ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXXI 



the American Indians are cordially invited to contribute to the 

 Bureau archives. The edition of the reports published for 

 distribution by the Bureau is used chiefly for exchange with 

 correspondents sending- material for the archives and library. 



OPERATIONS IN FIELD AND OFFICE 



WORK IN PICTOGRAPHY AND SIGN LANGUAGE 



The chief arts of expression are speech and writing-. These 

 arts are intimately related and interact constantly so that each 

 is in large measure dependent on the other for its utility in 

 conveying human thought. Spoken language is evanescent and 

 of limited range unless crystallized and garnered in graphic 

 symbols, while an unspoken language is never in harmony 

 with the spirit of the times and can be perpetuated and inter- 

 preted only by dint of great and ever increasing labor; and the 

 successful languages are those in which phonetic and graphic 

 symbols are so adjusted one to another that they can be spoken 

 and written with equal facility. Viewed in sequence, each 

 modern language is the product of constant effort to improve 

 and extend expression, modified by the elimination of extrava- 

 gant, redundant, or incongruous symbols, both phonetic and 

 graphic; viewed in sequence, each primitive language is the pro- 

 duct of effort to express thought in phonetic symbols, slightly 

 modified by crude and incomplete elimination of the unsuit- 

 able and extravagant; and viewed in sequence, language in 

 general may be considered the product of unceasing effort 

 to express ever-growing human thought, modified by the elim- 

 ination of incongruous and unnecessary features. All obser- 

 vation indicates that the early efforts to express thought, either 

 in general or in special cases or along particular lines, are 

 vague and indefinite, or chaotic, and that the art grows into 

 system through small increments of the good, but especially 

 through constant elimination of the bad; thus the early stages 

 of any phase of the art of expression are of exceptional inter- 

 est in that they indicate the laws of linguistic evolution. The 

 beginning of spoken language is lost in antiquity and can never 

 be recovered; but the beginning of written language may be 



