Dear Comrade:
With this lesson we are finishing this course in Plain English. We have
covered a great deal of ground and have studied the essentials of
grammar. We have tried, as far as possible, to avoid the stupid conning
of rules or learning by rote. We have attempted at least to make the
reason and necessity for every rule apparent before the rule was stated.
We have also tried to weave into the lessons something of the romance of
language, for language is a romance; in its growth is written the epic
of the race. Our words portray the struggle of man from savage to sage.
So, feeble as our efforts in this regard may have been, we trust that
you have enjoyed and profited by this course and have caught a new
vision of life. Most of us are forced so inexorably into the bitter
struggle for existence that we have little time or opportunity to catch
much of the beauty of life. That is the curse of a society that dooms
its citizens to weary, toil-burdened lives, robbed of the joy and beauty
of living.
Yet, if we know how to read we can always have access to books and
through them we can escape the sordidness and ugliness of the life in
which we are compelled to live and spend at least a little time each day
in the company of great souls who speak to us from the printed page. The
quotations in these lessons have been taken from these great writers.
Will you not pursue the acquaintanceship and become real friends with
these men and women? Above all things they will bring you into the
atmosphere of liberty and of freedom. For throughout all the pain of the
struggle of the past and of the present, there has been the fight of man
for freedom. We have gained the mastery over nature. Wild animals, which
were a constant menace to savage man, have been destroyed. We have been
freed from fear and superstition by the discovery of the laws of nature.
With the invention of the machine, man has increased his ability to
provide the essentials of life,--food, clothing and shelter--a
thousandfold. The past has seen revolution after revolution in the
struggle for mastery.
We now stand on the threshold of another great revolution when man shall
master the machines which he has invented and shall cease serving them
and make them serve him. His increased facilities for food-getting and
shelter-getting shall be made to serve all mankind. We have a part to
play in that great revolution.
Whatever you may have gained from the study of this course; what
increased facility of understanding or of expression may have come to
you; may it be not only for the service of yourself but also for the
service of the revolution that shall bring the worker into his own.
Yours for Education,