. . . Americans Are The Best

A Book Is An Attempt To Make Through Permanent And To Contribute To The Great Conversation Conducted By Authors Of The Past. […] The Telegraph Is Suited Only To The Flashing Of Messages, Each To Be Quickly Replaced By A More Up-to-date Message. Facts Push Other Facts Into And Then Out Of Consciousness At Speeds That Neither Permit Nor Require Evaluation. (70)

Certainty Abolishes Hope, And Robs Us Of Renewal.

The Written Word Endures, The Spoken Word Disappears

Children Are The Living Messages We Send To A Time We Will Not See. From A Biological Point Of View It Is Inconceivable That Any Culture Will Forget That It Needs To Reproduce Itself. But It Is Quite Possible For A Culture To Exist Without A Social Idea Of Children. Unlike Infancy, Childhood Is A Social Artifact, Not A Biological Category.

The Line-by-line, Sequential, Continuous Form Of The Printed Page Slowly Began To Lose Its Resonance As A Metaphor Of How Knowledge Was To Be Acquired And How The World Was To Be Understood. "knowing" The Facts Took On A New Meaning, For It Did Not Imply That One Understood Implications, Background, Or Connections. Telegraphic Discourse Permitted No Time For Historical Perspectives And Gave No Priority To The Qualitative. To The Telegraph, Intelligence Meant Knowing Of Lots Of Things, Not Knowing About Them.