Words make and, by real or imagined resonance, hold a route for thought to follow. In this function, the actual or imagined sound of words keeps the words one in using and the thoughts they signify in the mind long enough for the thinker or speaker to use them.
The sound of a word, in fact, can hold a meaning in one”s memory for a lifetime. Words are thus like signs directing a traveler along his way.
Words function in closer cooperation with the mind (the functioning brain) than any of man”s other endowments except the art of painting, for the first predestined stage of the four stages of thought is imagery.
The first stage of thought, or of most any action, is feeling or emotion, which is analogous to a stem cell, that, like the foundation of a building, tells nothing of what it is destined to be a part.
Speech might be said to be a more important part of thought than painting, though all stages of thought, being necessary, are equally important. But silent imagined words control one”s actions (See A.R. Luria, “The Nature of Human Conflicts,” Chapter 12); and words constitute the most practical procedure for the important office of interpersonal communication.
My thesis in this letter is that, in all man”s time of learning, prenatal to death, academic and otherwise, the most important study is vocabulary; for knowing the meaning of words is the key that opens the door to all understanding.
And word study should not be given only the complementary time necessary while learning other subjects, but a full period of diligent attention to words alone; and this should not be just for toddlers learning to read, but for all education, preschool to PhD.
Understanding is a consummation devoutly to be wished even for grown-ups.
Dean Sparks
Lucerne
