is a little army of these men and women of whom the world seldom hears. They are the enterprising students who, after graduating from college or a technical institute, continue to study out what is not yet found in any textbook. Their life is a school. It is they who make it possible for a nation to take a step forward once or twice in a century. They are the thinkers-out for the rest of the people. The first step in the

Wide World Photos

preparation for their difficult work was taken when they were in the grammar school, where, by means of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, they learned how to study a problem through unaided. No country ever has enough of these searchers and thinkers-out. There are more mislaid facts of history than there are searchers. There are more

It is the world's patient research workers that problems waiting to be

make schools possible

solved than there are problem workers.

With the town, state,

31. Illiteracy in a Nation of Schools. and nation standing back of the public school, and with the aid of so great a number of organizations and private individuals, America seems as much the home of the schoolhouse as it is the home of the job. But unfortunately there is another side to the picture. The Americans who read the following incident, related by an American traveler in Africa, probably smiled and were thankful that they lived in a country of free schoolhouses and free public libraries, where no one was so strangely ignorant as this African mother:

"They say we live in Africa," said Mejo.
"Who says so?" asked his mother.
"The teacher says so," said Mejo.

"Well, I don't believe it. I, who have lived in this
forest always, did I ever hear that we lived in Africa?
What the old and the wise of the tribe never knew,
how can the white man know it, who is a stranger of
yesterday?"

Yet there are many persons in the United States today who do not know the name of the nation in which they live nor of the state in which they pay taxes. In a large New England city, on the opening night of the evening-school session, a girl sixteen years old could not tell either the name of the state in which she lived or the name of the country from which she had come. When asked what the United States was she shook her head in embarrassment, although she had been a worker in one of our mills for several years.

In every part of the United States there are illiterate men, women, and children. In a recent year the number of such persons was equal to the total population of Greece and only a little less than that of Belgium. During the World War one of the officers at Camp Lee was at his desk one morning when the private who had been detailed as his orderly came in, saluted, and waited for instructions. The officer returned the salute, saying, "You'll find your instructions on that board." But the young man waited uneasily, growing red and embarrassed. "I can't read, sir," he stammered. The officer was silent with amazement, for the young man before him was six feet, alert, and clear-eyed. The next day, on investigation, he found that scores of young men in the camp could neither read nor write. The same condition was being discovered in the other military camps. General Pershing later reported that 30 per cent of the men examined for the army in 1917-1918 were illiterate. In this 30 per cent were men from every state.

32. The Reason for Illiteracy. A nation of illiterates within a nation of free schoolhouses and free libraries! How came il

literacy and ignorance to be hiding in even the most isolated corner of the nation? How has it come to pass that there are still not enough schools to reach all the people? How was it that in one of our largest cities a teacher could report to an investigating committee that "classes were being taught on the stairs, that children in overcoats had to use the front steps as a study room, and that there were seven hundred more children in the school than could be taken care of"? Schools cost money; but we are the richest nation on earth and have money enough to give every child born in the country or admitted into it from foreign countries a common-school education, a high-school education, and even four years in a college. We have the money, and we believe that the strength of the nation lies in the school; then how can any person go schoolless?

There are several reasons for illiteracy in the United States :

1. Although the state law may require communities to provide schools, not all laws provide a penalty for failure to do this. Therefore, if the people of any community are un-American enough not to fulfill the law, the state is helpless.

2. Some families may be too far away to reach the schools easily. The family that lives on a mountain side often cannot afford the use of a horse to drive the children to school every day. In some sections, during certain months, roads are so poor that they are impassable for any kind of wagon or automobile. Until all states mend their roads and have an adequate "school transportation" law, some families will not send their children to school.

3. Even in communities where there are enough schoolhouses conveniently located to reach all the families, and where there are enough truant officers to enforce the law, these officers do.not always do their full duty. One negligent truant officer may mean many illiterate citizens ten years later.

4. Strange to say, even if there are no negligent truant officers, there are fathers and mothers who will deceive such officers in order to keep their children in factories or stores. Often the most diligent truant officer is helpless in the face of their deceit.

5. Even if a town sees to it that every boy and girl under sixteen years of age goes to school as the law requires, illiteracy may exist because of the men and women who for some reason did not go to school

in their earlier years. Perhaps the state in which they lived when young did not have a compulsory school-attendance law or perhaps they were born in foreign countries where there were few schools and no truant officers. A few states, but not many, require illiterate adults to attend special evening-school classes. No state has yet worked out a plan which reaches every illiterate mother and every illiterate father. This is one

of the problems that may have to wait for the young people now in school to solve when they are voters and lawmakers.

6. Most people dread a high tax rate. The more schools, the higher their taxes. This feeling about a high tax rate is often due to selfishness, but often to an ignorance as dangerous as that which the schools try to overcome. Men who have had no experience with illiteracy do not know enough to fear it.

7. The final and key reason for illiteracy is that many people still feel that it is only the business of town and city officers, school boards, and school-teachers to see that everybody reaps the benefit of the schools. This is as harmful as the pocketbook attitude. The officers whom we

elect to do certain things often do these only as well as we demand. A school board may shirk for one year, but if it shirks for a second year it is the fault of the voters. It is the business of every person to know whether any child or adult of his town is deprived of school privileges. When he knows the facts, then he must start the ball rolling that will finally remedy what is wrong. If the United States were not a democracy, then there would be some excuse for a person to say that it was "none of his business." That can never be true in this country.

33. How Illiteracy can be Wiped Out. Already there are many agencies working diligently to wipe out illiteracy. The most important of these are

I. National and state child-labor associations. These investigate homes and industries to find out whether children ought to be in school or at work. They report cases to the school authorities and publish their findings so that all the people may know what is taking place.

2. Factory owners who have voluntarily started classes in their factories and allow employees to attend a certain number of hours a week without loss of pay.

3. Americanization organizations that open special classes for foreigners when towns and cities have none.

4. Newspapers which publish the facts about child labor and the dangers of illiteracy.

Each person can help in some one or all of these ways:

1. Joining the national or a state child-labor association.

2. Getting accurate information about illiteracy in his state and community and telling others about this.

3. Sending carefully compiled information to the local paper.

4. Joining some local organization, or forming one, that will study conditions in the community and start doing" something.

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES

1. Read the chapter as a whole, then make a simple outline to keep in mind while studying it by sections.

2. Read Art. I, Sect. 8, paragraph 1, of the Federal Constitution to find the statement which gives Congress authority to make laws affecting the public schools. Read your state constitution to learn exactly what is provided there, then find out what are the most important school laws passed by your state legislature.