THE ILLITERATE LEGION

Evening Star, Issue 17314, 30 March 1920, Page 1

THE ILLITERATE LEGION

ONE-TENTH AMERICAN ARMY. COULDN’T READ OR WRITE. For 50 years (writes Dr Newell Dwight Hillis in ‘M'Clnre’s Magazine’) we have boasted that our free schools have made scholars of ajj our citizens. Then suddenly war pricked the bubble, destroyed the illusion, and peeled our people of these lies. It was a matter of national chagrin ho have (England and France realise that of our 2,000,000 young soldiers who landed’ in France 200,000’ could neither read nor write. In August of 1918 I watched over 3,000 American soldiers pass from the steamer to the dock in Liverpool. These young Americans lined up preparatory to the long march to a rest camp in the suburbs. At that moment a group of Y.M.C.A. men hurried along the column, distributing postal cards, and shouting ; “ Better write a note borne telling the folks you have landed in safety.” At that moment a young officer said to me; ‘‘Even,' tenth man hero cannot read or write. Let- me show you hew I pick out the illiterates.” Standing,before a squad of 20 soldiers, he said : " Now, boys, you only have a few minutes. Those of you w’ho write slowly and with difficulty step over here and I will assist yon.” .Ashamed and unwilling to have the truth known, about one man in 10 loft the ranks, and while one bov said : “ I have hurt my hand,” another said ; ” I have been seasick,” and all, deeply humiliated, told one white lie after another to explain the inability to send home even a postal card. This percentage of illiterates in the army means that to have 10.000.000 American men who can neither read nor write: but. as a matter of fact, including the ftolored and red races and those of foreign birth, our. National Superintendent of Public Education believes that we have 20,000,000 illiterates.