The time has passed when intelligent men dispute the need of everyone
to be able to read and write.
There was a time in the dark ages when learning first began to lift
its head, that the proud knight boasted that he could not read or
write--mere priest-craft much beneath him. Quite late in English
history it was held derogatory for the nobility to spell well. These
baser arts were for their inferiors. Their attitude was that of
Douglas, in Scott’s poem “Marmion,” who exclaimed:
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain ne’er could pen a line.
Royal Governor Berkeley, writing home to England in the seventeenth
century, “thanked God that no public schools nor printing presses
existed in the colony,” and added his hope that none would be
introduced for a hundred years “since learning brings irreligion and
disobedience into the world and the printing press disseminates them
and fights against the best intentions of the government.”
George Washington and the other founders of our Nation held views just
the opposite of those expressed by Lord Berkeley and they, almost
without exception, left their message urging that the people be
enlightened. Washington made a provision in his will that his negro
slaves under twenty-five years of age should be taught to read and
write. This is significant. It shows that the Father of our Country
believed that even those who were physically enslaved should be
mentally free and, also, that he considered learning to read and write
a process not necessarily confined to childhood.
The Chinese have a tradition that when the art of writing was born all
nature was moved, Heaven rained millet, demons wailed in the night and
dragons hid in the depths. One can well believe that its appearance on
the earth created this commotion when it is realized that with writing
came the mightiest power for combating error and removing all manner of
evil. How strange it seems that men have not poured out this power more
freely on their fellow men!
Life itself is more or less dependent upon the ability to read and
write. In no place is disease so prevalent or life so menaced as in
illiterate sections. During the influenza epidemic of 1918, doctors
and nurses found themselves helpless in communities where illiteracy
prevailed. The death-rate is high where illiteracy exists and infant
mortality mounts to the topmost round. Here the precautions of
sanitation are little known and practised, and innocent children pay
the penalty with their lives. “You say you have six children,” said
an illiterate mother to an educated one, “That’s nothing. I’ve buried
twelve.”
After the most destructive war in all history the conservation of human
life is naturally receiving much attention, but illiteracy offers a
serious handicap to this noble enterprise. A health car was sent out in
one of the states to demonstrate facts concerning preventable diseases,
and in a few weeks the director of the car wrote in, “The car will
have to be brought in and overhauled. So many people come on it who
cannot read and write, the printed charts are not practical.” The car
was brought back and glass jars, filled to certain depths with marbles
of different sizes and colors to illustrate the mortality of various
diseases, were substituted for the charts of letters and figures. This
was in the United States--not in Russia, though it reminds one of the
system in use in illiterate sections of that country--the placing of
pictures over the shops instead of lettered signs, the ringing of bells
to indicate the time of trains, and other devices used in a land where
illiteracy has long reigned supreme.
Law is less respected and law violations are more common where
illiteracy flourishes, and the court costs are heavy in such
communities as compared with those of education and culture. An
investigation made in seventeen typical states in one year showed that
the number of convicted criminals from the illiterate portions of those
states was seven times as large as from the educated portions.
In the most lawless district in Rowan County, I approached the
school-house one evening during the third term of the moonlight schools
and stopped at the threshold overawed by the unusual scene. The house
was filled with men and women and every head was bent over the Bible
intently studying. It was indicative of the change which had come
over the district with the education of the adults. In the years that
followed, the court records, once filled with the misdeeds committed in
that district, were left blank.
Illiteracy of parents is depriving more children of school advantages
than any other one thing. The most illiterate counties in the United
States, according to the census of 1910 had an illiteracy of 60.5
percent and 63.1 percent respectively. The former had an average
school attendance of 21.2 percent, the latter 24.7 percent--an average
in these two counties of less than three out of every ten children in
school. Compared with other counties in the same states one with 11.5
percent illiteracy and 63.2 percent school attendance and another with
10.7 percent illiteracy and 67.8 percent school attendance--nearly
seven out of every ten children in school--the result of illiteracy on
school attendance is striking.
Illiteracy begets illiteracy. An examination of the census reveals this
clearly. The names of parents and grandparents on the illiteracy list
are usually followed by the names of most of their progeny. A family
name is duplicated many times on the list. As a measure for insuring
the education of the coming generation, the illiterate adults should be
taught, for even where compulsory attendance laws are well enforced,
public sentiment back of them is the only thing that can make them
completely effective.
Education is a great cause and needs the millions of illiterates as
its converts and its friends. Even if they did not need the book and
pen, or would not use the power to read and write, after it had been
conferred upon them, but became friends and advocates of the school
instead of remaining indifferent or antagonistic, as some of them
undoubtedly are, this alone would justify their being taught.
Uncle Martin Sloan walked sixteen miles to have a talk with me after he
had learned to read and write. He said, “My learning may never do me
much good. My hands are stiff and I can’t write much; my eyes are bad
and I can’t see to read a great deal, but I see now what I’ve missed in
life, and I want to tell you what I’m going to do--I’m going ’round to
every home in my district just before school begins each year, as long
as I live, and urge the parents to send their children to school.” A
friend of education! Oh, that every one of the five million illiterates
in America might become as this old man and others redeemed from
illiteracy, who will not tolerate the crime of keeping children out of
school!
Some used to say that laboring men worked better and were more
contented, if illiterate. There never was a greater fallacy. Illiteracy
never plowed a furrow straighter nor produced an extra bushel to the
acre. It never turned out a better product from factory, field or
mine. It handicaps the laborer, making his task more difficult, his
position less secure and his life less safe. Not only is he handicapped
in carrying out the instructions of his employer, but, also, in the
safe and skillful handling of machinery and tools. Illiterate and
coarse workmen cannot be trusted with the delicate tools and, as a
rule, are given the clumsy sort that will endure the rough handling
without breakage. This hampers them, at the outset, burdening them as
with ball and chain and giving the educated laborer every advantage.
In a Southern city illiterate and educated laborers worked side by
side cleaning the streets. The illiterate laborers used clumsy hoes
with rough, heavy handles, weighing twelve pounds, and the educated
workmen used light and graceful ones weighing but two. Each laborer
pulled twenty pounds on the average, at each stroke. The illiterate
laborers pulled twelve pounds of hoe and eight pounds of mud while
their educated companions pulled two pounds of hoe and eighteen
pounds of mud. The result was more than twice as great when guided by
intelligence as when guided by physical power alone.
Man’s daily bread is, in a measure, dependent upon his ability to read
and write, which not only increases but creates earning power. Many a
man has started out searching for work and found himself barred from
one position after another because he could not read or write. Prior to
the World War illiterate men were losing their jobs and being replaced
by the educated, a tendency which is constantly on the increase.
Uncle Jeff, an illiterate darky of the old-time Southern type, had
been drayman for years for a large manufacturing company and had come
to consider himself a fixture when an order of the Illinois Central
Railway company struck him like a thunderbolt. It was to the effect
that no freight should be delivered to anyone who could not read and
sign the freight receipts. The company felt obliged, of course, to part
with Uncle Jeff. “Aunt Sally,” his wife, blamed this calamity on the
schools and rushed to the nearest member of the school board to protest
against the outrage, “Hit’s jist a gittin’ so a man cain’t do nothin’
’thout he kin read and write,” she wailed. “Ef hit keeps on hit’ll
soon be so a man cain’t even plow his cawn ’thout he kin read what’s
printed on the plow beam.” The poor old colored woman spoke more truth,
in her resentment than she knew. It is becoming next to impossible in
this complex and highly specialized age for a man to hold any sort of
position unless he can read and write.
The lives of laboring men are endangered by illiteracy. The “Safety
First” movement is designed to instruct the people in care and
watchfulness on every hand to prevent the destruction of life and
property, but the first precaution of safety for the millions of
illiterates is to teach them to read and write. All the danger signs
put up before them might as well be held before the eyes of the blind,
and yet the legal responsibility of employers in some states ceases
with the posting of such signs. How much the removal of illiteracy
contributes to the safety of the laboring man is indicated by this
report from Henry Ford’s plant where educational work is carried
on, “Accidents in this plant have decreased fifty-four percent
since employees have been able to read factory notices and other
instructions.”
Commerce is stifled by illiteracy to a degree little suspected by the
average business man. The illiterates, being unable to sign their
checks, usually hold their money out of the bank; being unable to read
newspapers and magazines, they seldom put their names on subscription
lists; realizing that their predicament is made more awkward by
travel, they remain off of trains, as a rule, and the railroads lose
the passenger receipts. Having no appreciation of luxuries and their
earnings being too limited to buy, they restrict trade, in illiterate
communities, to the coarsest commodities.
In a county where one-third of the population was illiterate according
to the census of 1910 the assessor’s list showed less than $1,000
invested in household furniture, less than $500 in agricultural
implements, although it was an agricultural county, less than $43 in
watches and clocks, not a dollar in gold, silver or plated ware or
jewelry, and only one diamond ring in the whole county and it was the
property of a bride who had moved in. Lace curtains, china, rugs, and
paintings had no market here, and chiffon, georgette and other delicate
fabrics of feminine wear were things unknown. If there were but one
such county in the United States it might not be a matter of concern
to the tradesman, but with many such in existence and some with even
forty and fifty and sixty percent who cannot read or write, illiteracy
is something for the enterprising business man to consider when he is
figuring profit and loss.
While waiting in a railway station in Mississippi in June, 1917,
I noticed that every available foot of space was plastered with
advertising asserting the superiority of certain products. Familiar
brands of grape juice, soda, baking powder, flour, soap and cleansers
were emblazoned there in all the well-known effectiveness of the
American advertiser. Thirty to forty percent of the population of the
six surrounding counties could not read, so thirty to forty cents of
every dollar spent in advertising was wasted here.
The State collects no revenue save poll tax from ninety percent of its
illiterate citizens. Uncle Sam has overlooked an important source of
revenue which if streaming into his coffers from five million pockets
would soon pay his enormous war debt. If all the illiterates in this
country were taught to read and write, even did they average no more
than one letter each month, they would pay into the treasury annually,
at the present rate of postage, more than a million dollars.
The Surgeon General’s report on illiteracy in the American Army showed
that out of a million and a half registrants examined, one man out of
every four was unable to read and understand a newspaper or to write
a letter home. The exact percentage of illiteracy among these men, he
stated, was 24.9 percent and ran as high as 49.5 percent in men sent
from one of the states. This seems most startling in any light that it
may be viewed, but it appears all the more significant when compared
with illiteracy in the ranks of our allies--France having only three
illiterates out of every hundred in the army and England with only one
out of every hundred. Most of all does it stagger us to compare our
illiteracy figures with those of our recent enemy--only one out of
every five thousand in the German army was unable to read and write.
The bravery of illiterate soldiers who served in the late war is
unquestioned. In individual cases and single handed where they could
employ pioneer methods of warfare they, undoubtedly, did well but
when it was a case for concerted action, of obeying orders and of
co-operation with the troops, their lack of education told on them most
tragically.
One lieutenant said during the War, “I have three men in my company
who cannot count up to four.” In one of the training camps where
foreign-born soldiers were stationed, there were men who did not know
the right hand from the left. Consequently, they were drilled, with
a piece of rope in one hand a hammer in the other, to the command of
“squads rope” and “squads hammer” instead of “squads right” and “squads
left.” A woman who was teaching a man of draft age said, “I could teach
Ben just anything and it would be something he didn’t know. He didn’t
even know how many months there are in a year.”
This sort of ignorance in the army in even a small proportion of the
men would have constituted a weakness which, in a long drawn out
contest, would have told mightily in the final results. There were
1,023,000 soldiers in the American Army who were illiterate according
to the statistics branch of the general staff. This was an army within
an army. They must have hindered their comrades oftentimes, besides
being at a fearful disadvantage always themselves. The seriousness
of this situation could not be overestimated. Next to the actual
casualties, it was America’s supreme tragedy of the War.
Illiterates are nowhere at a greater disadvantage than at the ballot
box, where corrupt men often purchase their birthright for a mess of
pottage or cheat them out of it entirely. Henry Van Dyke says, “To
place the ballot in the hands of illiterate persons is like hanging
a diamond around the neck of a little child and sending it out into
the crowded street.” The ballot has not only been placed in the hands
of 2,273,603 illiterate male voters but since the enfranchisement of
women, the number of illiterate voters in America has been augmented
by, perhaps, two millions more. With over four million voters who
cannot read their ballots, is the body politic sound, healthy, or even
safe?
In a republic, society rests upon the intelligence of the people and
only in universal education is democracy safe and liberty securely
enthroned. A nation which has over four million illiterate voters
is not strongly fortified to uphold any principle, and society is
undermined and weakened at its very source. Since universal education
is so essential to the success of a democracy it is a wonder that a
provision was not written into the Constitution of the United States
similar to the one once proposed by Cortez for the constitution of
Spain, “That no person born after this day shall acquire the right of
citizenship until he can read and write.” Thomas Jefferson said of
this, “It is impossible to sufficiently estimate the wisdom of this
provision. Of all that have been thought of for securing fidelity in
the administration of government and progressive advancement of the
human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual.
Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppression of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Nearly a hundred years later President Grant in his recommendations
to Congress wrote as follows, “The compulsory support of free schools
and the disfranchisement of all who cannot read and write the English
language, after a fixed probation, would meet with my hearty approval.”
Had this recommendation been carried out and its execution accompanied
with the opportunity for every man and woman, as well as every child,
to learn to read and write, there would be no army of illiterate voters
in this country marching to the polls on election day.
Illiterates, even though blind to books and helpless to ameliorate
their own condition, are not without certain power to weaken, harass
and damage a nation. Pancho Villa, the illiterate Mexican outlaw,
disturbed the peace of two nations. During the period of unrest
following the War our Government faced a critical situation. While
we struggled with bomb plots on the east coast and with strife and
disturbance on the west, the danger from anarchist, Bolshevist and
anti-American sources was greater than the general public ever knew.
The poison spread by them could be neutralized among the educated
classes through government bulletins and newspapers and magazine
articles but was not so easily counteracted among the illiterate
masses. Here walking delegates found fertile soil for their pernicious
doctrines. Not only in time of war or in reconstruction but at all
times are the illiterate masses easily influenced and misled.
There is a poor blind Samson in this land,
Shorn of his strength and bound with bands of steel,
Who may, in some grim revel raise his hands
And shake the pillars of the Commonweal.
Would that it could be said of the United States as a certain citizen
of Copenhagen said of his country when touring America in 1919,
“Bolshevism would make no headway in Denmark, as there is not a person
in that country who cannot read or write his name, in fact write a
letter. Where there is education, there is little chance of Bolshevism
gaining a foothold.”
The majority of America’s illiterate millions, though born upon her
soil, are as ignorant of the principles and traditions of their own
country as they are of those of Italy or Spain. They have never
realized or claimed their heritage of citizenship, never felt the
thrill of intelligent patriotism that others have known. To teach them
would not only enrich them as citizens but in the words of the prophet
Isaiah would, “increase the nation and extend all the borders of the
land.”
Illiteracy is one of the great handicaps to religion. In its centers
churches and Sunday schools cannot thrive. The most literate county in
the State of Kentucky has numerous churches while the most illiterate
county has but one, and that is in the county seat. The number of
Sunday schools in Rowan County doubled after the illiteracy campaign.
Men need mental development to put them into intelligent relation with
their Creator, to give them an understanding of the Divine Being. “I
cannot give an illiterate man even an intelligent conception of God,”
said a woman who attempted to teach a Sunday school class of illiterate
men in prison.
If the Christian world could realize how illiterates yearn to read
the Bible, the followers of the Master would hasten with swift feet
to unlock its pages to them. Had it not been the will of our Heavenly
Father that all should be taught to read and write, He would not have
given His Word to the world in the form of a book.
A woman in Louisa, Kentucky, prayed for ten years for a Bible and the
power to read it. She was presented with one by her sons, but it was
in the days before the illiteracy crusade and they did not think of
teaching her to read it. She learned, however, by having a neighbor’s
children teach her the letters on box cars switched off on a railway
siding near her milk-gap. She lived to enjoy her Bible for ten years
after it had become to her an open book and she marked the passages
which comforted her most. These were read at her funeral where this
story of her triumph over illiteracy was publicly told.
Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood prayer was not for wealth or fame or the high
position of Chief Executive. It was,
God help mother, help father, help sister,
Help everybody. _Teach me to read and write._
Watch over Honey and make him a good dog;
And keep us all from getting lost in the wilderness. Amen.
How many illiterates are praying today, “Teach me to read and write?”
How many hunger and thirst after knowledge but know not how to secure
it? “_Give me knowledge or I shall die_, has been the prayer of
countless millions,” says David Swing, the great American divine.