XXIV ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 
ture; and by comparative methods many interesting facts may 
be discovered pertaining to periods anterior to the develop- 
ment of writing. 
In the study of peoples who have not passed beyond the 
tribal condition, laws of linguistic growth anterior to the writ- 
ten stage may be discovered. Thus, by the study of the lan- 
guages of tribes and the languages of nations, the methods 
and laws of development are discovered from the low condi- 
tion represented by the most savage tribe to the highest condi- 
tion existing in the speech of civilized man. But there is a 
development of language anterior to this—a prehistoric condi- 
tion—of profound interest to the scholar, because in it the 
beginnings of language—the first steps in the organization of 
articulate speech—are involved. 
On this prehistoric stage, light is thrown from four sources: 
Ist. Infant speech, in which the development of the language 
of the race is epitomized. 
2d. Gesture speech, which, among tribal peoples, never 
passes beyond the first stages of linguistic growth; and these 
stages are probably homologous to the earlier stages of oral 
speech. 
3d. Picture writing, in which we again find some of the 
characteristics of prehistoric speech illustrated. 
4th. It may be possible to learn something of the elements 
of which articulate speech is compounded by studying the in- 
articulate language of the lower animals. 
The traits of gesture speech that seem to illustrate the con- 
dition of prehistoric oral language are found in the synthetic 
character of its signs. The parts of speech are not differen- 
tiated, and the sentence is not integrated; and this character- 
istic is more marked than in that of the lowest oral language 
yet studied. For this reason the facts of gesture speech con- 
stitute an important factor in the philosophy of language. 
Doubtless, care must be exercised in its use because of the 
advanced mental condition of the people who thus express their 
thought, but with due caution it may be advantageously used. 
In itself, independent of its relations to oral speech, the subject 
is of great interest. 
