CHAPTER XV

COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTORY LESSON PLAN

a. What is the simplest form of communication by which you are able to exchange ideas with your classmates and teacher?

b. Suppose you were deaf, dumb, or blind, or all three. How could you communicate?

c. Picture what would result if every mechanical means of communication-postal service, telegraph, telephone, cable, radio, newspaper, etc.-were suddenly stopped.

d. Which of the various means of communication are most valuable to you in your class room work?

e. Try to devise plans by which other means of communication can be utilized in making your school work more efficient and more interesting.

1. WHAT INVENTION HAS DONE

Suppose some member of your family develops symptoms of alarming illness in the middle of the night. Your first thought is, "We must get the doctor, at once."

You dress hurriedly, run downstairs, and half walk, half run, fifteen or twenty blocks to the doctor's house. Do you? Of course not. You step across the room to the telephone, and in less than five minutes you have his welcome voice on the wire, telling you what to do before he can get to the invalid's side. The old way-an hour of precious time consumed. The modern way-almost as quick as thought itself.

The telephone, the telegraph-even wireless-are so much a part of our daily lives that we quite take them for granted. These and the many other agencies of communication are not only a great personal convenience. The development of civilization and the extension of education are largely due to the in

vention of means of communicating from community to community and from nation to nation. To-day a person has to strike out into the wilderness beyond the very edge of civilization if he wishes to get out of communication with his kind. The postal service, the telephone, and the telegraph stretch out a vast network that holds nations as well as individuals together.

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POSTAL SERVICE

The earliest means of communication was afforded by kings' messengers, who carried important state papers from city to city or from one country to another. The Babylonians, the Persians and the Egyptians all had postal systems which handled both parcels and messages. In Cromwell's time there was a postal system that handled private mail as well as communications of state. But this postal service was part of the government's spy system. Government officials regularly opened letters to see if they contained anything against the Pretender's interests. By 1782, although the mails were no longer tampered with by spies, mail robberies had become so frequent that they came to be regarded as necessary evils. In sending bank-notes or bills of exchange through the mail it was the custom to tear the bills in two pieces and to mail each piece in a separate envelope.

In our own country Benjamin Franklin was the last, and the best, colonial postmaster-general, as well as the first post office head of the new nation. In 1753, when he went into office, he set an example of efficiency by paying a personal visit of inspection to every one of the main post offices in New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

After the Revolution our postal service grew steadily. Until 1863 the postage on a letter varied according to the distance it was to be carried; the lowest charge was three cents. In that year the three-cent charge was made uniform, regardless of distance, and twenty years later the rate was reduced to two cents. Just before the world war broke out there was a move

ment toward penny postage, but in order to help pay our war expenses there was a temporary increase of one cent on each letter. Our post offices are not expected to make money for the government. On the contrary they generally produce a deficit each year. The postal service is meant to be more in the nature of a great public service, such as that of supplying a community with water.

Parcel Post. The post offices do, indeed, perform a public service in providing a safe and prompt means by which long and often important communications can be sent from one community to another, or from this country to a foreign nation. Not only that, they carry for us packages as heavy as seventy pounds, at much less than the express charge for the same service. If we wish to send money through the mails it can be done safely and at a nominal cost by postal money order. If we

wish to put in a place of security a sum of money too small for most banks to handle we can deposit it in the postal savings bank.

Air Mail Routes. The latest innovation of the postal service is a series of air mail routes started May 15, 1918. Letters and small parcels are sent by airplane, arriving at their destination far ahead of the fastest express trains. In 1921 the air mail service covered 1,500,000 miles and carried 50,000,000

letters. There is a route in operation between New York and San Francisco.

Administration. Every section of our country is reached by the mail service. Even the smallest town has a post office. Farm communities are served by the rural free delivery carriers, who gather the mail at central post offices and take it out to the farms. The large cities have a central post office with branches in convenient outlying districts. The postal service in cities is largely used for communication within the city limits, particularly for business correspondence.

In each community the post office is in charge of a citizen called the postmaster. Postmasterships are of four classes, according to the salaries received. Fourth class postmasters are paid $1,000 a year or less, and are appointed by the Postmaster General under the rules of the United States civil service. There are about 36,000 postmasters in this class. Third class postmasters receive between $1,000 and $2,200 a year; second class postmasters, between $2,200 and $3,000 a year, and first class postmasters more than $3,000 a year. The number of postmasters in these three classes is about 12,000. They are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and are therefore not under civil service rules. The

President, however, has stipulated by an executive order that candidates for the Presidential postmasterships must take a competitive examination under the civil service commission. One of the first three

on the resultant eligible list is then nominated by the President, and with few exceptions the Senate always confirms such nomination.

3. THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE SERVICE

A telegraph system was in use in Napoleon's time, before the electrical telegraph was invented. This older system was similar to the semaphore signal system used by our soldiers and sailors. A line of posts was built across country, each one at a point visible from its neighbors on either side. At the top of the posts were cross pieces with pivoted "arms." By means of these movable arms messages were relayed along in code from station to station, covering about a hundred and fifty miles in fifteen minutes.

A BUSY CORNER IN A CITY POST OFFICE

Here the mail taken from street letter boxes is dumped and sorted.

This mechanical type of telegraph was in use until 1850, when the electric telegraph was so perfected that it could be used in sending commercial messages. The electric telegraph was made possible by a sending apparatus invented in 1835 by an American, Samuel F. B. Morse. It was first used only by the railroad companies in regulating their train service; but soon it became an essential factor in general communication. Teleg