Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1919-01-17
hITERACY SCORED BY
PRESIDENT COATES
Estern President Delivers Mastery
ADDRESS On Kentucky Conditions
AT Meeting of Educators


We kentucky something to think
out in a strong address he delivered
ednesday before the County Super
kendent's Department of the Ken
cky Educational Association in ses-
pn at Louisville.
That the American nation win GER
inly, at some time in the future,
elk definite information as to the
hool system vhich allowed 10 per
nt Of the fighting men who went 20
urupe to remain completely litter
Q. without any knowledge whatever
reading and writing and other
lndamental principles of education,
as a prophecy of Prof. Coates. This
kclaration was made at the outset of
Us address, when he said:
"An overwhelming feeling that ed
cation is a necessity for everybody.
! feeling that win arouse the people
b realization of the fundamental fact
hat one cannot have real democracy
Without education, is the great need
in kentucky. You cannot have true
Democracy when the balance of power
S held by people who are unable to
head or write.
"No nation in all the world ever
knade q supreme sacrifice for the sake
bf an ideal. but that it did not sub
kequently scrutinize carefully its own
Institutions in the light of that ideal.
"The United States has made the
supreme sacrifice for an ideal That
Ideal was to make the world safe for
democracy. For the ideal America
krdged the ocean and sent millions Of
krhting men to battle on a foreign
boil"
That it is to the interests Of the
teachers themselves in Kentucky
schools to see that they are at their
best, was 4 declaration Of DR.. Coates
The people of Kentucky. some day.
will turn about for q look at their sys-
TEN of education, and viii ask them
selves if what they have is the best
and If the system Of select
inC teachers and superintendents is
the best.
This. he said, is essentially true be-
cause the new problem now is to make
democracy safe for the world.
"Aristocracy," he declared. "has
been weighed and found wanting. II
was found unsafe for the world, after
trial. Now the safety of democracy
is at stake. No democracy can be
considered safe when a large mass of
the people are deep in ignorance Of
illiteracy. The time must and viii
come when states are freed of stat
ues which absolutely tie the hands
Of education"
Another declaratinon by President
Coates was that illiteracy is serious
menace to the nation, symptom Of
a great, dangerous disease Illiteracy,
he said, forms a fertile field for the
doctrines of Bolshevism and the other
doctrines which are a threat at ma
tional security.
Some figures as to the real extent
Of illiteracy in America were given
by President Coates when he declared
that 100000 men of draft age in this
county can neither read nor write.
"This means" he said, "that these
men could not understand an order
when it was written. At times this
meant life, and at times it might
mean a nation. II is fact that 200,-
OOO out of the first 100000 men sent
10 Europe could not read or write.
They were illiterates, but they Were
a democracy which sent
them on a crusade for that cause"
With regard to illiterate soldiers.
the speaker declared that recently in
Louisville he had seen fine, strappine
specimens Of young manhood who had
for enlistment in the ma
TONS service, but could not sign their
=
"Illiterates in the United States "
he said, number 5,516,163. OF these
4,6O0, 900 are men over 20 years of
age. OF that number $4,000 are
native born and 1,500, 900 are of for
eign birth. This means that the vast
number of 100000 men in this coun-
try cannot read the Declaration Of In
dependence, unless it is conveyed to
them through some foreign tongue.
With respect to the illiterate soldier,
he is not only at a disadvantage his
self, but is dangerous to others"
Gas leaders of education in our
state, it is our duty to look to its adj
vancement," declared DR.. Coates '1f
our institutions do not produce q dem
ocracy which win stand the test, an
other ideal will take its place in thf
FUTURE
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