ILLITERATE LEGION.

Colonist, Volume LXII, Issue 15345, 8 April 1920, Page 2

ILLITERATE LEGION.

For 50 years (writes Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis in "MoClure's Magazine") we have boasted that our free schools have made scholars of all 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 to 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 3000 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 V.M.C.A. men hurried along the column, distributing postal cards, and "shouting: "Better write a note home telling the folks you have landed in safety."" ■ At' that moment a young officer said to me: "Every tenth man here cannot read or -write. Let me show you how 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 who write slowly and with difficulty step over here and I will assist you." Ashamed and unwilling to have the truth known, about one man in ten left the ranks, and while one boy 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 wo have 10,000,000 American men who can neither read nor write ; but, as a- matter of fact, including the coloured and red races and those of. foreign birth, cur National Superintendent of Public Education believes that we have 20,000,000 .illiterates.