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as with the use of tools, reciprocal forces came into play in which speech stimulated better brains, and
brains improved the art of speech, and the curve of brain growth spiraled upward.
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11 .Which factor played the most important role in the evolution of human intelligence? Was it the
pressure of the Ice-Age climate? Or tools? Or language? No one can tell, all worked together, through
110 Darwin's 5) law of natural selection, to produce the dramatic increase in the size of the brain that has been
recorded in the fossil record in the last million years. The brain reached its present size about one hundred
thousand years ago, and its growth ceased. Man's body had been shaped into its modem form several
115 hundred thousand years before that. Now brain and body were complete. Together they made a new and
marvelous creature, charged with power, intelligence, and creative energy. His wits had been honed by the
fight against hunger, cold, and the natural enemy; his form had been molded in the crucible of adversity. In
120 the annals of anthropology his arrival is celebrated by a change in name, from Homo erectus-the Man who
stands erect-to Homo sapiens-the Man of wisdom.
12.The story of man's creation nears an end. In the beginning there was light; then a dark cloud
125 appeared, and made the sun and earth. The earth grew warmer; its body exhaled moisture and gases; water
collected on the surface; soon the first molecules struggled across the threshold of life. Some survived;
others perished; and the law of Darwin began its work. The pressures of the environment acted ceaselessly,
and the forms of life improved.
130 13.The changes were imperceptible from one generation to the next. No creature was aware of its role in
the larger drama; all felt only the pleasure and pain of existence; and life and death were devoid of a
greater meaning.
135 14.But to the human observer, looking back on the history of life from the perspective of many eons, a
meaning becomes evident. He sees that through the struggle against the forces of adversity, each generation
molds the shapes of its descendants. Adversity and struggle lie at the root of evolutionary progress.
140 Without adversity there is no pressure; without pressure there is no change.
15.These circumstances, so painful to the individual, create the great currents that carry life forward
from the simple to the complex. Finally, man stands on the earth, more perfect than any other. Intelligent,
145 self-aware, he alone among all creatures has the curiosity to ask: how did I come into being? What forces
have created me? And, guided by his scientific knowledge, he comes to the realization that he was created
by all who came before him, through their struggle against adversity.
1) One cubic inch is a heaping tablespoonful. [Author's footnote].
2) If the brain had continued to expand at the same rate, men would be far brainier today than they actually
are. But after several hundred thousand years of very rapid growth the expansion of the brain slowed down and
in the last one hundred thousand years it has not changed in size at all. [Author's footnote].
3) Latin for «man».
4) Until recently, the consensus among anthropologists placed the origin of man in Africa. However, some
recent evidence suggests that Asia may have been his birthplace.
[Author's footnote].
5) British naturalist Charles Darwin ( 1809-1882 ) theorized that all species of life evolved from lower forms
through «natural selection».
From: Thomas Cooley, The Norton Sampler, 1979.
JAPANESE EDUCATION
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
by Thomas P. Rohlen
1.
Contemporary Japan is about as developed and organized a society as one can find in the world
today. It is a society where educational credentials and educated skills are central to employment, to
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promotion,and to social status in general. It is not a society with a privileged traditional class, nor is it one