The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-03
ILLITERACY IN STATE CAN BE REMOVED BY
 DETERMINED EFFORT
(Continued from Page onc)

DETERMINED EFFORT (COntfnued from Page Onc)
 bama is her native white population | As already indicated, if we are con 1 tent to wait until our country is thick | ly populated and our cities with thei. l better educational opportunities have multiplied our problem will gradually | solve itself; but if those of us who | live in rural districts believe that our l children as we'll as our great grand | children deserve as good a chance as l their city cousins and deserve it now, | we will not be content to go on aiding | and abetting our municipalities in lur | ing away our boys and girls from theis | country homes because of our mar | row nindedness and false ideas of
 economy in the provision of school fla 1 ci1itles.
 Must Look to Education
 | For the ultimate removal of iliteracy ! in Alabama as for the solution of our l problems in general. we must of necessity 1 look to public education. Anything that promotes the efficiency of the school | makes for literacy; anything which weak
 ems the efficiency of the school makes for illiteracy. Instead of the current con- ception of the rural school, which looks upon 1t as "a little house on a little ground with little equipment, where a
 little teacher at a little salary for q lit
 tie while teaches little children little
 things" we must get the saner view
 which will teach us to regard it the consolidated school with suitable facili- ties for the transportation of pupils, with
 @ suitable building on suitable ground.
 with suitable equipment where suitable teachers at suitable salaries for a suit able time train future citizens for eff cient citizenship.
 "AlonS with this new conception we must have more money and better ma chinery for raising it. This our legis- lature has made possible, if the taxpayers of Alabama. inspired by the vision and
 the need, shall have the patriotism and hberality to adopt the amendment author izing local taxation by counties and by districts. More money will make possible better school buildings, better equipment | better teachers and longer terms. But our legislature will not have discharged 1 it's duty to education unless it shall go
 much further than this and provide such machinery as will guarantee their fullest efficiency, for experience has every where shown that more money, better teachers l better school plants, and longer terms must be attended by better administra- | tion and supervision. if a dollar in edu. cation is to go as far as dollar in busi. ! utSS. lllS IS lnt SIcdl OptI uOOT Ol opportunity for the summer session of cur legislature; and not until such pro- pulsory education or the enforcement o1 pulsory education rthe enforcement oi any other demand looking toward the re. ouirement of respectable degree of lit
 eracy on the part of our citizenship.
 To Appoint Commission
 Tt goes without saying that the Ala. | bama llliteracy commission so recent, appointed by Governor Henderson ant composed of the ablest men and women will assist in the creation of sentiment | favorable to all worthy educational meas ures and to the agencies through whicf | they are to become operative and effec-
 tive. But the great burden upon the | shoulders of the commission will be pri. | marily that of inaugurating and directing
 a campaign for wiping out our adult | illiteracy.
 l "The magnitude of the task confronting l the commission will appear from the fact 1 that there are 64l,16s persons in our state
 from the ages of 10 to 20, inclusive, 96,406 | or b per cent, of whom are illiterate while for the ages from 21 and over VIC | have 1,0lo,O70 persons of whom 266,273 oi l 26 per cent, can neither read nor write | If we sort out our white men and wom.
 en we will find 31 ,661 males of voting ags 1 in Alabama, and even larger number o1 | l life's struggle,. either number approxi.
 mating the combined adult white males ot | our three largest eities-Birmngham, Mo | bile and Montgomery.
 1 Nor is thero any room for a quarre
 between the city and the country. In oul | only city with a population exceeding 100 | % our native white illiteracy is greater than in any other city in it's class in the | country, except Atlanta, Louisville, Rich. mnnd and Nashville. There are in Bir. l mingham Mobile and Montgomery, re-
 spectively. 1S6. S9 and 33 native white meI of voting age who have to have assistance | in casting their ballots. In our fou 1 cities of the second class with popula
 tions exceeding LOGO inhabitants there
 are 701 native white persons 10 years of age and over who cannot read ant write There are in our 21 cities of tho | third class, with populations from 2500 tt 1 10,000 approximately 220 native whites 1' | years of age and over who can neither l read nor write. a number exceeding tho
 attendance here tonight. The lowest rat, | of illiteracy among our native whites il | found in Montgomery county, but ever
 there we find 122 males of voting age wht
 cannot independently transact any busi
 ness requiring the ability to read anC | write.
 Can't Shift Burden
 Wherever we may choose to place tn, I plorable and lamentable as 1t may be | and however we may attempt to shift tn I burden of the blame it is a serious refiec | rion upon every man and woman within our borders and discredit to our state. l "Laboring under such convictions, tn county superintendents, cooperating witt | the state superintendent, attempte, through the biennial census last summe | to ascertain the name and address o
 every person in the state from 10 to ? years of age inclusive So well was tn work done that we were able after it completion to give the name aud addres of every illterate person of school az in any district in any county, and earl. in the fall the names of these partie :, were turned over to the teachers of tn nearest schools. We shall not know un til tho end of the present scholastic yea just what results have came from tn efforts to reach these unfortunate ones l. d