19

U.S.S.R. 492 160 76064 5254

country number of book circulation readers as
public libraries thousands percentage of population

ICELAND 236 8-5

FINLAND 3971 15302 16 3

SWEDEN 2909 29108 17*4

NORWAY 1271 8008

DENMARK 1351 2044 180

GERMANY 10361 31200 2-2

HUNGARY 9770 30169 160

BELGIUM 2464 15567

FRANCE 564 3793

SWITZERLAND 122 2247 0-3

CZECHOSLOVAKIA 15005 39921

NEW ZEALAND 164 15162 21 0

PHILIPPINES 276 7745 1-3

BRITAIN 39496 440095 280

U.S.A. 7800 * 550000

CANADA 1138 51398 130

COLOMBIA 113 1932

NIGERIA 109 32 0-1

UNITED ARAB REP. 47 1110

THAILAND 307 381

JAPAN 760 0-7

S. AFRICA 368 14783 30

U.S.S.R. * U.S. statisticians count a central library and its branches

137609
as one library; so U.S. figure is not strictly comparable.
 Mass communications

The chart on this page compares the number

of telephones, radio receivers, and TV re¬
ceivers per thousand inhabitants in 23
countries in 1959. Figures relate to (1) public
and private telephones: (2) number of radio
licences and (3) of TV licences issued.
Opposite: scene from The Hidden Fortress, made
for the international market by the Japanese
film director Akira Kurosawa in 1958. Japan
is the world’s largest producer of long movie
films. Below : chart comparing (1) the
number of long or “feature” films produced
for the cinema in 23 countries in 1959; (2)
annual cinema attendance per inhabitant.

country telephones radio receivers television sets

per 1000 inhabitants per 1000 inhabitants per 1000 inhabitants
0/1n WWWWS'S'SSW'S n-jo tnmmmmmmmmmmmmtnmcn
ICELAND rtr-a ‘trs- ^*•5 mmmmcnmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmttim
FINLAND 136 mcmnmmtnmmmcn 21

VVWOVVfVWSVV mcnmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
SWEDEN 370 w'swww-a-a-ww 360 mmmmm m m m m m rn m m m m m 137
virirvirv mmmrn

01Q vvirffvvwinrvvfirv nnn mmmmmmmmmrnrnmmrnmrn

NORWAY £00 mmmmmmmmrnmmm 13 ¥

ofin WWWWW'B'WW 007 mmmmmmmmrn m m mm m m m

DENMARK ^DU WWWW‘B"S“Sr 119 Ffl 1-jH ^^^^¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
acmmiiaiirimmmcnmmmirim

nnn IT tT CD ffl EH 03 03 tD ffl E fTI 03 HI 115 m D3

GERMANY 110 m mmmm rnmmmmmmmm
71

NETHERLANDS 150 WW'B'BWtt'BWW'B n-tn mmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmtn 69 iti hyi iji iji ^ hr1 hr1

130 'ff'S'-sr'S-'S- P7p cnmmmmmmmmmmcnmmmin

BELGIUM mmmmmmmmmmm 68

9qq mmaacDmmtnincnmaJcnmmtnm
FRANCE 110 VBW'&'&'&'&W&'Sr doxl mmmmmmrn 41

ncc mm rnmmmmmmmm ca cd cn mm
SWITZERLAND 312 wwww-b&'B'RW'b mmmmm m m menm 24

ITALY 80 »*wwsw 155 m mm mm mm mmmm mmmm 43

SPAIN 64 W-BWS 82 mmmmmmmm 8

PORTUGAL 5 * 87 cnmmmmmmrn 5 h

WWW WIST WWW no-? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm hpl If If Kfl hji Ijl ^ hjt lyl Kpl hp ^ ^ ^
BRITAIN mmmmmmmmrnmmm 211
1 /U W

w w w wia-W's-w-ar amaaiEiammDiiiaiiiiciimm
U.S.A. 425 wwwW'a"B“B>-B--Grw 948 Bnanaiiaiimiiixiiiiiiiioa] 297 tjH ¥¥ ¥¥ ¥W ¥ ¥ ¥¥
wwirww'iriff'ir'E mmmmmmmmcHmmmmmcncD
EiiiEiciiacicBaaiiiaEiEimEim hri ^^ ^¥¥W¥¥^^
cri m rn cn m m m m m m m m m m m m
ataaocaamixaiciciimn

WWW W9W ww mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ^ Kp lyl lyl t-pl Fpl hfl IjI ^ ^

CANADA 320 wwww'B'S'aw'sm 431 nnaiiaiiiXEiHiciixciiiciaai 218
w acnnatiEiiimaimca

BRAZIL 15 62 mmmm cnm 18 hr* hr^

NIGERIA 1 3 °

ISRAEL 62 www a r\A mmmmcnmmmcijmmmmmmm

i cn m m

INDIA 1 4 a

JAPAN 85 VW-BWWt 157 mammai socnncrianmii 64 ^ ¥

MEXICO 17 w 94 rnmmmmmmmm 19 *T*

U.S.S.R. 194 mtBonmmmmmmmmmmmm

mmm 19

9 10 telephones m 10 radio receivers 10 television sets

 production of long films, 1959 annual cinema attendance per capita

ICELAND

FINLAND

SWEDEN

NORWAY

DENMARK

GERMANY

NETHERLANDS

BELGIUM

FRANCE

SWITZERLAND

ITALY

SPAIN

PORTUGAL

BRITAIN 122 ITlTlTTlTIin «•» WlMll

U.S.A. 1 1 1 1 1 1 124 ♦111
CANADA 8-6
m
BRAZIL 30 DX3 5-3
m
NIGERIA 0-1
♦
ISRAEL i 1 18 5 ♦iiii

U.S.S.R. 145 16 9

10 films made 1 attendance

 Development of the alphabet

Adaptations to

Scottish Africa and to

Gaelic Welsh American
Icelandic nativelanguages
Romansch German
Irish
Dutch Armdrican
Norwegian 1 / Cornish etc
Italian
Danish Manx
, / ••
i Frisian
Spanish /, -
Provencal
Portuguese Catalan

Croatian Bulgarian
White ...
Russian Ukraman Lydian

Old Phrygian
Romanian
Adaptations to non- Pamphylian
siavomc languages

Bulgarian Cyr////c
Coptic Liturgical
Serbian

Greek
Locri Magna Modern Locaf Messapian
Thessaly Graecia ^es*®*0 Greek Albanian
Dialects

Chalcidian
Sub-Branch
Peloponnesian
Jewish
Boeotian Coin Script Early
Hebrew Moabite

Early Hebrew

Allied Scripts

^Phoenician
Allied
Scripts Sabaen
Himyaritic

Ge’ez South-,
(Ethiopic)
Qatabanic
Hadhramautic
Sou"’-Sen

Tree showing derivation of the world's major alphabets. Balua, Kahun & Miscellaneous Scripts
(See pages 114-17 for a full account.) The origins of the Creative Imagination
alphabet are uncertain; probable influences are suggested Ugarit Cuneiform Alphabet
at the root of the tree. The Proto-Semitic alphabet
Palaeo-Sinaitic Script
base of trunk—is the source of nearly all modern Early Canaanite Inscriptions
alphabets. The first important off-shoots were Canaanite
and Aramaic. The Greek alphabet was adapted from an
early form of Canaanite; it is the ancestor of all modern
European scripts.
English

Slovene
Adaptations to Lusatian
Polish
other languages
in Europe and Slovak
Australasia vC .Slovak

Czech

International
Scripts etc

Old Prussian

Arabic Urdu
Cursive
^Arabic
Hungarian Scripts Pashtu

Takri Dogri
Malayan
^t ESJranand
Allied p hh •
Languages Rabbinic PZT Nabataean
Sirmauri
Monumental 4 Mahajani
Modern Capitals Melkite Neo-Syriac
Palmyrene , lanri Multan i
Nestorian Jaunsar.
Other
Current Sindhi
Runes Oghams ^ ^ Syriac Scripts Hands Varieties
Mahdaean Estrangela
Gurumukhi
Mamchaean

North Etruscan
Scripts

Avesta Patllavi Devanagari (Modi Sihari />rotor Nepali Bengali Oriya

\
_ , Armenian Siddhamatrka Eastern Type Manipuri
Khalkha Bunat Allied
Bhaishuki Scripts Assame:
Manchu Alvan
Early Hungarian
Mongolian Maurya Thai A
v HP.\ other Shan
Georgian Tibetan
Scripts

Andhra Limpong
Rendjang B«tak

Chains Khmers
$■ Dravidl
1 Javan6Se Early C®lebes
Philippine ^Bu^mes®)
Agnean Khotane Burmese Scripts

Modern
A " \ Tuiu-
-MhM% VatteluttLj
vmieiuuu
^'^hakmaY Allied
Scripts
Sinhalese Malaynn °cyy \ )v
r \ Kanarasa ' Mo" U -
_ Pyu
Grantha

Byblos Pseudo-Hieroglyphic Scripts

Cretan Influence
Mesopotamian Influence
Egyptian Influence

351
Index
Page numbers in italics indicate cap¬
tions. References combining two or
more pages (as, 286-7) imply both text
and captions.
Abacus, 181
Aberdeen University, Scotland, 21
Aborigines, 77, 63, 108, 108, 300
Absolute zero, 187, 329
Abstract art, 20, g8, 311
Acrilan, advertising of, 232
Actias selene (moth), 37
Advertising (see also names of products,
companies, and political parties):
agencies, 288-9; aims of, 292-3; and
the human eye, gi; censorship of,
296-7; early, 284-5, 286, 288; ethics
of, 296-7; expenditure on, 285,
292-3; growth of, 284-5, 294"5;
impact of, 102, 103; in Communist
countries, 294-5; in newspapers, see
Newspapers; in underdeveloped
countries, 294-5; influence of, 282,
292-35 3°5; language of, 31, 151,
286-7; organization of, 288-9;
poster, see Posters; psychology and,
286-7, 25(9, 289; research on, 289;
scale of, 282, 284; techniques of,
102, 312-13; television, 260; types
of, 286, 290-1, 236, 297, 297
Aesop, 131, 148
Afghanistan, bus in, go
Africa: advertising in, 294; animals
in, 35; broadcasting in, 260;
children in, 234; drummers in, 170,
213, 213; education in, 280, 280;
illiteracy in, 120; languages in, 120;
newspapers in, 243, 244
African languages, 53, 63
Afrikaans (language), 51, 65
Afro-Asiatic languages, 38
Agencies: advertising, 288-9;
newspaper, 232
Agfa, advertising of, gi
Agonistic behavior (see also Threat
signals), 34-5, 41
Agriculture, 280; and illiteracy,
342; words used in, 72
Airport, traffic control, 85, 220
Air-raid warning system, 213; as
analogy to animal calls, 42
Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 162
Alamkaraparisekara (manuscript), 116
Albert Hall, London, concert in, / 74
Alberto-Culver, advertising of, 293
Alchemists, 178, 182, 188
Alexander the Great, 68, 200
Alexander VI (pope), 144, 144
Alexandria, library at, 200, 200
Algebra, 181, 189
Algeria, ng, 237, 257, 238
Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), 149
All Qiiiet on the Western Front
(Remarque), 147
Allies, the, war propaganda of, 316,
3i7
Almanacs, 139, 133
352
Alphabets (see also Writing, and names
of alphabets) : and Bible, 133; as basis
of signaling, 212, 213; birth of, 114,
114; comparison of different, 53,
124; development of, 115; for
literacy campaigns, 113, 121, 123;
new, 53, 123; origin of word, 117;
present-day, 117, 124-5; spread of,
116-17
Alsted, Johann, 135
Aluminum, 188
“Amber,” 67
Ambrosian Library (Milan), 202
America: advertising, 285, 287, 289,
292, 293, 296, 297; books, 137, 141,
155, 156; broadcasting, 249, 260,
261, 262, 264; cheerleaders, 173;
church, 301; dancing, 173;
Democratic party convention, 26;
education, 279, 300; films, 261, 264;
Hollywood’s influence, 266; Korean
prisoners, 314; languages, 63; libel
laws, 237; Liberty Bond campaigns,
304; libraries, 202, 203, 204;
literacy, 119, 344; naval telescope,
223; newspaper from, 233; Pony
Express, 216; post services, 214;
presidential elections, 302-4; shaving
survey, 288; sky-writing, 237;
slavery, 146; slump, 293, 307;
snake-handling cults, 314;
Strategic Air Command control
center, 227; teenagers visiting
prison, 273; telegraph service, 216,
217; television, 256, 257, 260, 263,
266; the press, 140-1, 145, 230-1,
234-5, 237, 244; thumbs-up gesture,
84; voting, 301
American (language), 75, 124, 125
American Broadcasting Company,
263
Ampere, 183
Ampere, Andre Marie, 183
Analytic scripts, 110-11
Anatomy: and new words, 182;
derivation of word, 182; drawings,
24, 104; models, 185, 183; students
of, 21, 203
Ancient Egyptian (language), 62
Andalusian (dialect language), 74
Anderson, Hans, 149
Androcles and the Lion (Shaw), 123
Angkor, 172, 172
Animal Fair (Provensens), 143
Animal Farm (Orwell), 148
Animal signals, 32-47; adding
impact to, 40-1; evolution of, 38-9;
need for, 32-5; types of, 34-7, 80;
understanding of, 42-3; vocabularies
of, 44-5, 48
Animals (see also names of species):
classification of, 183, 191;
communication between, 32-47, 80;
in zoos, 207; models of, 206; organs
of, 50; performing, 271; training of,
43; used in cartoons, 308-9; young,
34.55.^70
Antarctic: research base, 220; Scott’s
expedition, 233
Antenna (radio), 220, 221, 223
Antoine, Andre, 166, 167
Apes, 43, 46, 46, 47
Apian, Peter, 134
Apollinaire, Guillaume, 133
Appia, Adolphe, 167
Aqueduct, at Segovia, 36
Arabic (language), 50, 62, 62, 116,
116; new words from, 182
Aramaic (alphabet), 115, 116
Arcadia (Sidney), 138
Archives, 196, 138, 199, 200, 208
Areopagitica (Milton), 144
Argentina: advertising, 292;
broadcasting, 260; newspapers, 236
Ariosto, Lodovico, 146
Aristotle, 32; works of, 130; theory
of babies, 178
Arp, Hans, 20
Art, 96-7; abstract, 20, 38, 311;
beginnings of, 96, 158; early, 97, 98;
functions of, 98-9 ; of advertising,
102; progress in, 28; recent, 20-1,
98; theatre, music, and dance,
158-75
“Art by radio f 263
Art galleries, 196, 206-7
Artists, 158, 162, 175
Arts, the: periodicals devoted to,
235; the communal, 158-75
Ashanti, 76
Asia: advertising in, 294; broad¬
casting in, 260, 264; dance in,
1 72-3 ; newspapers in, 243, 244
Assembly, the, in ancient Greece, 27
Assimilation (sound-change), 70-1
Assisi, window at, 278
Association (in learning), 270-1
LAssommoir (Zola), 147
Assumption (Guisto), 34
Assyria, 110, 200
LAstree (d’Urfe), 138
Athens, 27, 28; girl from, 118
Atlantic, the, 220, 222
Atlas, the first, 134
Augmented Roman (alphabet), 123
Australia: aborigines, 63, 108, 108,
300; bowerbirds of, 40; broad¬
casting in, 260, 264; fruit poster, 232
Authority, 312-13, 319
Avocet, 42
Aztecs, the, 108, hi
Babar the Elephant, 149
Babies: Aristotle’s theory of, 178;
development of senses, 19; language
of, 32 ; learning of, 270, 272
Babylonia, 1 10, 200
Bacon, Francis, 126
Bacon, Roger, 132
Baigyoku (actor), 165
Baird, John Logie, 256, 257
Ball, Hugo, 131
Ballet, 161, 172, 173, 174, 175
Bantu languages, 63
Bara, Theda, 252
Barograph, 183, 186
Bearded lizard, 41
Beaverhrook, Lord, 242
Beck, Anthony (English bishop), ig8
Beckett, Samuel, 175
‘‘Beef,’5 66
Beer, advertising of, 150, 1 5 1
Bees, 32, 35 ; dances of, 45, 45, 46
Belgium., 202, 203, 263
Bell, Alexander Graliam, 218
Bell Telephone Comp any, 256, 322
Bengali (language), 5$
Beomilf 133
Berbers, 62, 62
Berlin, 8g, 202
Berliner, Emile, 2 49
Bernhardt, Sarah, 248
Best-sellers, 131, 138, 143, 146-7
Betancourt, 245
BharataPs Canons of Dance and Drama,
5
Bible: and censorship, 144; and
theory of evolution, 142; Authorized
Version, 133; derivation of word,
11 3 ; editions of, 132-3; first English,
11 8, 132; 42-line, 129, 132, 133,
140 ; Hebrew, 1 15; influence of,
133 ; story of Noah, 62
Bibliotheque Nationale, 202
Bicycle 'Thieves (film), 232, 253
Binary systems, 324, 325
“Binnacle,” 67
Biology, 180, 194, 195; classification
in, 191
Birds (see also names of species), 32-44,
46, 270
Birds, The (Aristophanes), 28
Birds of paradise, 40
Birth of a Nation, The (film), 230, 252
Bishops, Anglican, dress 0^86-7
Bismarck (statesman), 227
Bits (binary digits), 324, 323
Black, 92-3 ; associations of, 94
Black Muslims, 303
Blind, the, hooks for, 203
Blood, circulation of, 178
Blue J>udk, Zurich, gj
Blushing, 38
Body, the human, 50-1, 83, 172, 185
BoldyrefF, Dr. Alexander, 31 2
Bolsheviks, 142
Book clubs, 147, 155
Book illustrators, 148-9, 134
Books (see also Libraries) :
best-sellers, 131, 138, 143, 146-7;
censorship of, 131, 144-3,
cheap editions, 130; children’s, 146,
148-9; early, 23, 118, 126-38, 152,
20/, 204; educational, 131, 134,
148, 274-5; escapist, 13^-9 ;
explosive, 142-3; in literacy
campaigns, 120-1, 122; informative,
18, 134-5 ; marketing of, 154-7, 209;
power of, 1 26 ; production of, I2g,
140-1, 154, 136, 157, 346; religious,
I3°'3 fee also Bible); scientific, 156,
193; special types, 203, 204; spread
of, 24-5, 201
Bookshops, 154, 134
Borden, Neil, 292
Boredom, 30, 31
Botany, symbols used in, i8g
Boten-goku, 113
Bowerbirds, 40, 40
“Bow-wow,” 33
Boyle, Robert, 181
Brahma, 160, 163
Brahmi (script), 115, 116
Braille, 184; libraries in, 203
Brain, of man, 46-7, 48, 51, 83, 97,
270, 272-3; model of, 82
Brainwashing, 314-15
Brazil, 64, 260, 236
Brecht, Bertolt, 169
Breeding, among animals, 32-44
Breton (language), 25, 60
Bricklayer, bill made out by, iog
Britain: advertising, 285, 288, 292,
296, 297; Anglican bishops, 86-7;
bookbinding, 141 ; broadcasting,
256, 257, 260, 263; Common
Market entry, 239; demonstration,
ig2; film censorship, 261; German
prisoners, 203; Industrial
Revolution, 140; judges, 87; Korean
prisoners, 314; Labour Party, 239;
libel laws, 145, 237; libraries, 266;
poetry readers, 152; postal services,
214, 303; press, the, 145, 228, 231,
237, 240-1, 242-3; Royal
Commission on the Press, 239;
scientists (1807), igg; sky-writing,
297; thumbs-up gesture, 84; Treaty
of Berlin, 307; voting, 301,50/
British Board of Film Censors, The, 261
British Broadcasting Corporation,
236, 260, 261, 262
British Medical Association, 296
British Museum, 143, 202, 204
Broadcasting, see Mass media, Radio,
and Television
Brueghel, Pieter, 178
Brunei, Charles, 143
Brunhoff, Jean de, 149, 745
Buckley, Samuel, 238
“Buffalo,” 66
“Bungalow,” 67
Bunyan, John, 146, 148
“Buoy,” 67
Burmese (language), 63
Bushmen, 38, 63, 96
Byblos, 113, 113
Cables, submarine, 2/7, 220, 222
Cadbury’s, advertising of, 286
Caesar, Gaius Julius, 22, 36
Calculating machines, 181;
computers, 277, 332-40
California, 87, g2
Calligrammes (Apollinaire), 133
Canaanite (alphabet), 115, 330
Canada, 65, 231, 260
Candid Camera (television program), 259
Candide (Voltaire), 138, 146
Canterbury Tales, The (Chaucer), 22
Capra, Frank, 253
Car dashboard, 111
“Caravan,” 66
Caricature, 100, zoo, 101, 308
Carlyle, Thomas, 151
Carmagnole, la (dance), 162
“Carnival,” 67
Carroll, Lewis, 149
Carson, Rachel, 147
Cartoons, 100-2, 236, 279; political,
308-9, 316, 317
Cassavetes, John, 253
Castilian (language), 74
“Castle,” 66
Catalan (language), 56, 74
Catholics, 23, 24, 144
Cats, 42, 43, 46
Cave paintings, 96-7, 102, 108
Caxton, William, 130, 131, 134
Celts, 117
Censorship: of advertising, 296-7;
of films, 261; of Marx’s writing,
143; of printed matter, 131, 144-5,
318; of radio, 260; “visual,” 97
Centers, Richard, 301
Centre 42, 175
Cervantes, Miguel de, 138, 146, 148
Ceylon, devil mask from, 163
Chaffinches, 36
Chamberlain, Joseph, 100
Chamberlain, Neville, 308
Chambers, Ephraim, 135
Chameleon, 40
Chaney, Lon, 252
Channels (communication), 322-31
Chaplin, Charlie, 251
Chappe, Claude, 213
Character, 31 o
Charles Island, 214
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 22, 70
Check (bank), 86
Cheerleaders, 173
Chekhov, Anton, 167
Chemistry: as old science, 194;
naming of substances, 183; use of
models, 185; use of symbols, 188-9
“Chercherf 71
Cheret, Jules, 283
Chicago, 724, 231, 260
Children: books for, 146, 148-9; in
18th and 19th centuries, 118-19; in
England (1830), 24; learning of, 19,
46, 268-81, 300, 312; speech of,
160; television and, 266; upbringing
of, 148, 198
Children of the Sun (film), 263
Chimpanzees, 36, 47, 47
China: children in street, 161;
compositor, 140; drama, 165, 168,
174; education, 280, 300; fly
campaign, 304; illiteracy, 111;
orchestra, 161; prisoners, 315;
rally, 164
Chinese (language), 51, 58, 63, 79
Chinese (script), 23, hi, 112, 128,
140; simplification of, 106, 121
Choking (display of gulls), 44, 44
Christian Democrats, 301
Christianity, 84, 88-9, 170
Chrysler, advertising of, 292
Church, the: censorship by, 144;
color symbolism of, 94; control of
printing, 131; cross symbol and,
88-9; drama and, 168; dress of
officials of, 86-7; education and,
353
 278; film and, 261; literacy and,
118; opinions and, 298; place in
Middle Ages, 23
Churchill, Sir Winston, 84, 147, 317
Cid, El (film), 155
Cigarettes, advertising, 287, 288, 297
Cinema, see Films
Circuits, electrical, 184, 188, 188
Cities: growth of, 230; modern, 30-1,
228; modern newspaper in, 232, 232
Citizen Kane (film), 253
Civilizations, early, 198, 209
Class, social, 74, 300-1, 304
Classification: of animals, i8g;
scientific, 190-1
Cleopatra (film), 266
“Clerk,” 106
Coca-Cola, advertising of, 297
“Cock-a-doodle-doo,” 55
Cocteau, Jean, 101
Code of the Motion Picture
Industry, 252, 261
Codes, see under specific headings, such
as Animal signals, Morse, Speech
Collodi, Carlo, 149
Color: and the eye, 92-3; associations
of, 94-5; in advertising, 102; in
newspapers, 245; in television, 256,
257; nature of, 94-5
Color planner, 138
Comenius, Amos, 148, 148
Communal arts, the, 158-75
Communism, 143, 169
Communist countries:
advertising in, 294-51 brainwashing
by, 314-15; broadcasting in, 260;
film making in, 261; the arts in,
169, 174-5; the press in, 145, 236
Communities: and newspapers, 228,
234, 242; and poetry, 152-3; and
the arts, 158; before locomotives, 23
Community, sense of, 28, 30-1, 163
Compositors, 140, 141, 154
Computers, 277, 332-40; cards, 288,
335; Russian-English dictionary,
2og
Cones (of retina), go, 91
Confessions of Felix Krull, The (Mann),
138
Conservative Party (Britain), 301,
301; advertising of, 150, 151
Consonants, 50,51, 114, 115, 124
Context, 44, 73, 326,^336-7
Cooper, James Fenimore, 146, 148
Copernicus, Nicolaus, ig5
Copyright, 136-7
Cosmographia. (Ptolemy), 134
“Cow,” 66
Cowrie shells, 109
Craig, Edward Gordon, 164, 164
Cranach, Lucas, 132
“Cranium,” 182
Creoles, 75
Crete, 108, 112
Cricket (insect), 36
Crimson, associations of the color, 94
Crippen, Dr., 220
Cross (the symbol), 60, 88-9, 94
Cruikshank, George, 146
354
Cuba: British trade with, 318; crisis
(of 1962), 227, 237; poster, 121
Cultural evolution, 20-1
Cuneiform writing, 11 o-11
Cutting: films, 250, 251; radio, 2^4
Cuttlefish, 38
Cycle trainer, 83
Cyclopaedia . . . (Chambers), 135
Cyprus, influence of, on Greek
language, 113
Cyrillic alphabet, 117, 335
Dadaists, the, 151, 166
Daguerre, Louis, 248
Daguerreotype, 248
Daily Corn ant, 230, 238
Daily Express, 242, 296
Daily Herald, 242
Daily Mail, 231, 242, 242; group of
newspapers, 242
Daily Mirror, 237, 241, 2425 group of
newspapers, 242, 242; 24.3
Daily Sketch, 242
Daily Telegraph, 231
Dakar, 281; university at, 277
Daladier,Edouard, 100
Dali, Salvador, 143
Dalmatian (language), 56
Dalton, John, 188
Dame School, 272
Dance, 158, 160, 163, 172-3; gestures
in, 85, 165, 165; language of, 172
Darwin, Charles, 46, 142, 142
Daumier, Honore, 138, 303
Dayton (Tennessee), 142
De Forest, Lee, 248
De Lisle, Rouget, 162
De Mille, Cecil B., 252
De Sica, Vittorio, 252, 253
Dead Sea Scrolls, 62
Deaf children, 51
Deaf-and-dumb people, 85
Deaths and entrances (Graham), 173
Debussy, Claude, 161
Declaration of Independence, 86,
150
Defoe, Daniel, 108, 138, 146, 148
Delhi, 123, 265
Delphi (Greece), 28
Democracy, 318; derivation and use
of word, 27; development of, 126;
newspapers in a, 242
Democratic party (United States),
301, 304; convention, 26
Demonstrations, 27, 236
Denmark: broadcasting, 260; gold
horn, 57; launch library, 203
Dentition, i8g
Depression, the, 252, 307
Depth interviews, 289
Descartes, Rene, 78
Dewey, Melvil, 205
Dialect, 74-5
Dichter, Ernest, 289
Dickens, Charles, 137, 146, 148, 148
Dictionaries, 67, 72, 75, 76, 125,
134-5; computers’, 2og, 337, 339-40
Dictionary of the English Language
(Johnson), 134
Didacticism (in theatre), 168-9
Diderot, Denis, 105, 135, 139
Digestive system, diagram of, 104
“Ding dong,” 55
Discovery (ship), 235
Disney, Walt, 252
Display, in museums &c, 206-7
Disraeli, Benjamin, 306, 307
Dissimilation (sound-change), 71
Dissolve (film and TV), 251, 258
DNA, 184
“Dock,” 67
Documentaries (films), 252, 253
“Dog,” 73
Dogs, 36, 43, 4.6, 314
Dolci, Danilo, 310
Don Qiuxote (Cervantes), 138, 146, 148
Dostoevski, Fedor, 137
“Dough,35 71
Drama (see also Theatre), 160-9, r74i
gestures in, 85, 165; modern, 163,
166-7, J75i origins of, 160, 162-3;
place of comedy, 163, 168; poetic,
165; pulpit, 168-9; religious, 168
Dreams, 143
Dress, and status, 86-7
Dress pattern, 233
Dreyfus, Alfred, 151
Drifters (film), 253
Drums, African, 170, 213, 213
Ducks, 39, 41
Dumas, Alexandre, 137, 146, 148
Diirer, Albrecht, 130
Durham, bishop’s seal, 138
Diirrenmatt, Friedrich, 163
Dutch (language), 133
Dwarf honeybee, 45
Ear, 51
Early Canaanite (script), 1 14, 114
Early Hebrew, 114, 1 15
Early man, 46-7
Easter Island, statues on, 63
“tcole70
Economics, 194, 195
Economist, Tke, 235
Ecuador: stamp, 121; throne, 86
Edison, Thomas, 219, 248, 249
Editing: in radio, 254-5 i m television,
258-9; of films, 250-1
Editors: art, 154; newspaper, 230,
232-3, 236, 238, 243, 245
Education, 268-81 (see also Learning
and Schools) ; children’s books and,
148; communication and, ig;
comparative chart, 343; compulsory,
119 ; formal, 268, 274, 2 78-9 ;
importance of libraries, 198, 202 ;
in Europe, 24, 25, 278-9; in
underdeveloped countries, 280;
informal, 18, 274, 2 78; intelligence
and, 29; mass media and, 264-5;
modern methods, 26, 272, 273,
274-7 (see a^so Teaching materials) ;
of scientists, 1 92; role of play in,
268, 27/2, 273; spread of, 278-g;
today, 280-1
Egg (illustration from r 68 1 paper),
233
Egypt: bro adca sting, 2 60; i 11 it era try,
344; Suez Canal crisis, 236
Egypt, ancient: language of, 62;
libraries in, 1200; painting from, roo ;
writing instruments of, it 8
Egyptian, (writing), 111,114, 1 15
Eiffel Tower, 2^g
Eisenhower, General, 306
Eisenstein, Sergei, 251, 25/
Elamites, 111
Elections, 1 ig
Electrical engineering, symbols
used in, r88
Electricity: and electric telegraph,
216; and telephone, 218; measuring
of, 180; units of, 183
Electroencephalograph, 182
Electromagnetic waves, 94-5
Electromagnetism, 216
Electron microscope, iyg
Elements (in science), 188-9;
classification of, igi, igi; Dalton’s
symbols for, 188
Elements of Geometry (Euclid), 134
Ellis, Alexander, 124
Emil and the Detectives (Kastner), 1 49
Ems telegram, 227
Encyclopaedia (Alsted), 135
Encyclopedias, 135, 148, 156
Encyclopedic (Diderot), /05, 135
England: break with Church of
Rome, 118; copyright, 137; early
printed books, 134; education test
(1837), 1 1 g; 13th-century psalter,
170; first dictionary, 1 34; freedom
of press, 143; libraries, 355; literacy,
24; newspaper taxes, 230; schools,
English (language), 51, 53, 55, 57,
58, 65, 70, 72, 73, r 23, r?3, 124;
as universal language, 7#, 79;
dialects of, 75, 74; discrepancies in,
1 24-5 ; first books in, 130, 135;
frequency of letters in, 21 6 ; in early
printing, 1 3 1; in science, 136;
influence of Bible and Shakespeare
on, 133 ; translated from Russian,
337-40
Engravings, 128, 134, 749, 150
Epic theatre, 168, 169
Epics (poetry), 153, 172-3
Escapism, 29, 138-9
Eskimo (language), 63
Esperanto, 78, 79
Estienne, Robert, 134
Estonian (language), 62, 63
Etruscan (alphabet), 114, 113, 117
Europe: advertising, 285; alphabets,
117; Bibles, 1 32-3 ; censorship,
144-5; education, 278-9; expression
of ideas, 311; invention of printing,
24, 126, 128; languages, 62, 156;
Latin, 131 ; literacy,. 118-19, 279;
pre- 15th-century, 23 ; press, the,
182, 230-1, 234-5, 240-4; religious
wars, 24; writing, 106
European Common Market, 239
Eurovision, 257, 257
Evening News, 242
Evening Standard, 242
“Evil eye,” go
Evolution, 142, 142, 191 ; cultural,
20-1; of languages, 129; of man,
20, 46-7, 142
Exchanges, telephone, 218, 2ig
Exhibitions, 206-7
Exit the King (Ionesco), 167
Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals, The, (Darwin), 46
Expressionism (theatre), 166, 168-9
Expressionist art, 98, g8
Extrapolation (mathematical), 187
Eye, the human, 83, 90-3, 97
Factory workers, ig; in 18th and
19th centuries, 118, 119, 140, 279
Fade-in, 251, 255, 258
Fade-out, 251, 255, 258
Faerie Queene, The (Spenser), 137
Fairbanks, Douglas, 252
Fairy Tales (Anderson), 149
Fallen Idol (film), 250
“Fallout,” 179
Family, the, function of, 300, 304, 310
“Fanatic,” 326
“Fancier,” 326
Farad, 183
Faraday, Michael, 183
Farming, 280; and illiteracy, 342;
words used in, 72
“Fascism,” 8g
Fascist symbols, 89
Federal Communications
Commission, 261
Fellini, Federico, 253
Fencing, manual of, 133
Feuillet, Raoul, 172
Fevers, Torti’s classification of, igo
Fiddler crab, 37
Fielding, Henry, 138, 133
Fighting Qiieen (film), 262
Figurehead (of war canoe), 97
“Filled,” 336
Film stars, 249, 252
Films {see also Mass Media), 246-53,
259, 261, 262, 264, 349; attendances,
249; control of, 200, 261; early,
248, 260; history of, 249, 261;
society and, 252-3, 266, 266;
techniques and language of, 225,
246, 249, 250-1; used in TV, 259
Filmstrip, 274
Financial Times, 241
Fingerprints, 86, 86
Finland: telegram form from, 217;
television in, 263; timber exports,
,141
Finney, Albert, 133
Finnish (language), 53, 62, 63
Fireflies, 37, 40, 41
Fish, 36, 37, 38, 40; early Christian
symbol, 88, 89
Five K’s, the, 8g
Five Year Plan (India), 123
Five Year Plans (Soviet Union), 295
Flags: of ships, 40; signaling, 213
Flaherty, Robert, 251, 252
Flaubert, Gustave, 145
Fleas, 36, 134
Flemish (language), 74
Florence, libraries in, 201, 201
Flying phalanger, 55
Focardi, Giovanni, 283
Folk art, 29
Folk entertainment, 23
Folk songs, 28, 170
Food: production problems, 280, 280;
taboos in Ghana, 208
Football fans, 30
Ford, John, 147, 253
Ford, advertising of, 290, 292
Formosa, telegram form from, 217
Formulae, scientific, 188-9
Fortune, 240
Forward (display of gulls), 44, 44
Fossils, 46
Fountain, at Geneva, 186, 187
400 Blows, The (film), 253
Fox Talbot, William, 248
France: broadcasting, 243, 257, 260,
262; cave paintings, 108; censor¬
ship, 144, 145; copyright, 137;
films, 248; illiteracy, 119, 344;
libraries, 202, 203, 204; press, the,
139s 23b 233> 234-5. 237, 237, 241,
244; sky-writing, 237; telegram
form, 217
Francis I (king of France), 136, 202
Frankfurt, 202; and censorship, 144;
Book Fair, 136
Franklin Benjamin, 139, 133, 203
Freedom: of choice, 297; of opinion,
318-19; power of the word, 26
“Freedom of the Press, The”
(cartoon), 242
French (language), 51, 56, 57, 58,
62, 65, 63, 73, 76; as universal
language, 79
French Academy, dictionary of, 134
French Revolution, 135, 144, 145,
150, 236; effect on libraries, 203
French Revolution, The (Carlyle), 151
French Riviera, advertising of, 283
Frend, Charles, 253
Frequencies: of sound, 36, 41; of
speech, 224; radio, 224
Freud, Sigmund, 31, 143, 143
Frigate birds, 33
Frisch, Max, 163
Frogs, 34, 36
Funen Fyn (Denmark), 203
Fury, Billy, 262
Gaelic (language), 25, 60
Gagarin, Yuri, 237
Gallup, George, 289
Gallup Polls, 302, 303
Garden of Eden, 71
“Gas,” 183
Gas I (Kaiser), 169
Gases: Boyle’s law concerning, 181;
graphs concerning, 187; inert, 131
Gassman, Vittorio, 175
Gates of Tongues (dictionary), 134
Gebrauchsmusik, 162
General Motors, advertising of, 292
Genetics, 183
355
Geneva: data about fountain at, 187 ;
old library in, 202; WHO library
in, 199
Genghis Khan, 65
Gent (Belgium), 74, 203, 226
Georgian (language), 62
German (language), 51, 55, 57, 58;
Bibles in, 132-3
Germanic languages, 57, 57, 60
Germanium, 191
Germany: books, 131 ; collective
farming (East), 315; Der Spiegel,
237, 237; epic theatre, 169;
libraries, 203, 204; press, the, 231,
237, 241; prisoners, 203; schools,
131; war propaganda, 317,5/7
Gesamtkunstwerk, 161
Gestures, 82, 83, 84-5, 165, 163
Ghana: elections, 113; former Lord
Chief Justice, 87; learning to read,
/15; Nkrumah, 306; nutrition
lecture, 208
Gillette, advertising of, 287
“Ginger,55 68
Girdle book, 23
Gladstone, William Ewart, 307
Glossaries, 76
Goethe, Johann von, 139, 146, 167
Golden Bed, The (film), 252
Goldoni, Carlo, 139
Gone with the Wind (Mitchell), 147
Good Soldier Schweik, The (Hagek), 168
Goon Show (radio programme), 255
Goring, Hermann, 313
Gothic alphabet, 117
“Goulash,55 67
Gouldian finch, 39
Governments: advertising and, 294;
censorship by, 144-5; control of
broadcasting, 260, 262; control of
films, 261; control of newspapers,
230, 236-7, 243, 244; control of
printing, 131; films and, 264;
libraries of, 199; mass media and,
27; of underdeveloped countries,
295; propaganda and, 302, 303,
305; scientific research of, ig2, 193
Graham, Martha, 173
Grammar, 52, 32, 33; of films, 250-1
Grammar School, the,'at Stratford-
upon-Avon, 33
Grand Central Station, New York,
267
Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck), 147,
151; quotation from, 150; film, 253
Graphs, 186-7
Grasshoppers, 41
Great Train Robbery, The (film), 248
Greece: fiber advertisement, 232;
telegram form from, 217
Greece, ancient: democracy in, 27;
development of geometry, 184;
drama in, 28, 28, 165, 168; libraries
in, 200, 200; literacy in, 118, /18;
papyrus from, 200; vase from, 136
Greek language: ancient, 52, 112,
/12, 113, 115, 117, 117; “Christos,”
89; in early printing, 130-1;
providing new words, 182-3
356
Green, associations ot the color, 94
Greene, Graham, 148
Grierson, John, 253
Griffith, David Wark, 250, 251, 252
Grosz, George, 168, 308
Guazzoni, Enrico, 262
Gulliver s Travels (Swift), 148
Gulls, language of, 44
Gutenberg, Johann, 128, 128, 129,
T33, J34
Ha9ek, Jaroslav, 168
Hamburger Abendblatt, 24.3
Hamito-Semitic languages, 62, 62
Hammer and sickle, 89
“Hammock,55 67
Hancock, John, 86, 130
Handel, George Frederick, 161, 162
Handshake, 84
Harmsworth, Alfred, 231
Harvey, William, 173
Hearst, W. R., 231, 243
Heart, the, 173
Heat, 329
Hebrew (language), 62, 62, 114, 115
Heidi (Spyri), 149
Heraldry, 23, 86
Hernani (Hugo), 166
Heston, Charlton, 133
Heyerdahl, Thor, 63, 147
Hidden Fortress, The (film), 348
Hieroglyphic writing, no, 111
High culture, 28-9, 161, 171, 174-5
Hill, Rowland, 214
Hindi, 60, 123
Hindu culture, 305; dance in, 172-3
Hindustani (language), 58, 60
Hiroshima Mon Amour (film), 253
History, 21, 31, 151, 196
History of England (Macaulay), 147
History of the Jewish Wars (Josephus),
136
Hitchcock, Alfred, 251
Hitler, Adolf, 134, 302
Hittites, 60, hi; idol of, 60
Hoffhung, Gerard, 171
Hogarth, William, 230, 236
Hoggart, Richard, 300
“Holiday,55 70, 73
Holland: libraries in, 204; map
production in, 134, 133; newspaper
from, 233; translation of Bible in,
!33
Hollywood, 253, 266, 301
Honey guide, 35
Hooke, Robert, 218
Horn-book, 113
Horns, 57, 213
Hospitals, 202, 204
Hot line, the, 227
“Hound,55 73
Housing Problems (film), 253
How Green Was My Valley (Llewellyn),
J47> H7
Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 138
Hugo, Victor, 146, 166
Hungarian (language), 52, 62, 63, 77
Hungary, 311
Hunting, 43, 47, 108
“Hurricane,55 67
Hypnerotomachia (Colonna), 131
I Have a Secret (TV program), 263
I Live in Fear (film), 232
Ibsen, Henrik, 168
Identity, 86 , 86
Ideography, 78, 110-11
Ideological conflicts, 156, 193
Idioms (language), 337
Riad (Homer), 146, 153
Illiteracy (see also Literacy):
agriculture and, 342 ; before
printing, 23; full meaning of, 120;
in China, 111 ; mass media and, 264,
265; of factory workers, 279;
throughout world, 106, 120, 344
Image (in advertising), 102, 102
Imitation of Christ, The (Thomas a
Kempis), 131
Impressionist Painter, The (Cocteau), 101
Incas, the, quipu of, 109
Independent Television Authority,
260, 261
Index librorum prohibitomm, 144, 144
India: alphabets, 115, 1 16, 117;
broadcasting, 260, 265; children,
164; crossroads sign, 111; dance,
158, 163, 172-3; education, 122-3;
films, 262; Five Year Plan, 123 ;
illiteracy, 113, 120, 121, 122-3, 3445
languages, 60, 60, 79, 122, 123;
man, 38; music, 158; newspapers,
244; prejudice, 305; telegram
envelopes, 217; thumbs-up gesture,
8t
India Literacy Board, 123, 123
Indiana State prison, 273
Indians (American), 63, 96, 97, 332
Indoctrination, 297, 312-15
Indo-European languages, 57.58,
38, 60, 62, 63, 64
Indo-Iranian languages, 60
Indonesia, illiteracy in, 1 20
Indus Valley, seals from, no
Industrialization, 2 14, 280; and
education, 278-9; and literacy, 118,
119, 278-9, 342; and printing, 140-1
Industrialized societies (see also
Societies): advertising in, 282 ;
literacy and education in, 119,
278-9; newspapers, 231, 244;
personal communication in, 30-1
Industry: literacy and, 119; need for
advertising, 282; research by, 193;
specialized libraries, igg; use of
closed-circuit television, 221 ; use of
color, 94; use of films, 264
Information (see also specific entries,
suck as Animal Signals, Writing):
early methods of recording, 'io8-g,
200 ; measuring and sending of,
322-37; storing of, 196-209
Information level: of animal
signals, 42-3; of visual and audible
signals, 212, 213,322-31
Information theory, 224-5, 322_3I
Inn signs, 23, 95
Insects (see also names ojspecies), 34, 36
Instincts, 270
Institutional promotion, 291
Intention, movements, 38
Interference (radio), 222, 224, 225
International Advertising
Convention, 296
International Council on Archives,
208
International Federation of
Documentation, 208
International Federation of
Library Associations, 208, 208
International flag code, 212
International Publishing
Corporation, 242
Interpolation (mathematics), 187
Interpreters (see also Translation),
76, 227
Interpreting (polls), 303
Interviewing (polls), 303
Interviews, television, 267
Inter vision, 257, 257
Intolerance (film.), 251
Intonation (in spe ech), 51
Intrusion (sound-change), 70
Ionesco, Engene, / 67, 175
Ionosphere, 220, 222
Iran, poster from, 120
Iraq >312
Ireland, films in, 261
Irish, (language), 60
Iron lung, 204
Islam (see also Moslems), 116, 116
Isolation: feeling of, 226; of Indian
communities, 122
Isolative sound-change, 70
Israel, 62, 63, 265
Italian (language), 56, 57, 58, 124
Italo-Celtic languages, 60, So
Italy: broadcasting, 260, 265; films,
261; first dictionary, 134; libraries,
201; newspapers, 241, 244;
periodicals, 235; shy-writing, 297
Ivan the Terrible (film), 291
Izvestia, 245
Jackson, Andrew, 318
Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 129
Jamming, 260
Janeway, James, 148
Japan: advertising, 2g2; broadcasting,
246, 237, 263, 265; Bngaku dances,
172; films, 348; illiteracy, 344;
Kabuki theatre, 169; manuscript,
113; No theatre, 158, 160-1, 165;
papers, 231; poster, 29; teenagers,
303; television factory, 257; War
Office poster, 316; war propaganda,
317;.woman, 38
Japanese (language), 53, 57, 58, 58,
62, 63, I 12, I 14
Jaques JDamour (Zola), 166
Jazz, 752, 174
Jeans, Sir James, 147
Jefferson, Thomas, 130, 202, 319
“Jet,” 72
Jews, 62, 199, 313
Johnson, Samuel, 134, 284, 286
Jones, Robert Edmond, 166, 167
Journalists, 232, 243, 245; freedom
of, 236, 237; freelance, 232;
influence of, 238; the first, 230
Jungfraujoch Observatory
(Switzerland), 180
Kabuki theatre (Japan), 163
Kaiser, the, 316
Kandinski, Wassily, 98
Kangaroos, 270
Kapital, Das (Marx), 142, 143
Keller, Friedrich, 141
Kennedy, John F., 302
“Ketchup,” 67
“Kind,” 72
King, Cecil, 242
Kingsley, Charles, 148
Kipling, Rudyard, 148
“Kismet,” 67
Kitchen, The (Wesker), 163
Knossos, 112, 112
Kodak, advertising of, 287
Kon-Tiki (Heyerdahl), 63, 147
Koran, the, 33, 118
Korean war, 314, 315, 315, 317
“Kraft,” 70
Krokodil, 317
Kufic (script), 116, 116
Kurosawa, Akira, 232, 253, 348
Labour Party (Britain), 239, 301;
advertising by, 84, 150, 151
Lady Chatter ley's Lover (Lawrence), 143
Landon, Alfred Mossman, 302
Language, 48-79 (see also Gestures,
Writing); animals’, see Animal
signals; art’s, 160; “freezing” of,
129, 153; in international com¬
munication, 125, 227; in literacy
campaigns, 120-1, 122; man’s, 32,
43, 46-7 (and see also Languages);
mathematical, 151, 181; nature of,
31; of signs, 104; science’s, 19, 150,
151, 176-95; standard, 75; universal,
a, 48, 78-9
Languages (see also names of languages
and groups of languages): dialects,
74-5; evolution, 54-6, 66-7, 70-1,
129, 132; groups (families), 48, 52,
56-63; national, 156-7; new, 78;
number of, 48, 48, 52; origin, 54-5;
relationship between, 55-63; sounds,
51, 70-1; spread, 60-5; standardiza¬
tion, 134; structure, 52-3, 55;
translation, see Translation
Lannion (France), 223
Lapp (language), 62, 63
Larvae, 34
Last of the Mohicans, The (Cooper), 148
Last Tear at Marienbad (film), 251
Latin, 56-7, 76, 78; alphabet,
117, 7/7, 124; and the Bible, 132;
chemical symbols from, 188; in
Church services, 118, 56-7, 62; in
early printing, 130-1, 135, 156 ; in
Middle Ages, 131; international
language, 23, 156; new words from,
182-3
Latin Grammar (Donatus), 134
Laubach, Frank, 121, 121
Laurentian Library, 201, 201
Lawrence, D. H., 143
Lay figure, 275
Lazarfeld, Paul, 301
Le Monde, 231
Le Roy, Mervyn, 253
Leaders (newspaper), 232, 238
Learning (see also Education), 19; by
imitation, 273, 274; man’s capacity
for, 268; of a child, 268, 270-1,
272-3; of a language, 46, 124, 125;
processes of, 268, 270-1, 281; stages
of, 268, 272-3; using a machine,
276-7
Leatherfish, 43
Legends, 196
Leibniz, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm
von, 156, 181
Leiden, University of, 204 l
Leitmotivs, 171
Letter, from Cameroun boy, 63
Letters (alphabet), 114-15; develop¬
ment of new, 117, 125
Letters (post), 214-15; and tele¬
graphic messages, 217; delivery of,
214-15; direct-mail advertising, 290 ;
handling of, 214, 213; sorting of, 213
Lever, advertising of, 292
Levison, Dr. Michael, 341
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 97
Leyhausen, P., 42
Libel, law of, and the press, 236-7
Liberia, 121
Liberty Bonds, 304
Libraries, 20, 130, 155, 196-209,
266; ancient, 200-1; and best sellers,
147; catalogues for, 204-5; co¬
operation between, 205, 208-9;
making best use of, 208-9; modern,
!55> 205, 203; organizing of, 204-5;
public, 155, 207, 202-3, 346; space
problem of, 204, 205; subscription,
147, 155, 202, 203, 204; types of,
134, 198-9, 202, 203, 203, 204, 208
Library of Congress, 202, 204, 205
Life, 234, 240, 293
Life and Death of an American (Sklar),
i6g
Light: emitted by fireflies, 40; nature
of, 94-5; speed of, 212
Lindisfarne Gospels, 118
Linear B (script), 112, 112
Linotype machines, 141, 233
Lips (as used when speaking), 51, 57
Literacy, 18, 24-5, 244, 279, 342;
Bible as spur to, 133; campaigns,
120-3; in Europe, 24-5, 118-19;
printing and, 126, 131; spread of,
106, 134, 140
Literacy Village, 123
Literary Digest, 302, 303
Literature, periodicals about, 235
Lithuanian (language), 124
Little Caesar (film), 253
Living Newspaper, 169
Llewellyn, Richard, 147, 147
Loan words, 66-8
London: bag from store, 287; first
357
 newspapers, 230; news of Napoleon’s
defeat, 22; queue, 143; shopfront,
180; street advertising, 284; Suez
demonstration, 236; suffragettes,
302; Underground, 283
Long Christmas Dinner, The (Wilder),
167
Look Back in Anger (film), 253
Lord’s Prayer, the, 77
“Lost in France” (poem), 153
Louis XVI (French king), 207
Louis Philippe (French king), 100
Low, David, 308, 309
Low Countries, the, 131, 230
Lower Depths, The (Gorki), 167
Loyola, Ignatius, 298
Lucknow, 123, 123
Lumiere, Auguste and Louis, 248
Luna moth, 32
Luther, Martin, 131, 132, 136, 143,
144, 144, 298; dialect of, 133;
translation of Bible, 132, 133
Lydgate, John, 132
Macaulay, Thomas, 147
Mach i (speed of sound), 183
Macula lutea, 91
Madame Bov ary (Flaubert), 145
Magazines, see Periodicals
Magellan, Ferdinand, 133
Maggiorani, Lamberto, 232
Magic, 163
Mahabharata, the, 173
Mail, see Post Offices, &c
Mail coaches, 230
Mailbox, world’s most isolated, 214
Mainz, 128, 129; Archbishop of, 144
Malay (language), 58
Malayo-Polynesian languages, 58
63, 63
Malta, 85
Maltese cross, 89
Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, The
(France), 166
Man Who Was Thursday, The
(Chesterton), 168
Manipulation, of means of
communication, 26-7
Mann, Thomas, 138
Manuscript (of a book), 154
Manuscript (hand-written) books,
126, 129, 130
Manutius, Aldus, 130, 131
Maoris, maturity design of, 87
Maps., 134, 133, 184-5; specifically:
members of International Federa¬
tion of Library Associations, 208;
Mercator’s, 133; painted on
playground, 268
Marble, 188-9
Marceau, Marcel, 165
Marconi, Guglielmo, 220, 248
Marconi-E.M.I. Company, 257
Marie Antoinette, 207
Marie Therese, 207
Market research, 267, 288, 289, 295
Marseillaise, the, 162
Marshall Islanders, iog
Marvell, Andrew, 152
358
Marx, Karl, 133, 142-3
Maser, 225, 223
Mashonaland, rock paintings, 34, g6
Maslov, Professor P., 295
Mass marketing, 285
Mass media (see also Films, Radio
and Television), 26, 29, 31, ig3,
246-67, 305; advertising and, 294;
as bridge between scientist and
laymen, 192; control of, 26-7;
education and, 275; limitations of,
304; opinions and, 318; quality of,
28-9
Mass production, 129, 282, 282
Massachusetts Indian (language),
133
Mathematics, language of, 30, 150,
151, 180-1
Medici (Florentine family), 201, 201
Medicine, 194; libraries specializing
in, 199; periodicals devoted to, 235
Melies, George, 248
Memory, 47, 83, 196
Mendel, Gregor, 183
Mendeleev, Dmitri, 191, igi
Mercator, Gerhardus, 134, 133
Mercure Galant, 139
Mesopotamia, 108, 110, 200
Message systems, 108-9
Messages (see also Animal signals,
Speech, &c): in daily life, 18-19;
sending of, 210-27; 322-31
Metamorphosis of Narcissus, The
(painting), 143
Mexico, 64; manuscript from, 84
Mexico City, 2g, 64
Microfilms, 204, 205, 214, 276
Microprinting, 204, 205
Microwaves, 222-3
Middle Ages, the, 106, 117, 129, 135;
identity and status in, 86; Latin in,
131; life in, 23; literacy in, 23, 118
Milk, advertising of, 292, 296
Milligan, Spike, 233
Milton, John, 137, 144-5
Mime, 164, 165, 273
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (film), 253
Mitchell, Margaret, 147
Moana (film), 252
Models: scientific, 184, 185, 183,
275; working, 82, 206, 207
Modern Times (film), 251
Molcho, Sarny, 164
Molecules, 189; models of, 184, 185
Moll Flanders (Defoe), 138
Mollusk, 176
Monaco, 73, 283
Monasteries: as centers of literacy,
118; book copying in, 118, 118;
dissolution of, 131; preservation of
records in, 201; schools established
by, 278
Mondriaan, Pieter, g8
Money, 128, igg
Monkeys, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 43,
43, 46, 46, 47
Monotype machines, 141, 141
Montenegro (Yugoslavia), 28
Montgomery, Field Marshal, 97
Moore, Henry, 21, gg, 311
“Moose,” 67
Morality, and censorship, 145
Morocco, 33, 58
Morse, Samuel, 216, 323
Morse code, 212, 213, 213, 216-17,
220, 225
Moscow: hot line, 227; May Day
parade, 237; Napoleon’s retreat, 22;
poetry talk, 2g; Red Square
celebration, 27; University of Lenin,
902
Moslems, 84, 116, 116, 200-1
Moths, 32, 37
Motivational research, 288, 289
Motor-cyclist’s helmet, g6
Mourning, colors of, 94
Madras (Indian dance gestures), 165,
165
Murrow, Edward R., 306
Muscles, 83, 272, 273
Museums, 20, 200, 206-7
Music, 158, 160-3; classical, 29, 170,
174; commercial, 163; language of,
170-1; modern, 174; properties of,
160; used in education, 273; used
in radio, 254; used in television, 259
Music hall, 1 74
Music While You Work, 163
Musicals: film, 253, 233, 262;
theatre, 165
Musique d’ameublement, 162
Mussolini, Benito, 100, 302, 303
“Mutton,” 66
“Muzak,” 163
Myelin, 272
Mysterious Universe, The (Jeans), 147
Mysticism, 178
Myths, 20
Nabateans, the, 116
Nanook of the North (film), 252
Napoleon, 22, 22, 145, 286
Nashki (script), 116, 116
Nation, sense of belonging to, 316-17
National Broadcasting Company,
263
Nationalism, growth of, 131, 133
Nationalization (in Britain), 239
Natterjack toads, 33
Naturalism (theatre), 166-7
Nature: and science, 176; orderliness
of, 190-1
Navaho newspaper, 233
Nazis: censorship by, 260, 318;
“Hitler Youths,” 134; material in
Wiener Library, igg; propaganda
3X3> 3J3> Ml,3*7; picketing
Jewish shops, 27; rally, 8g, 260
Nebraska, 227
Nebula, 176
Negroes, status of, 305
Neizvestny, Ernst, 311
Nelson, Lord, 67
Nerina, Nadia, 263
Nerve cells (of eye), 90-1
Nervous system, 38, 51, 83, 272;
affected by colors, 94; as analogy to
social communication, 210
Netherlands, the: ‘6 a.rt by radio”
cliib, 283; growth of newspapers,
231 ; newspaper reporters, 237 ;
religions wars, 24
Networks, broadcasting, 261, 263
New College, Oxford, 200
New Guinea.: bowerbirds of, 4.0;
languages of, 63; man from, 38 ;
mask from, 20; natives of, yg
New Mexico, 63
New Orleans, Battle of, 226
New Repub lie) 235
New Scientist, 235
New Statesman, 235
New York: Grand Central Station,
267; Living Newspaper, rSg; news
of Napoleon’s defeat, 22; newspaper
strike (1963), 228, 267; newspapers,
231 ; Stock Exchange, 226; TV
studio, 258
New York Herald, 296
New York Herald Tribune, 245
New York Tines, 240
New Yorker, 2g7
News: advertising and, 290; early
sources of, 230; former methods of
carrying-, 109, 23c; gathering of,
230, 240, 245; in modern life, 227;
presentation of, 233, 238; sources of,
228,230
News Chronicle, 242
News of the World, group of newspapers,
242
Newspapers [see also Mass media,
News, Periodicals, Press) :
advertising in, 230, 240-1, 284, 285,
287, 288, 290-1, 296; chains of, 243,
243; choice of, 239; circulation of,
234-5> 238-g, 24.1,288, 346;
competition between, 242, 242;
competitions in, 231; controls of,
230, 236-7, 242-3 ; economics of,
240-1 ; features in, 245; first, 25,
230; functions of, 18, ig, 228, 245;
mass-circulation, 25, 231, 240,
242-3; non-daily, see Periodicals;
number of, 22S, 231 ; ownership of,
236, 242-3; policy of, 241; power of,
238-9; production of, 232-3, 240
Newsstands, ig
Newton, Sir Isaac, 150, 156
Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), 148
Niebehmgen lied, 153
Niederreiten, Ernst, 230
Nigeria: farmers in, 280; illiteracy
in, 344 ; Jebu of, 109 ; television sets
in, 265; women in, 120
Nixon, Rickard, 306-7
Nkrumah, Kwame, 306
No theatre, of Japan, 158, 160-1, 165
Noise (communication interference),
225,328, 329, 330
Nordvision, 257, 231
North Semitic alphabet, 114, 114,
115
Norway, 237, 260
Norwegian (language), 53
Novel, the, 138-9
Novelists, use of words, 179
Nuclear personality, 300, 310
Numbers: computers’ use of, 335;
in language of science, 180-1; in
maps, 185
Numerals: Arabic, 180, 180; Roman,
180
Nuremberg, rally at, 260
Oblique (display of gulls), 44, 44
Ocean Times, 233
Odyssey (Homer), 153
Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 28
Oghams (writing), 117
Olday, John, 309
Olivetti, advertising of, 2g2
On The Town (film), 253, 233
O’Neill, Eugene, 175
Onomatopoeic words, 54, 33
Ootacumund Hunt, 310
Open City (film), 253
Opera, 158, 161
Operators (mathematical signs),
180-1
Opinion leaders, 304, 305
Opinions, 298-319; dissenting,
31 o-11; expression of, 318-19;
forming of, 300-1, 310; measuring
of, 302-3
Optic nerve, 83
Opticks (Newton), 156
Orangutan, 46
Orbis Rictus (Comenius), 148, 148
Order of St. John, 89
Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection, On the (Darwin), 142, 142
Orlando Furioso (Ariosto), 146
Orwell, George, 148
Osborne, John, 175
Overland Telegraph, 216
Overlay (television), 238
Overtones, of words, 178-9
“Ox,” 66
Oxford, 200, 201
Oxford Committee for Famine
Relief, 507
Oxford English Dictionary, 72
Pabst, G. W., 231
Paint mixing, 33, ig8
Painters, use of colors, 95, 33
Painting, communication through,
96-7,98-9
Palette, painter’s, 33
Palmolive, advertising of, 287
Pamela (Richardson), 139, 146
Panmunjon, 313
Paper, 141, 230
Paradise Lost (Milton), 137
Parents, role of, 268, 270, 274
Paris: apartment house, ng; Court
of Appeal library, 199; described in
The French Revolution, 150, 151;
former cultural capital, 156;
policeman, 18; poster pillar, 286
Past, the (see also Museums):
in literature, 147; preserved in
houses, 207; preserved in languages,
48; preserved in museums, 20, ig6,
198; preserved in writing, 196
Pather Panchali (him), 253
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich, 314
Peacock, .34
Pears’, advertising of, 285, 283
Pedlars, 2 c, 134, 282
“Pelerin,” 71
People, 242
Pepsi-Cola, advertising of, 287
Periodicals, 234-5; beginnings of,
139; children’s, 148; international,
156; ownership of, 243; scientific,
208; women’s, 140, 239, 233
Persians, the, 111, 113, 115
Personality, 300, 310, 314, 315
Phaistos Disk, 108
Philippines, the, 116, 260, 344
Phoenicians, 114, 115
Phonemes, 52-3
Phoneticism, 110-13, 114, 121
Phonograph, 248, 249, 275
Photography, 20, 100, 102, 248, 248
Pi (7t), 181
Picaresque writing, 138
Picasso, Pablo, 20
Pickford, Mary, 252
Pictography, 108, 109, 110, no
Picture Post; 243
Pictures: communication through,
23, 96-7; scientific, 184-5
Pidgin English, 73
Pig Industry Development
Authority, poster of, 103
Pigeons, carrier, 214
Pilgrimages, 22
Pilgrim's Progress, The (Bunyan), 146,
148
Pink Panther, The (film), 233
Pinocchio (Collodi), 149
Pinturicchio, 144
“Pioneers” (China), 304
“Pipe,” 336-7
Pipe color code, 34
Pirandello, Luigi, 164
Pirating (of literary works), 136, 137
Piscator, Erwin, 168, 169
Pitch (music), 160, 170
Pitman, Sir James, 123
Planchon, Roger, 175
Planetarium, 206
Plants, i8g, 191
Play, in learning, 268, 271, 272, 273
Playing cards, 128, 128
Poetry, 19, 129, 150-3; and drama,
165; modern, 21; Russian, 2g; set
to music, 161
Poetry Day, in Russia, 2g
Poets, 21, 136; use of words, 130,
178. 179
Pointillism, 33
Poland, radio advertisements in, 295
Policemen, position of, 301
Political conflict, 31
Political parties, 301, 306, 307; and
caricature, 100; newspapers as
organs of, 236
Politicians, 302-3, 306; caricatures
of, 100
Politics: bribery and, 230; cartoons
and, 308-9; mass media and, 26-7
359
 304; modern communications and,
226-7; war and, 316
Polyethylene, 182
Polynesians, 63
Pony Express, the, 216
Poor Richard's Almanack (ed. Franklin),
139, I39
Popcorn, advertising of, 297
Popular culture, 28-9, 161, 171,
174“5 #
Population: and literacy in India,
122; increases, 278, 280; of world,
78, 86
Porter, Edwin S., 248
Portraits (painting), 89, 100
Portugal: conquest of Americas, 64;
explorations, 66-7; illiteracy, 344;
newspapers, 236
Portuguese (language), 56, 58, 64
Post offices, 215, 303
Postage stamps, 214
Postal services, growth of, 214; in
Switzerland, 238; in America, 214
Posters, 18, 99, 284, 283, 286, 287,
295, 297; specifically: American film
in Japan, 29; American New Deal,
507; Australian pears, 292; Cuban,
121; Esperanto, 79; French
referendum, 298; French Riviera,
289; German anti-Jew, 313;
German occupation of Austria,
199; Iranian, /20; Japanese War
Office, 316; London Underground,
287; Monaco exhibition, 283;
mouth shapes, 31; Oxford
Committee for Famine Relief, 307 ;
Pig Industry Development Author¬
ity, 103; Russian, 121, 294; Strand
cigarettes, 288; Sunday Citizen, 296;
The Running Man, 290; United
States Government, 304
Powell, George, 286
Prairie dogs, 35, 42
Preening (of birds), 39
Prejudice, 209, 305, 319
“Presently,” 73
Presidential elections (America),
3°2, 303, 304
Press, the (see also News, Newspapers,
Periodicals, Mass Media):
advertising and, 285, 295;
economics of, 240-1; freedom of,
05. 236-7; future of, 244-5;
growth of, 230-1 ; influence of, 150,
238-9; output of, 228; ownership
of, 242-3; “popular,” 231, 241, 245;
“quality,” 231, 241, 245; Royal
Commission on, 239; reporting on
Soviet Union, 239; television and,
244, 267
Presses, printing, 128, 140
Pressure, measurement of, 180, 186
Priests, 23, 84, 106
Primitive Germanic, 55, 57, 37
Primitive Indo-European, 5 7
Primitive man, 96-7
Primrose, 189
Principia Mathematics (Newton), 156
Printers, 128-31, 136, 141, 240
360
Printing, 24-5, 80, 126-57; book¬
binding, 141; censorship of, 131;
color, 95; development of, 106,
140-1, 230; early book, 126, 128,
129, 129, 136, 152; education and,
274; invention of, 118, 125, 126,
126, 128, 201; of books, 141; poetry
and, 153; spread of, 131
Prisoners of war, 199, 203, 314-15
Proctor & Gamble, advertising, 292
Producers: radio, 254-5; television,
258-9 _
Productivity (of language), 46, 47
Programming (computers), 333-40
Pronghorn, 40
Pronunciation (of languages), 124-5
Propaganda, 27, 298-319;
brainwashing, 314-15; group,
306-7; in Soviet Union, 244, 295;
indoctrination, 312-13; meaning
today, 298; Nazis’, 27; political,
304; printed, 131, 146;
psychological warfare, 316-17; radio
and, 260, 263; social, 305
Protozoa, 36, 191
Provensen, Alice and Martin, 149
Psychoanalysis, 143, 143
Psychological warfare, 316-17
Psychology, 31, 194, 195; advertising
and, 286-7, 288, 289
Ptolemy (Greek astronomer), 134
Ptolemy I (king of Egypt), 200
Public opinion polls, 302-3
Public relations, 290-1
Publicity: books, 147, 154; news¬
papers, 290
Publishers, 136-7, 148, 154-7
Pulpit drama, 168-9
Pumping station, diagrams of, 103
Punch, 242, 316
Punched cards, 333, 338, 339
Purple, associations of the color, 94
Quebec, 65
Quechua (language), 64, 64
Quipu (of Incas), 109
Quo Vadis (film), 262
Racial differences, 19, 194
Radio (see also Mass Media):
advertising on, 287, 291, 295;
beginnings of, 248-9, 262; Braille
circuit, 184; control of, 260-1, 26^
education and, 264, 264, 263;
entertainment and, 262, 262;
language of, 246, 254-5; newspapers
and, 244; noise, 187; number of
receivers, 348; propaganda and,
260, 263; resistors, 94; sales of
receivers, 292; society and, 18, 20,
266-7; transistor set, 266; writing
for, 137
Radio telescope, 225
Radiotelegraphy, 220-1, 222, 248,
249; Antarctic station, 220
Railways, 25, 154, 230
Ramayana, the, 173
Rambong (dance), 173
Ramnagar (India), 123
Rashomon (film), 253
Ratdolt, Erhard, 134
Ratel, 35
Ray, Satyajit, 253
Reader's Digest, 234
Real life, and theatre, 164, 166-7
Recall tests (advertising), 289
Recognition tests (advertising), 289
Recordings: in telephone service,
219; phonograph, 248, 262;
television, 258, 259
Recuyell of the History es of Troye (book),
130
Red, associations of the color, 94
Red Cross, 94, 202, 203
Red Indians, wampum of, 109
Red star, as Communist symbol, 89
Redirection (of behavior), 38
Redundancy (information theory),
325-6
Reed, Carol, 230, 290
Referendums, 298, 303
Reformation, the, 24, 144, 150, 311
Reinforcement (inlearning), 277
Relation, signs of (mathematics), 181
Religion: and writing in ancient
societies, 106; art and, 98; dance
and, 172; gestures in, 85; symbols in,
88-9; used in teaching languages, 33
Religious books, 130-3, 144
Religious differences, 19, 31
Religious wars: in Europe, 24, 131,
132; in Netherlands, 24
Remarque, Erich, 147
Rembrandt van Rijn, 29, 263
Renaissance, the, 24, 162, 170, 201,
230, 31 1 ; spread of, 130
Reporters (newspaper), 232-3, 243;
influence of, 238; laws governing,
237
Reporters (radio), 249
Republican Party (United States),
3°E 3°4? 396
Research, scientific, 176, 179, 181,
*92> r93> h93, h9<S, 208
Resistors (radio), 94
Resnais, Alain, 251, 253
Retina (of eye), 83, 90-1, 92
Return of the Prodigal Son, The, 263
Rhaeto-Romance (language), 56
Rhythm: in dance, 161 ; in music,
160, 170 ; in poetry, 152-3
Richard the Second (Shakespeare), 151;
quotation from, 150
Richardson, Tony, 253
Richardson, Samuel, 139, 146
Riefenstahl, Leni, 260
Ritual, 163, 168, 300
Ritualization, 39
Road signs, 18, 91,92, 93, no, ///
Robbers, The (Schiller), 308
Robert, Nicolas, 141
Robida, Albert, 249
Robinson, Claude, 138, 146, 148,
289
Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 108
Rocco and his Brothers (film), 253
Rock paintings, 34, 96-7, 108
Rocky Mountain Mews, The, 234
Rods (of retina), 90-1
Romans, the: alphabet of, 117, 7/7,
124; Empire of, 56; libraries of,
200; spelling reform of, 125
Romanticism, 162, 166
Rome, ancient: actor, 160 ; empire
expansion, 56; libraries in, 200;
literacy in, 118, 118; thumbs-up
gesture in, 84
Rome, Church of: Bible of, 132;
censorship and, 144; language of,
57; politics and, 301; Protestants
and, 131
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 239, 253,
3°3> 3°7
Ross, Harold, 297
Rossellini, Roberto, 253
Rosson, Keith, 263
Rothermere, Lord, 242
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 135, 139,
144
Royal Ballet, 263
Royal Danish Ballet, 172
Royal Firework Music (Handel), 162
Royal Khmer dancers, 1 72
Royalty (publishing), 137
Ruffed grouse, 37
Runes (script), iiy
Running Man, The (film), 2go
Rushton, William, 261
Russia: advertising, 295; arts, the,
174_5, 311 j Crimean War, yog;
democracy in, 27; languages, 62;
magazine, 244; Marx’s work, 143;
Olday cartoon, yog; opinion in,
311; position today, 156; posters,
121, 2g4; press, the, 145, 231, 236,
244, 245, 344; Red Square celebra¬
tion, 27; research, 77; shampoo,
295; theatricalism, 169; Treaty of
Berlin, 307; trials, 3/4/ tsar, 313;
West’s attitude to, 239
Russian (language), 58, 77, 79, 112;
in science, 156; translation of,
3 3 7; 40
Russian-English dictionary, 2og
Saibai (New Guinea), mask from, 20
Salt, 186
Salutes, 84
Salvation Army, yo6
Sampling: polls, 303; signals, 327-8,
331
San Demetrio, London (film), 253
San Francisco, signs in store, g2
San Simeon (California), 245
Sandals, 266
Sandhill cranes, 42
Sangita, 160
Sanskrit, 116
Sardinian (language), 56
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 163
Satellites (relay stations), 210, 222-3,
257; weather, 222
Satie, Erik, 162
Satire, 261
“Saucepan Special,” 264
Scales (music), 170
Scandinavia, libraries in, 155
Scent signals, in animal
communication, 36, 39, 45
Schiller, Friedrich von, yo8
Schoolbooks, 131, 134, 148
Schools, 19, 214, 272, 2jy, 274, 275,
280, yoo; broadcasting and, 264,
265; church, 118, 278; early
primary, 25, 279; growth of, 131,
278-9; Indian, 123
Science: classification of facts, 190-1;
compared to jigsaw, 176; fallacies
exploded by, ig4; influence of,
194-5; languages for, 156; libraries
and museums specializing in, 199,
206; periodicals about, 208, 235;
purposes of, 176; understanding of,
J94-5
Science, language of, 30, 150, 151,
176-95; chemical symbols, 188-9;
classification, 190-1; codes, 188-9;
compared to everyday language,
178-9, 192; new words, 67, 178,
182-3; use of graphs, 186-7; use of
models, 185; use of numbers, 180-1
Scientists (see also Science, language
of): clarity of, 178; early-19th-
century, igy; graphs and, 186;
laymen and, 192-3; mathematics
and, 181; “remoteness” of, 178
Scotland: Aberdeen University, 21;
shipyard in, 21; students, 2og
Scott, Sir Walter, 137, 146, 152
Sculpture, 98-9; exhibition of, 270
Sea Around Us, The (Carson), 147
Sea lions, 271, 277
Secombe, Harry, 255
Second World War, The (Churchill), 147
Secrets of a Soul (film), 257
Segovia, Spain, aqueduct at, y6
Sellers, Peter, 2yy, 255
Semaphore, 212, 213
Semitic languages, 62, 115, 117
Senegal, 277, 281, y4y
Senses, the, 19, 80
“Set,” 72
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (film), 2jy
Seven Samurai, The (film), 252
Sexual morality, 145, 300
Shadows (film), 253
Shakespeare, William, yy, 136,
151; influence of, 133
Shampoos, 295
Shannon, Claude E., 322, 323, 331
Shaw, George Bernard, 125
“Sheep,” 66
Shorthand, 112, 224; electrical, 188;
scientific, 188-9
Sicily, 752
Sidney, Sir Philip, 138
Siege of Troy, The (Lydgate), 752
Siffre, Michel, yiy
Signals (see also Symbols, and specific
headings such as Morse code):
audible, 80, 212-13, 216, 328;
between animals, see Animal signals;
continuous, 327, 328, 331; digital,
326, 327; gestures, 84-5; getting
most out of, 224-5; informative,
86-7; recognition of, 83; use of
codes, 82-3; visual, 80-105, 212-13,
216,328
Signal-to-noise ratio, 225, 225, 331
Signatures (written), 86, 86
Signs (see also Gestures): clear, 92-3;
effectiveness of, 104; in visual
communication, 80-105;
mathematical, 180-1
Sikh, 84, 8g
Sky-writing, 297
Slang, 48
Slavery, and Uncle Tom's Cabin, 146
Sloane, Sir Hans, 202
Slogans: in advertising, 286-7;
political, 150, 151, 2g8, yo2
“Slow,” 52
Slow loris, 4y
Snake-handling cults, yi4
“Snow,” 70
Social changes, 150
Social evolution, 20
Social structure, 163
Socialist realism (theatre), 169
Socialization, 300
Societe de Linguistique, 55
Societies: ancient, 106, 108; animal,
34-5; basis of, 16; growing, 210;
large-scale, 22, 86, 174, 210, 279;
simple, 86, 158, 174, 282, 304;
studies of, 142-3, 195
Sociology, 194, 195
“Soft-sell” advertising, 286
Solomon Islands, war canoe, gy
Song, banned, 261
Song of Roland, 153
Song sparrow, 36
Songs: bird, 34, 36, 43, 46; popular,
25, 163; writing of, 161
Sophocles, 28, 29
Sorbonne, university library, 201
Sorokin, Pitirim, 312
Sorrows of Werther, The (Goethe), 146
“Sort,” 72
Sound: and films, 249; speed of, i8y,
212; waves, 218, 219
Sound-change (of language), 70-1
Sounds (see also Speech): in poetry,
152-3; organs for producing, 47,
48, 50-1, 272; units of, 52-3; used in
radio, 254-5; used in television, 259
South Africa, 65, 236
South America, newspapers in, 244
Soviet Union, all references indexed
under Russia
Space, signals from, 225
Space flights, 2 2
Space program, 179
Spain: cave paintings, 108; conquests
by, 64, 67; dialects, 74; films, 261 ;
multi-language dictionary, 134;-
newspapers, 236; picaresque novels,
138
Spanish (language), 56, 58, 62, 64,
64, 65; first book printed in, 134
Speakers’ Corner (London), yig
Spear-throwing game, of aborigines,
47.
Specialized languages, 30; of
scientists, 19, 176-95; of trades, 19
361
 Spectators, role of, 29, 2g, 160, 174
Spectrum (in radio), 225
Speech, 18, 20, 48, 50-1, 80, 82, 274;
changes in sound of, 70-1 ; children’s,
160; earliest, 48, 54; frequencies of,
224; mechanics of, 50-1 ; music and,
170; used in radio, 254; used in
television, 259; variety of, 48;
written language and, 129
Spelling (see also Words), 75, 124-5,
325; standardizing of, 75, 125, 129
Spelling Reform, 125
Spenser, Edmund, iJ7
Sphere, volume and radius of, 181
Spiegel, Del, 237, 2J7
Spotted flycatchers, 25
“Sputnik,” 67
Spyri, Johanna, 149
Square Hebrew, 115
Stained-glass windows, 94
Staiola, Enzo, 252
Stalin, Joseph, 133, 236, jog, jii
Standard language, 75
Standard of living, 282
Stanislavski, Konstantin, 164, 167
Starch, Daniel, 289
Stationers’ Hall, ijy
Status, 86-7, 304
Status symbols, 87, 87, joi; in
advertising, 286, 286
Steam engine, invention of, 126
Steamships, 25, 214
Steel Review, 2J4
Steinbeck, John, 147, 151, 253
Story of Babar, The (Brunhoff), i4g
Storytelling, 196; by music, 171;in
children’s books, 148; in dance, 172
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 146, 146
Strip cartoons, 2J4, 235, 286
Struwelpeter, 148
Suez Canal: crisis (of 1956), 237,
260; London demonstration, 2j6;
ship’s pilot, 78
Suffragettes, J02
Sumerians, the, 108, 110, 111
Sun, radio noise from, 187, 187, 225
Sunday Express, 242
Sunday Mirror, 242
Sunday newspapers, 234, 242, 244
Sunday Times, 243, 240, 245
Sun-Maid Raisin Growers, 292
“Supersonic,” 183
Surrealism (painting), 14J
Swahili (language), 63
Swastika, as Fascist symbol, 89, 8g
Sweating, 38
Sweden, 141, 231, 344
Swedish (language), 51
Swift, Jonathan, 148
Swiss Family Robinson, The (Wyss), 139
Switches: electrical, 188; electronic
(telephony), 225; in telephone
exchanges, 2ig
Switzerland: broadcasting, 260;
elections, jog; hotel, 86; languages,
133; observatory, 180; post, 2j8
Symbolism (theatre), 167
Symbols: alchemists’, 188; design
principles of, 91; effectiveness of,
362
104; in advertising, 286-7; in
cartoons, 308; in computers, 335;
in drama, 161; in science, 181,
188-9; m visual communication,
80-105, 111; in writing, 20, 110-14,
121; perception of, 90-1; religious,
20, 88-9
Synagogue, igg
Syncom (relay-satellite system), 222
Synonyms, 72-3
Syntax (language), 337
“T” (the sound), go
Tahiti, fishing in, 72
Tahitian (language), 76
“Tame,” 55
Tamil (language), 60
Tampiong (Ghana), 244
Tape recorders, in education, 275,
277
Tate Gallery, London, 20
Tau cross, the, 88
Tea, advertising of, 292
Teachers, 18, 198, 264, 274-5, 280
Teaching machines, 276-7
,
Teaching materials, ng, 119, 123,
i3ij 274, 2?5> 275 277; books,
148-9,274-5
Teaser advertising, 290, 2go
Technology, 20, 281; and
communication, 29, 227; and
literacy, 120; and printing, 140;
of communication, 28
Teeth, classification according to, i8g
Teheran, poster from, 120
Telegrams, 217, 326; economy of
words in, 224; special forms and
envelopes, 217
Telegraph, electric, 213, 216-17,
230; codes used in, 78; disadvantage
of, 220
Telepathy, 82
Telephone, 218-9, 322; advantages,
219; cables, 94, 322; directories,
190, 303; disadvantages, 220;
exchanges, 218, 2ig; lines, 218;
long-distance calls, 225, 226;
number of instruments, 219, 348;
number on. London shopfront, 180;
radiotelephones, 220, 221;
reproduction of speech, 224
Teleprinter, 217
Teletypesetting, 233
Television (see also Mass Media), 246,
249, 256-9; advertising on, 260,
286, 287, 291; closed-circuit, 221,
221, 264, 265; control of, 260-1, 262;
development of, 246, 256-7, 262,
266; education and, 20, 264-5;
entertainment and, 262, 26J; in
schools, 26, 275; language of, 246,
258-9; mechanics of, 221, 225, 256;
newspapers and, 244, 267; opinions
and, 306; receivers, 246, 257, 348;
society and, 25, 32, 266-7; via
satellite, 223; word itself, 256
Telstar, 223, 22j
Telugu (language), 60
Temperature, measuring of, 180
Temple, Shirley, 253
“Ten,” 55
Tennessee, teaching of evolution in,
142
Tennyson, Alfred, 146, 151
Tenochtitlan, Mexico City, 64
Textile, g8
Tezcatlipoca (Aztec god), 108
Thai (language), 63
Thailand, 344
That Was The Week That Was
(television program), 261
Theatre (see also Drama), 158, 160,
164-9, 266; conventions of, 165;
language of, 164-7; modern, 163,
164, 166-7, 175; poetry and, 153;
role of, 168-9
Theatre Libre, 166
Theatres, 164, 165, 166, 166, 168
Theatricalism, 166, 169
Thebes, no
Theodosius (Roman emperor), 200
“There is a Happy Land,” 170
“Think,” 72
Thirty-Nine Steps (film), 251
Thomas a Kempis, 131
Thomson, Roy, 243; group of
newspapers, 242-3
Threat signals (of animals), 34, 38,
38,39,42,43,44
Three Musketeers, The (Dumas), 14.8
Throne, from Ecuador, 86
Thumbs-up sign, 84, 84
Thurber, James, 101
Thymine, 184
Tibet, monks in, 21 j
Tibetan (language), 63
Till Eulenspiegel, ij8
Timbre (music), 160, 170, 171
Time, 234, 240
Time, sense of, 272-3
Time and Life Building, 240
Time division multiplex, 224-5
Time Inc., 240
Times (New York), 231, 233, 234
Times, The, 140, 141, 151, 230;
advertising of, 286; quotation from,
.150
Times Square (New York), 282
Titanic (ship), 220
TNT, 183
“To His Coy Mistress” (Marvell),
T52
Toadfish, j6
Toads, 34, jg
Togetherness, 31
Token for Children: ... A (Janeway),
148
Tolstoi, Count Lev, 137, 146
Tom Jones (Fielding), 138, ijg
Tom Sawyer (Twain), 149
Tongue (as used when speaking), 50,
50,51
Tonight We Improvise (Pirandello), 164
Tools, 46-7
Torti, Francesco, igo
Toulouse-Lautrec, 28g
Towns (see also Factory workers), 23,
214
Trade: and education, 278, 280; and Vesnin, Alexander, 168 Wilkes, John, 236
literacy in Middle Ages, 118; and Victoria (ship), 133 Williams, Eric, 147
loan words, 66 ; in tribal societies, Vienna, 104, 231 Williams, Tennessee, 175
282; modern, 226 Visconti, Luchino, 253 Wind tunnel, 183
Traffic lights, ijl, 39, 94 Visual aids (in teaching), 274, 275, Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 73
Transistor radio, 266 f75 Wolf, Hugo, 161
Transitional scripts* 11 0 Visual censorship, 97 Women: Indian, 122; magazines for,
Translating machines, 77,322-340 Vitelloni, I (film), 253 235, 239, 233; votes for, 302
Translation: of books etc., 77, 156-7 Vocabularies: of animals, 44-5; of Wood, Mrs. Henry, 147
346; of languages, 76-7, 156-7, 179, different classes of people, 74; of Wooden Horse, The (Williams), 147
227, 332-40 ; of scientific jargon, science, 194-5; of specialists, 30 Woodpecker, 37
1 92; of the Bible, 132-3 Vocal chords,* 50, 50 Woodwork lesson, 272
Triangles5 properties of, 184 Volt, 183 “Woolly mammoth,” 67
Trigonometry, 184-5 Volta, Alessandro, 183 Words: changes in meaning, 27, 70,
Trip to the Moon, A (firm), 248 Voltaire (Francois Arouet), 135, 73; composite, 182-3; in poetry,
Triple-A Plowed Under (pla. y)> i69 138, 144, 146, 207, 318 152-3; loaded, 26-7; loan, 66-8;
Tristan da Cunha, 75 Voting (elections), 301, 301, 302 nature of, 26; new, 178, 182-3; of
Triumph oj the Will (Him), 260 Vowels, 50, 115; in English, 124 the Bible, 132; overtones of, 151,
Trowbridge, Charlotte, 173 V-sign, 84 178-9; scientific, 67, 178, 182-3; use
Truffaut, fran^ois, 253 Vultures, 38 of, 16, 46, 150-1; various meanings
Truman, Harry S-, 303 of, 72-3; 151, 178 .
Tse-tung, Mao, 300 Waggle Dance, of bees, 45, 43 Wordsworth? William, 153
Tuaregs (tribes of Sahara), 31 Wagner, Richard, 161, 171 Working Model for Internal and External
“Tulip,” 66 Walnut Growers Association, Forms (Moore), gg
Turcic-Mongol-Tungiis languages, advertising of, 292 World Bank Economic Develop¬

63,65 Wampum, 109 ment Institute, 30

Turkish (language), 63, 65 Wauderwort, 68 World Health Organization, 199
Tussaud, Madame, 207 War, 147, 209, 316-17 World War I: propaganda during,
Twain, Mark, 138, 149 Warner Brothers, 249 316, 317; signaling in, 213
“Twist,’5 66 Warship, Phoenician, 114 World War II: book-parcel scheme,
“Tycoon,55 67 Washington, D.C: finance officers, 203; Hiroshima, 207; news of
Tyndale, William, 132, 132 30; hot line, 227; library, 199; ending of, 226; propaganda during,
loudspeaker advertising, 297 3i6> 3r7
Ugarit, 114, ir4 “Wasp,” 71 Worm, Ole, 206
“Ultrasonic,” 183 Water: in chemical equation, 189; Worship, gestures of, 84
Umlaut, 70 representation on maps, 185; Wrench, photographs of, 273
Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe), 146, 14.6 temperature of boiling, 180; word Wrestling hold, 272
Underground (London), 287 itself, 336 Writers: audience of, 129, 142, 143;
Unemployment, and literature, 147 Water-Babies, The (Kingsley), 148 censorship and, 144-5; copyright
UNESCO: help in Ghana, 208; help Waterloo, battle of, 22, 22 and, 136-7; periodicals and, 235;
in India, 123 ; help in Latin Waterwheel, The, 243 problem of communication, 31;
America, 208; library work of, 208, Wavebands, 222 professional, 136, 137; today, 137,
209 ; literacy survey of, 120; survey Wavelengths, 260 154~5, Lb?;1186 of words, 150-1
of periodicals, 234, 235 Waxwork exhibition, 207 Writing (see also Alphabet), 18, 47,
United Nations, 76, 263, 305 Weather satellite, 222 106-25; cuneiform, no-n; dawn
United States, all references indexed Webster, Noah, 124 of, 108-9; earliest, 48, 54, no;
under America Weight, measurement of, 183 ideographic, 110-11; in ancient
Universal Copyright Convention, Welles, Orson, 253 societies, 106; invention, 106;
137 Wells, H. G., 148 power of, 106; reform of, 125, 123;
Universal Postal Union, 215 Welsh (language), 53, 60 speech and, 125, 129; syllabic, 113,
Universities, 2/, 264, 280; early, Wesker, Arnold, 163, 175 114; use of words, 150-1
118 ; medieval, 200 West, the: advertising, 282; attitude Wyss, Johann, 139
“Untouchables,55 305 to Soviet Union, 239; dancing,
Upright (display of gulls), 44, 44 173; education, 119, 264, 278; Yellow,associations of the color, 94
Uralian languages, 62, 63 films, 266; invention of printing, Yellow spot (of eye), go, 91, gi, 92
Urdu (language), 60 126; languages, 60; literacy, 24, “You Dirty Boy” (sculpture), 283
Urfe, Honore d5, 1 38 342; mass media, 267; newspapers, Yukaghir (tribe), iog
Urine, in animal communication, 36 245 .
Urumchi (Sinkiang), 304 West Side Story (musical), 173 Zamenhof, Lazarus, 78, 73
Uses of Literacy, The (Hoggart), 300 Westward Ho! (Kingsley), 148 Zero:absolute, 187, 329; in Arabic
“What have you done with Dr. Millmoss ?” numerals, 180; Use in computers,
Vail, Alfred, 216 (Thurber cartoon), 101 335
Variations on a Film Theme (film), 230 “Whisper,” 55 Zoetrope, 248
“Veal,” 66 White, as a color, (in signs), 92-3; Zola, Emile, 147, 131, 166
Velde, Adriaen van de, 24 associations of the color, 94 Zoology, 180; study of animal signals,
Verard, Antoine, 136 White horse, on hillside, gi 42
Versailles (France), 207, 207 White House, 227 Zoos, 207
Vertebrates, divisions of, igi Wiener Library, igg Zulu (language), 63
Vesalius, Andreas, 24 Wilder, Thornton, 167 Zurich, inn sign at, 33

363
Illustration credits

Key to picture positions: 40 (t From Darwin's Biological Work 78 (t) The Royal Society
(t) top (c) center (b) bottom (l) edited by P. R. Bell, Cambridge 78 (b) Associated Press
left (r) right, and combinations; University Press, 1959 79 (t) British Esperanto Association
for example, (tc) top center. 40 (c) Paul Popper Ltd. Inc.
40 (b ! John Warham 81 Hans Erni
41 (t) From Darwin's Biological Work 82 (b) The Upjohn Company, Kala¬
edited by P. R. Bell, Cambridge mazoo, Mich, and Upjohn Lim¬
Page University Press, 1959 ited, Crawley, Sussex
17 Hans Erni 41 (b) Australian News and Informa¬ 83 (t and b) Courtesy The Royal
18 (t) John Hopkins, London tion Bureau Society for the Prevention of
18 (c) Pierre Berger—Barnaby’s 42 (t) Eric Hosking Accidents
18 (b) Roger Mayne 42 (b i From Darwin's Biological Work 84 (t) Marc Riboud—Magnum;
19 (t) Keystone. edited by P. R. Bell, Cambridge British Museum/Photo Freeman;
19 |b) Photo Ken Coton University Press, 1959 Paul Popper Ltd.
20 (t) Trevor Coleman 43 (B) John Markham 84 (c) British Museum; Planet
20 (b) John Hopkins, London 44 Photos N. Tinbergen from his News
21 (t and b) British Crown Copy¬ book Curious Naturalists, Country 84 (b) John Allen
right Life, 1958 85 (t and b) Photos Ken Coton
22 (t) British Museum 45 © 1962 by Scientific American, 86 (t) Courtesy Bank of Denver
22 (b) Victoria and Albert Museum, Inc. All rights reserved 86 (c) John Latimer Smith
London—British Crown Copy¬ 46 (t ) John Markham 86 (b) British Museum
right 46 (b) Courtesy London Library 87 (c) Adprint Library
23 (t) From Walter Hart Blumen- 47 (tr) Yerkes Laboratories of 87 (b) Photo by Cal Bernstein
thal, Bookman's Bedlam, Rutgers Primate Biology of Emory Uni¬ 89 (t) Angelo Santalucia
University Press, New Brunswick, versity 90 (t) Stella Snead
!958 < 47 (b) Axel Poignant 91 (T3) Peter Laurie
23 (b) Victoria and Albert Museum, 49 Hans Erni 91 (b) British Travel and Holidays
London—British .Crown Copy¬ 51 Photos Axel Poignant Association
right ^ 52 Mansell/Alinari 92 From Constantine & Jacobson,
24 (b) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 53 (t) Photo J. Belin Sign Language for Buildings and
25 (t) British Museum 53 (b) Edwin Smith photo. From Landscape, Reinhold Publishing
25 (b) Radio Times Hulton Picture F. E. Halliday, Shakespeare, a Corporation, New York, 1961
Library Pictorial Biography, Thames & 93 Courtesy Graphis
26 (t) Associated Press Hudson Ltd., London 94 (t) Samuel H. Kress Collection,
26 (b) Henry Grant, A.I.B.P. 56 (l) Mansell/Alinari Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa
27 |t) Society for Cultural Relations 56 (r) A. F. Kersting 95 (b) Courtauld Institute of Art,
with the U.S.S.R. 57 By permission of the Danish London
28 (t) David Seymour—Magnum National Museum 96 (b) Photo Ken Coton
28 (c) News Blitz—Atlaute 58 (l) Adprint Library 97 British Museum/Photo Freeman
28 (b) Mansell Collection 60 (bl) Camera Press 98 (t and bl) Stedelijk Museum,
29 (t) Compania Mexicana Aero- 60 (br) Victor Shreeve Amsterdam/© A.D.A.G.P., Paris
foto, S.A. 62 (t) The Palestine Archaeological 98 (c) Courtesy Heal’s
29 (c) Paramount Pictures Ltd. Museum 99 (l) G. & S. Allgood Ltd.
29 (b) Bureau Sovietique d’lnforma- 62 (c) Yvan Dalain 99 (r) Reproduced from Henry
tion, Paris 62 (b) Zoltan Glass Moore, Volume II, Sculpture and
30 (t and b) Henry Grant, A.I.B.P. 63 (B) J- Allan Cash Drawings since 1948, published by
31 (t) Ernst & L. Haberlin 64 (t) Rare Book Division, New Percy Lund, Humphries & Co.
31 (b) Roger Mayne York Public Library Ltd./A. Zwemmer
33 Hans Erni 64 (b) Paul Almasy 100 (t) British Museum
35 (t) The Zoological Society of 65 (t) Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 101 (t) Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
London 65 (b) Unesco Courier 101 (c) From Werner Hofman, Cari¬
35 (c) Photo N. Tinbergen from his 66 (tc) John Hopkins, London cature, Briider Rosenbaum,
book Social Behaviour in Animals, 66 (b) British Museum Vienna
Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 67 (b) Science Museum, London 101 (b) © 1934, 1961 James Thurber.
T953 68 (t) Radio Times Hulton Picture Originally published in The New
35 (b) John Markham Library Yorker
36 (t and c) From E. W. Lanyon & 68 (b) British Museum 103 Reproduced by permission of the
W. N. Tavolga, Animal Sounds and 71 (l) Courtauld Institute of Art Pig Industry Development
Communication, American Institute (Lee Collection) Authority/Photo Ken Coton
of Biological Sciences, Washing¬ 71 (r) Photo Ken Coton 104 (bc) Photo Ken Coton
ton, i960 72/73 (t) Hawker Siddeley Aviation 104 (br) Hans Erni
36 (bi The Zoological Society of 74 (t) Belgian National Tourist 105 (t) Marie Neurath
London Office 105 (b) Diderot
37 (c) Else & Henry Potter, from 74 (b) Archivo Mas 107 Hans Erni
National Audubon Society 75 (t) Daily Mail, London 108 (t) Jacques Villeminot
38 (t) The Zoological Society of 75 (b) J. Allan Cash 108 (c) Biblioteca Apostolica Vati-
London 76 (t) British Museum/Photo John cana
38 (c) Philippa Scott Freeman 108 (b) Alphabet Museum, Cam¬
39 Christian Zuber 76 (b) United Nations bridge

364
iog (t) Lent to Science Museum 129 British Museum 152/153 (b Axel Poignant
London by the Royal Common¬ 130 (t) From S. Jennet, Pioneers in 153 ('i" Guillaume Apollinaire, C(di¬
wealth Society, London Printing, Routledge & Kegan Paul gram me s. (C) Editions Gallimard,
109 (c.) Ivar Lissner, Man, God and Ltd., London, 1958 Paris 1925, Ugo Guanda, Parma,
Magic, Jonathan Cape Ltd., 130 (b) Musee Bonnat, Bayonne and Editorial Joaquin Mortiz,
London, 1961 132 (t) Courtesy Professor O. Thulin, Mexico
no (t) Alphabet Museum, Cam¬ Wittenburg 154 (t: British Museum/Photo Free¬
bridge 132 ( b i Mansell Collection man
110 (c) Musee du Louvre, Paris 133 (t and B) British Museum 154 (b) Mary Renault, The Bull, from
110 (b) From Garis Davies Tomb of 134 (t) British Museum/Photo Free¬ the Sea, Longmans, Green & Co.
Two Sculptors at Thebes, Metro¬ man Ltd., London
politan Museum of Art, New York, 135 (tl) Radio Times Hulton Picture 155 (t) From El Cid, Samuel Bron-
1925 (Ralph de Paister Bequest) Library ston, released by the Rank
111 (t) Marc Riboud—Magnum 135 (tr) National Maritime Museum, Organisation
112 By courtesy of the Ashmolean London 155 (b) Courtesy Fawcett Publica¬
Museum, Oxford, and the Man¬ 135 (b) University Library, Amster¬ tions Incorporated, New York
sell Collection dam 157 (b) Courtesy Borsenverein des
113 (t) British Museum/Photo Free¬ 136/137 (b) Courtesy The Worshipful Deutschen Buchhandels E.V.
man Company of Stationers and 159 Hans Erni
113 (b) Alphabet Museum, Cam¬ Newspaper Makers/Photo Free¬ 160 British Museum
bridge man 161 (bl) Roger Mayne
114 (t) British Museum/Photo Free¬ 137 (ts, 138 (t) British Museum/Photo 161 (r ) Adprint Library
man Freeman 162 (t) British Museum
114 (b) Alphabet Museum, Cam¬ 138 (b) The Courtauld Institute of 162 (ci Mansell Collection
bridge Art, London 162 .(bi Bibliotheque Nationalc, Paris
115 (t) Ghana Information Services 139 (t) From Tom Jones, Director 163 (t) British Museum/Photo Free¬
115 (b) The Museum of Leathercraft, Tony Richardson, Woodfall man
London Films, London, 1963 163 (b ) English Stage Company/Photo
116 (tl) British Museum 139 (b) British Museum/Photo Free¬ Mark Gudgeon
116 (tr) By permission of the Secre¬ man 165 (Ti Adprint Library
tary of State for Commonwealth 140 (t) Mansell Collection 165 ( b Gerald Howson
Relations, India Office Library 140 (bl) Adprint Library 166 (t Adprint Library

116 (c) H. Armstrong Roberts 140 (br) Calvert Bailey 166 (Bi From Mordecai Gorelik, New
116 (b2) British Museum 141 Courtesy Monotype Corporation Theatres for Old, Dobson Books
117 From Dr. Diringer; Alphabet Ltd. Ltd., London, 1947
Museum, Cambridge; British 142 (t) Punch Almanac, 1882 167 (t) Society for Cultural Relations

Museum; Mansell Collection; 142 t b From Histoire des Revolutions, with the U.S.S.R.
Bodleian Library, Oxford Editions du Pont Royal, Paris 167 (b) Sandra Lousada, Whitecross

118 (tl) Musee du Louvre, Paris 143 (t) From Werner Woolf, The Studios
118 (tr) British Museum/Photo Free¬ Dream Mirror of Conscience, Grune 168 (t) Cecilia Gray

man & Stratton Inc., New York 169 (t) Howard Bay

118 (b) British Museum 143 (b) The Tate Gallery, London 169 (b) From Mordecai Gorelik, New

119 (t) From 100,000 Tears of Daily 144 ( t Sale Borgia, Palazzo Vaticano/ Theatres for Old, Dobson Books
Life, Editions du Pont Royal, Photo Scala Ltd., London, 1947
Paris 145 (U Photo Hachette 170 (t) British Museum

119 (b) Marc Riboud—Magnum 145 (bl; United Press International 171 (t) Francesco Guardi, Concert,
120 (b) Camera Press (U.K. Ltd. 1782/Photo Heinz Gleixner
121 (t) United Nations 145 (br: Penguin Books Ltd. 171 (bi Putnam and Company Lim¬
121 (b) Les Paul 146 (b British Museum/Photo Free¬ ited and Dobson Books Limited
122 (b), 123 (c) Information Service of man for permission to reproduce the
India, London 147 (T) Courtesy Dr. F. Emile-Zola drawing by Gerard Hoffnung
123 (b) Brian Brake—Magnum 147 ( b i 20th Century-Fox from Hoffnung s Acoustics
124 (tl and tr) British Museum/ 148 (t British Museum/Photo Free¬ 172 (t) Paul Almasy

Photo Freeman man 173 (t) Charlotte Trowbridge

124 (c) From Griffin and Mayer, The 148 ! b Mansell Collection 1 73 (b) Jack Fields

Movies, Spring Books, London, in 149 (ti From Jean de Brunhoff, The 174 Horst H. Baumann
association with Simon & Shuster, Story of Babar, Methuen & Co. 175 (bl) Sport & General Press Agency

New York Ltd., London 175 (R1 John Massey-Stewart

124 (b) Aaron Siskind 149 (b) From Alice and Martin 177 Hans Erni
125 (t) Photo Aubrey Dewar, The Provenscn, The Animal Fair, (C) 178 (t Hessische Landesbibliothek,
Sunday Times 1952 by Golden Press, Inc., New Wiesbaden
125 (b) Penguin Books Ltd.; Radio York 178 (b), 179 (t) British Museum
Times Hulton Picture Library 150 (t and c British Museum/Photo 179 (b) Siemens & Halske, Karlsruhe

127 Hans Erni Freeman 180 (t) Photo Ken Coton

128 (t) Gutenberg-Museum, Mainz 150 ( b 1 The Library of Congress, 180 (b) Swiss National Tourist Office

128 (br) American Numismatic Soci¬ Washington 181 (c) Science Museum, London
ety 151 (ti Courtesy Dr. F. Emile-Zola 181 (b) The National Cash Register

128 (bl) Museum fur Volkerkunde, 151 ( b Sound Poem by Hugo Ball Company Limited/Photo Free¬
Berlin 152 (tr! John Hopkins, London man

365
182 (t) Peabody Museum of Natural 209 (t) IBM United Kingdom Ltd. 238 (t) Exhibited in the Swiss
History 209 (b) British Crown Copyright Museum of Transport and Com¬
182 (c) Courtesy I.C.I. 211 Hans Erni munications, Lucerne
182 (lc) From Muir, Bacteriological 213 (t) Ghana Information Service 238 (cl) Pictorial Press
Atlas, E. & S. Livingstone, 213 (c) Heinrich Harrer 238 (cr) Society for Cultural Rela¬
Edinburgh 213 (b), 214 (t) Imperial War Museum, tions with the U.S.S.R.
183 (t) Mansell Collection London 238 (bl) Keystone
183 (b) National Physical Laboratory 214 (b) Christian Zuber 238 (br) Planet News
184 (bl) Dr. J. Bronowski 215 (t and c) By courtesy of H.M. 239 Courtesy Woman s Own
184/185 (t) Courtesy Her Royal Postmaster General 240 (b) Fairchild Aerial Surveys
Britannic Majesty’s Stationery 216 (t) From Lucius Beebe & 241 Bowater Organisation
Office and Hydrographer of the Charles Clegg The American West, 242 (t) By permission of Punch
Navy © *955 by E. P. Dutton & Co., 242 (b) Photo John Hedgecoe; cour¬
184/185 (b) The Royal National In¬ Inc., New York, by permission tesy The Observer
stitute for the Blind 216/217 (b), 217 (t), 218 By courtesy of 243 (t) King Features Syndicate
185 (br) Adam, Rouilly & Co. Ltd. H.M. Postmaster General 244 (t) Eric Schwab/UNESCO
186 (t) Courtesy Meteorological Of¬ 219 (r) J. Allan Cash 244 (b) Society for Cultural Relations
fice 220 (t) Emil Schulthess with the U.S.S.R.
186 (c) J. Allan Cash 220 (b) Kurt Blum 245 (t) Reproduced by the Unesco
188 (t) British Museum 221 (t and b) Smith Kline & French Courier
189 (t) J. E. Downward Laboratories Ltd. 245 (bl) Sunday Times Colour Supple¬
190 (t) Bibliotheque de la Faculte de 222 (b) Astro-Electronics Division, ment, Peter Blake and Robert
Medicine^ Paris Radio Corporation of America Fraser Gallery, London
192 (t) Bodleiain Library, Oxford 223 (t and b) C.N.E.T., Paris 247 Hans Erni
192 (b) John Hopkins, London 225 (c) U.S. Naval Research Labora¬ 248/249 (t) Courtesy Professor Lancelot
193 (bl) Courtesy I.C.I. tory, Washington Hogben from Cave Painting to
194 (t) British Museum/Photo David 225 (b) British Crown Copyright, Comic Strip, Max Parrish & Co.
. Swann Science Museum, London Ltd.
194 (cl) Wellcome Historical Medical 226 (t) New York Stock Exchange 248 (c) Science Museum, London
Museum 226 (b) Smith Kline & French 248 (b) Gernsheim Collection
194 (cr) Wellcome Foundation Laboratories Ltd. 249 (c) Robida cartoon from Unesco
194 (b) Associated Press 227 (t) Mansell Collection Courier
195 (t) National Portrait Gallery, 229 Hans Erni 249 (b) Roger Viollet
London 230 (c) The Trustees of Sir John 250 (r) Stills Isom Fallen Idol, Director
197 Hans Erni Soane’s Museum Carol Reed, England, 1948
198 (t) Public Records Office/Photo 230 (b) Science Museum, London 250 (b) Two stills from Variationen iiber
Freeman 231 (t) Museen der Stadt, Wien eiu Filmthema, FWU/Niederreither
198 (b) Courtesy I.C.I. Paints Divi¬ 231 (b ) Courtesy The Sunday Citizen 251 (t) From Secrets of a Soul by Pabst
sion 232. Courtesy The Daily Mirror 251 (b) From Ivan the Terrible
199 The Wiener Library 233 (tl) British Museum Newspaper 252 (t) From Bicycle Thieves, Director
200 (t) Musee du Louvre, Paris/Photo Library/Photo Freeman Vittorio de Sica, Italy, 1948
Searl 233 ‘(tg) Boston American 252 (b) From Seven Samurai
200 (b) Radio Times Hulton Picture 233 (tr) Ici Paris 253 (t) From The Pink Panther
Library 233 (c) Mansell Collection 253 (b) From Seven Brides for Seven
201 (t) British Museum; Mansell 233 (b) From A Pictorial History of Brothers
Collection Boxing, Paul Hamlyn Ltd., Lon¬ 254/255 B.B.C. Photos
201 (b) The Dean and Chapter of don 256 Photos Roger Wood, London
Hereford Cathedral 234 (t) From Lucius Beebe & Charles 257 and 258 (tr) B.B.C. Photos
202 (t and c) Mansell Collection Clegg, The American West, © 1955 258 (b) Frank Horvat
202 (b) St. John & British Red Cross by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New 259 (t and b) Courtesy ABC Tele¬
Society York, by permission vision
203 (t) Svendborg County Library 234 (c) From Steel Review by per¬ 260 (b) Still from Triumph of the Will,
203 (b) John Freeman mission of the British Iron & Leni Riefenstahl, Germany, 1935
204 (t) Mansell Collection Steel Federation 261 (t) Courtesy Harrison Music Co.
204 (c) St. John & British Red Cross 234 (b) From Carriere della Piccolo Ltd.
Society 235 (t) From La Farge, A Pictorial 261 (b) Lewis Morley Studios
204 (b) The Readex Microprint History of the American Indian, Paul 262 (t) The Decca Record Company,
Corporation Hamlyn Ltd., London Limited, London
205 Photos Ken Coton 235 (e) Scott Polar Research Insti¬ 262 (b) G. Terrier, Paris
206 (t) British Museum/Photo Free¬ tute, Cambridge 263 (t) Frank Horvat
man 235 (b) Ocean Times, courtesy E. P. 263 (b) Photo Bob Willoughby/ The
206 (b) Exhibited in the Swiss Dutton & Co., Inc., New York Sunday Times
Museum of Transport and Com¬ 236 (t) Mansell Collection 264 (t) Courtesy the Pye Group,
munications, Lucerne 236 (c) Photo Giraudon Cambridge
207 (t) Society for the Prevention of 236 (b) P.A.-Reuter Photos Ltd. 264 (b) Northern Rhodesia Informa¬
Road Accidents/Photo Freeman 237 (t) Courtesy UExpress, Paris tion Department
207 (b) Madame Tussaud’s Ltd. 237 (c) Der Spiegel 265 (t) UNICEF
208 (c) Paul Almasy 237 (b) Cartoon by Zee, courtesy 265 (c) Teyler Museum, Haarlem,
208 (b) Unesco/Petersen Daily Mirror Newspapers Ltd. Holland

366