Elephants

I recently stumbled upon a picture of an elephant, drawn by a European artist in the Middle Ages. The artist had never seen an elephant in person, only heard rumors of its greatness and ferocity from soldiers who came back from wars in India and Southeast Asia. It was depicted in a form so grotesque, that it was barely recognizable as an elephant. It's body was a circle, larger than the surrounding houses. Tusks would often number at three or four, and legs were rumored to be thicker than the thickest tree trunks, and made entirely of one long, unbreakable bone.

I then found a drawing my 4 year old sister made of an elephant. I don't know if she had seen one in person, besides the time she was taken to a zoo when she was one or two years old. But her depiction was magnitudes better than that of the professional artist from hundreds of years ago.

The learning and knowledge accumulation of the human race is amazing. Today's 4 year old child knows so much more than the most learned scholar of just a few hundred years before. These thoughts get me excited and overly optimistic of the types of knowledge to reach the minds of my own children and grandchildren, and generations beyond.