More than six thousand and five hundred years had gone by since the
history of the Egyptian people had begun.

Long before any one had dreamed of building a city amidst the swamps of
the river Tiber, the kings of Egypt had ruled far and wide and had made
their court the center of all civilization.

While the Romans were still savages who chased wolves and bears with
clumsy stone axes, the Egyptians were writing books, performing
intricate medical operations and teaching their children the tables of
multiplication.

This great progress they owed chiefly to one very wonderful invention,
to the art of preserving their spoken words and their ideas for the
benefit of their children and grandchildren.

We call this the art of writing.

We are so familiar with writing that we can not understand how people
ever managed to live without books and newspapers and magazines.

But they did and it was the main reason why they made such slow progress
during the first million years of their stay upon this planet.

They were like cats and dogs who can only teach their puppies and their
kittens a few simple things (barking at a stranger and climbing trees
and such things) and who, because they can not write, possess no way in
which they can use the experience of their countless ancestors.

This sounds almost funny, doesn't it?