The Old Man And The Library

Our human species is dated back to more than 200,000 years ago, now if we can attain a significant lesson that our ancestors have passed down to us, it would definitely be to keep learning and writing. Many past generations and societies have been destroyed by diseases, famine, and due to their lack of knowledge and their capability to reason. Considering the Egyptians were very intelligent, few of their inventions that we still use till this day are geometry, the pen, and papyrus, which is used as paper. But even so, they were wiped out by the thousands from diseases. However, humans have yet to reach their highest potential but by attaining knowledge through literature, one can endure lessons from the past without having to experience it.

The West African bardic tradition refers to the passing on of empirical knowledge from elders, known as griot, via a media of rapping, which occurs as a tradition where “the grandfather...bring[s] all the immediate children around him to rap.” This tradition is the expression of historical culture and lessons via a media of poetry, rhythm, and music. The role of

Historians produce knowledge for us to learn from in the form of written documentation showing what people have done in the

"The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or

Groups of people who work together make a difference, whether they are many or few. Because of their contribution to make a difference, they are the ones that create a huge impact on peoples' lives.

The Terrible Old Man is a short story written in 1920 by H.P. Lovecraft, who was a famous author of sciene fiction, fantasy and last but not least horrer. I will, by analysing the characters, the setting and the ending, try to interpret and find the main theme of this story.

What is the most important thing to know about knowledge you are given? The answer is simple, the truth. In the story “By the Waters of Babylon” the main character John is on a quest for knowledge. In his civilization the priests are the wisest and most knowledgeable people. John is the son of a priest and wants to become one himself. John is obsessed with finding more knowledge. John says, “My knowledge made me happy--it was like a fire in my heart” (Benet 312). He dreams of going to on a journey to the The Dead Place, a place that is forbidden for any of his people to go to.

I like this quote because it’s something that my dad told me and won’t stop. Knowledge is power. This quote pretty much is self explanatory, but it means that knowledge is currency in the world, it's not a dollar, it’s not a peso, or a british pound. With information you can gain all these types of money but with money you can’t gain knowledge. Frederick Douglass exemplifies this idea. Frederick started as a slave, his mother a black woman and his father the slave owner. Frederick didn’t know anything when he was a slave and only succeeded to read due to Douglass tricking kids into teaching him new words, and then he was able to become one of the most respected abolitionists in U.S. history. With his new found skill of reading he can see all the evils of slavery clearer and how horrid it really is, and he now has the confidence to oppose his ruthless master Mr. Covey.

To know the past is to know the future. In his essay Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are, David McCullough argues about the importance of studying and teaching history. In his essay, he explains that there are three main points about history: character and its effect upon destiny, our failure of teaching the future generation, and the importance of learning and listening to history. David McCullough strongly advocates that audience should start to listen to and teach about the past in order to learn about the way a person’s character can affect their destiny.

The quote teaches a valuable lesson too. The lesson it teaches later in life or sooner is that if you just wait, soon it will later happen, you must be patient and later something unremarkable and so valuable you would do outstanding, and once you do that it will or should remain a memory or it should.

Eleanor Roosevelt, former first lady of the United States, had many accomplishments during the Roosevelt years in America. She was a social and women’s activist who used her words to change the minds of people in America. One of the many things she took the upper hand in was education. Eleanor Roosevelt carried deeply about the education of American citizens and this is learned through her emotional and logical appeals in her famous “What Libraries Mean to the Nation” speech.

Mr. Mdeouze influenced Jose to write that incredible story. He told him enough stories to open up his imagination and produce a beautiful paper. Mr. M taught Jose the power of language. For extra credit for this class, I listened to an interesting lecture about African Storytelling. This is what Mr. M reminded me of. Traditional storytelling is usually told by adults and spoken to children about life, rewards, and consequences. The fables are usually metaphorical stories that have to do with lessons children will learn in their daily lives. While Jose listened to Mr. M’s

They store our heritage. In Mali, there are griots, storytellers who are the living historical record of their community. One griot tells us, “We are vessels of speech. We are the repositories which harbor secrets many centuries old. We are the memory of mankind.”6 As for my own personal history, I would not recall that I once stuck an apple seed up my nose had my parents not told me this precious story. In 6th grade I wrote the biography of my father’s life. To do this, he had to tell me many of his childhood stories. How he got knocked unconscious by a line drive playing baseball. How he had a paper route for $7.50 a week. And how he had to walk to school every day uphill both ways in the snow. I loved sitting with my dad listening to him tell these stories. Some of my favorite memories come from late nights when I couldn’t sleep. We always played this game where I would name three random animals and he would make up a story about it. At the time, they seemed ridiculous, but the meaning of those stories and the times shared with my family meant every

Imagine being able to tell stories for generations to come without ever having to write down a single word. Oral tradition is used to pass stories down from generation to generation through different forms of communication without any writing system. Oral tradition stories are told by word of mouth, riddles, storytelling, and songs. It cannot be changed although the narrator might embellish it. Oral tradition is how Africans perceived the past. The significance of oral Tradition is due to the stories holding so much information and knowledge. Oral tradition contributed to understanding pre-colonial history because the pre-colonial Africa was influenced by two major movements which are the expansion of islam and the dispersion of the bantu. Oral tradition gave us the perspective as to why the expansion and dispersion took place. Oral tradition has its strengths and weaknesses. A strength of oral tradition is that it is being told from word of mouth and more people will listen to a good storyteller than to go read a book about the history. However, a weakness of oral tradition is that many of the stories get forgotten, left out, or embellished. With each re-telling the story gets further and further away from the original. Oral tradition is a primary way of conveying culture and is a way of life in African history.

"A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it." -- Plato