_Language Is an Instrument of Culture_.--Culture areas always spread beyond the territory of language groups. Culture depends upon the discovery and utilization of the forces of nature through invention and adaptation. It may spread through imitation over very large human territory. Man has universal mental traits, with certain powers and capacities that are developed in a relative order and in a degree of efficiency; but there are many languages and many civilizations of high and low degree. Through human speech the life of the past may be handed on to others and the life of the present communicated to one another. The physiological power of speech which exists in all permits every human group to develop a language in accordance with its needs and as influenced by its environment. Thus language advanced very rapidly as an instrument of communication even at a very early period of cultural development. A recent study of the {130} languages of the American Indians has shown the high degree of the art of expression among people of the Neolithic culture. This would seem to indicate that primitive peoples are more definite in thought and more observant in the relation of cause and effect than is usually supposed. Thus, definite language permits more precise thought, and definite thought, in turn, insists on more exact expression in language. The two aid each other in development of cultural ideas, and invention and language move along together in the development of the human race. It becomes a great human invention, and as such it not only preserves the thoughts of the past but unlocks the knowledge of the present. Not only is language the means of communication, and the great racial as well as social bond of union, but it represents knowledge, culture, and refinement. The strength and beauty of genuine artistic expression have an elevating influence on human life and become a means of social progress. The drama and the choicest forms of prose and poetry in their literary aspects furnish means of presenting great thoughts and high ideals, and, thus combined with the beauty of expression, not only furnish the best evidence of moral and intellectual progress but make a perennial source of information in modern social life. Hence it is that language and culture in all of their forms go hand in hand so closely that a high degree of culture is not attained without a dignified and expressive language.