Exercise # 29 @ 100 700 Common Words Dictations https://youtu.be/e49qfbQhvak
Exercise
No. 29
Today we have so many
different means of getting comfortably and quickly from one place to another
that we perhaps do not value some of these means as much as we ought. In the
early days of man's development he had to walk or to run if he desired to get
from one place to another. Then, after many years, he discovered that he could
sit on the back of an animal if he moved on land, and in this way he sat at
ease while the animal laboured for him. The animal used naturally differed in
different countries. A very important development came when men discovered that
they could move across water. The object that carried them over the water in
those far-off days could not be called a ship as we understand that word today.
Poor as the methods may have been, however, they did let men reach places that
would be otherwise cut off by water. For thousands of years there was no
development beyond this. There existed no quick means of movement. Life was
simple and hard.
But things do not stand still. We must,
we are told, move onwards or move back, and men seem always to have desired to
move forward. No matter what point they reach, they always see something more
calling them onwards. Out of this desire for a better material life came good
roads, big ships, railways, motor cars and planes. So used are we to wonderful
planes and to powerful motor-cars that we are in danger of under valuing the
railway, that rather out-of-date method of moving across the country! Few
people in these days use the railway for pleasure they use it because it is a
useful means of getting somewhere reasonably quickly. If a friend tells us that
he is going some-where by plane we are immediately interested. If he tells us
that he has bought a handsome new car and is going to such and such a place we
are likely to be interested. If he is going overseas in one of the large and
modern ships all his friends will want to see him off. Let him go by rail,
however, and no one will take the smallest interest in him. Railways are all
right in their way, but they are not ""news"!
Yet the railway has played an important part in the greatness of our country. Railways have quite a long history if we go back to the times when the trains were led by horses, but they have a history of only a hundred or so years when we speak of the railway in its modern form. The present heavy railway, with great engines and iron or steel railway lines, was developed in this country, and from here it was soon sent to most parts of the world. The English.4eobuilt railways were found not only in this country but in other countries overseas, and in a remarkably short time engines were carrying trains full of people and goods at rates as high as those used today.
These rates do not seem very remarkable today, used as we are to hearing of planes moving at 500 or a thousand miles an hour, but they seemed very remarkable to peoples a hundred years ago. There were no motor-cars and the horse was used as the quickest, safest and best means of getting about on roads that were for the most part very bad indeed. Quite small distances often took days to cover. In such conditions as these it is so natural that the railway seemed a thing of most outstanding importance. It is certain that without it this country could not have gone forward in the wonderful way it has. It is doubtful whether even the plane in this age has really been so important for the country as the train was in the earlier age. In the building of railways this country led the world, but in recent years certain other countries have shown more drive in keeping their railways clean and up-to-date. (686)
