ILLITERATE WORKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 19

ILLITERATE WORKERS.

THREE R'S DURING STRIKE. A strike which did a lot of good nud might have done a great deal more good It It had only laste* longer, has just come to an end in England. This strike was of the men who operate tbe bl? barjee canals In the north. While the strike was in progress the transiwrt and general workers union discovered that many of the bargemen, twenty, or thirty, or forty years old, could neither read nor write. Accordingly, the union approached the Birmingham education committee aim aske* it to arrange classes. This the authorities did, and for the first time iv their lives Ihe men went to school, the union paying their tuition. It was found the men were very much iv earnest, and although some of them handled their pens and pencils n s though t'uey were boathooks, at the end of three weeKs a few ot t'uem were advanced far enough to read simple words. Leurning figures prove* an interesting task, one man beeoralug particularly excited when the number of his barge was written ou the blackboard.