phsc.ca

the value of a picture

Toronto. Have you noticed the trend? Our ancestors prided themselves on being able to read and write. As the decades passed, the written word in books, newspapers, magazines, etc. gave way to images in movies, newspapers, magazines, books, TV. In turn video took over and the written word (at least the hand written one) is in the process of fading into history. Photography both still and motion has played an ever greater part in the transition.

My grand children no longer learn to read script (hand writing) at school. My personal experience with this was some old German writing on a microscope slide. It was nearly an illegible hand to me although carefully written. I had to ask a German lady to translate for me. It was then I learnt the writing was old German (a language not very clear to none German speaking or educated folks – just as old English words, writings, and spellings can confound many).

Once again my good friend, George Dunbar has elected to visit the online archives of the Lakehead University library. George discovered photographs there that describe the unique history of our country not in words, but in pictures. These pictures shows many details that even a thousand words may be too few to accurately describe what is shown.