can find merely by taking a book from a shelf. When a 
     large proportion of a population is illiterate and books are 
     scarce, memories are often tenacious to a degree outside 
     modern European experience. Indian students are able to 
     learn a text-book by heart and to reproduce it word for 
     word in an examination room; sacred texts are preserved 
     intact by oral transmission alone. ‘It is said that if all the 
     written and printed copies of the Rig-Veda were lost, the 
     text could be restored at once with complete accuracy.’ 
     This text is about as long as the Iliad  and Odyssey  
     combined. Russian and Jugoslav oral poetry is recited by 
     minstrels who show great powers both of memory and 
     improvisation.

     But the more fundamental reason for imperfect recall is 
that with print there is more complete separation of the visual