Dear Comrade:
Did you ever tie a knot in your handkerchief to help you remember to get
something you felt almost sure you would forget? Well, tying a knot in a
cord was one of the first ways devised by our ancestors of long ago to
aid them to remember. They also used this plan to send word to those at
a distance or to keep track of things for succeeding generations. A
relic of this old device of our forefathers is also found in the rosary
on which the Roman Catholic counts his beads as an aid to memory.
There are some primitive tribes to-day who still use knotted strings as
an aid to memory. These consist of a main cord, and fastened at given
distances are finer cords of different colors. Each cord is knotted in
different ways to mean different things and each color, too, has its own
meaning. A red string stands for soldiers, a yellow for gold, and a
green for corn, and so on, while a single knot may mean ten, two single
knots twenty, a double knot 100, two double knots 200. In this way, they
keep a record of things, transmit orders and use them for various
purposes.
Only a generation ago the tax gatherers in the Island of Hawaii kept
account of the assessable property on lines of cordage knotted in this
manner, and these cords in some cases were three thousand feet long. The
method of keeping track of things by means of a notched stick is easily
within the memory of many people living today. For in England in the
early part of the last century, accounts of debts to the government were
kept by means of tally sticks, which were merely notched sticks.
Such methods as these were the only ways primitive man had of keeping
track of things before he had discovered the art of written speech. And
even after written speech was known and used, these old methods
persisted.
Gradually, step by step, man has come along the path of progress.
Adventurous spirits, not satisfied with the old way of doing things,
sought new ways. The conservatives of their day thought them dangerous
people, no doubt, and feared that they would destroy the very
foundations of society. And this they oft-times did, but only that there
might rise a more perfect form of society. It is the seeking,
questioning mind that demands the reason for all things, that seeks ever
better ways of doing things. They have always throughout the ages
refused to bow to the authority of the past but have dared to live their
own lives. To them we owe the progress of the world and we are the
inheritors of their spirit.
Let us prove our kinship by daring to live our own lives and think our
own thoughts.
Yours for Freedom,