The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-02-16
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau.
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, d. c.
UNEDUCATED AMERICA.

United States of America is one OF the
hardest places in the civilized world in
which to get a good education, in the
opinion of a committee of the house
Il which has been investigating the Ques-
ton.
| A fourth of the men of fighting age
in the United States are illiterates.
lmany children never get adequate
ischooling, most of the teachers are in
competent. There are millions of i'm
migrants in the country who can
neither speak nor read English and
side of a schoolroom. Thousands of
schools are closed because no teachers
can be obtained for the miserable SAL
aries offered.
This disturbing picture of education
in America is contained in the report
| of the house committee on education
on the Towner bill, and abundant proof
of its truth is contained in the hearings
which were held in connection with the
| bill.
The report is surely one of the most
startling indictments of our civilization
which has ever issued from Capitol
Hill. The representatives and sena-
tors are always Investigating something
and reporting about it, but usually
their findings are not too critical or
pessmistic. Like all good Americans,
they have generally proceeded on the
assumption that, whatever little short
comings it might have, this nation is
nevertheless the finest and most en-
lightened on the face of the earth.
But since the war new spirit seems
| to be abroad in the country. FIRE.
| quently you encounter Americans who
seem to think that the American born
| has been blown long enough. They
[ seem to think that boasting is no
longer in order They are inclined
rather to make a critical estimate of
| the country, to take account of its
faults and to find those faults griev-
Gus. A number of books have been
written since the war which practical
| ly reverse the traditional attitude of
the American toward his country. In
stead of calling it the greatest on
| earth, these writer's point out that it
i is tagging behind all other civilizations
in many of the activities which make
lcivilization-in literature, in art, in
| education, in respect for individual
rights, in the intelligent enjoyment of
| life.
The Tail End of Civilization.
| Now this critical spirit seems to
| have gottens into the congressman, or
! at least into the committee on educa-
ton.
These statistics put US in the ninth
place among the nations" it says, in
regard to our status in education,
with most of the civilized world
| ahead of U.s."
| Nor do the congressman blink the
significance of the facts which they
| unearth. They recognize that a de-
mocracy is an absurdity unless the
voters are intelligent enough to know
what they are voting about What
| then, of a democracy in which a large
fraction of the population is illiterate
| and a. still larger one densely ignor-
ant?
In a free country its safety is jeop-
| ardized." the report modestly admits
when its voters cannot read the bal
lots they cast and only know how to
vote as they are told"
Here briefly are some of the facts
which brought the congressman to this
| frame of mind:
| According to the census of 1910
there We're in this country 100000
| persons 10 years of age or older who
| could not read or write, and the COM
| mittee does not believe that conditions
| have improved since then. In addition
| to these there were 100000 persons
who could not read or write English,
making a total of 100000 in the land
| of the free who were no more uualf-
| fled to exercise the right of the fran
| chlse than SO many Australian bush
| men, Inc surgeon generals report
showed that of the men called to serv-
J i've between the ages of 81 and 81
nearly rs per cent were practically
| 1lliterate. This means that a fourth
| of the young manhood of the country
which is its main reliance in peace and
IN war, is to all intents and purposes in
| a state of barbarism. Former Secre-
tary of the Interior Lane estimates that
the annual cost of illiteracy to the
| United States is 1926, 100000. The di-
| rector of the bureau of mines states
that if all of the miners could read
and speak English a thousand lives a
year would be saved.
1 nliteracy Nationwide.
The committee emphatically refutes
the idea that illiteracy is confined to
/ the south, and to out-of-the-way sec
tons. 1t shows that while Georgia
has $4,000 illiterates. New York has
100000. and that Pennsylvania has
more of them than Alabama Neither
| does the idea hold good that the il
literates are chiefly negroes. There
are a million more white ilIiterates
than colored.
OF the 100000 foreign-born in
the United States, the committee says
| that 100000 cannot read or write
read or write any language.
/ The committee says that getting an
education in the United States is large
~ matter of luck, that the oppor-
IIunlty is not equal.
In the south large proportion of
the negro children never see the inside
of sehoolhouse," it asserts. in the
north there is hardly a city that has
adequate school facilities for all its
| children"
The committee finds that in physical
Education our schools have failed even
worse than in mental education.
The provost marshal generals re-
port revealed the startling fact that
more than one-third of the men ex-
amined for military service in the late
war were disqualified by reason of
physical disability it reports 'It
also stated that 90 per cent of these
young men could have qualified had
they been taught the simplest rules of
hygiene and health. 1t was ignorance,
gross ignorance, that in the vast ma
jority of cases was the cause of their
Incompetence"