Education is a great cause and needs the millions of illiterates as its converts and its friends. Even if they did not need the book and pen, or would not use the power to read and write, after it had been conferred upon them, but became friends and advocates of the school instead of remaining indifferent or antagonistic, as some of them undoubtedly are, this alone would justify their being taught.
Uncle Martin Sloan walked sixteen miles to have a talk with me after he had learned to read and write. He said, “My learning may never do me much good. My hands are stiff and I can’t write much; my eyes are bad and I can’t see to read a great deal, but I see now what I’ve missed in life, and I want to tell you what I’m going to do—I’m going ’round to every home in my district just before school begins each year, as long as I live, and urge the parents to send their children to school.” A friend of education! Oh, that every one of the five million illiterates in America might become as this old man and others redeemed from illiteracy, who will not tolerate the crime of keeping children out of school!
Some used to say that laboring men worked better and were more contented, if illiterate. There never was a greater fallacy. Illiteracy never plowed a furrow straighter nor produced an extra bushel to the acre. It never turned out a better product from factory, field or mine. It handicaps the laborer, making his task more difficult, his position less secure and his life less safe. Not only is he handicapped in carrying out the instructions of his employer, but, also, in the safe and skillful handling of machinery and tools. Illiterate and coarse workmen cannot be trusted with the delicate tools and, as a rule, are given the clumsy sort that will endure the rough handling without breakage. This hampers them, at the outset, burdening them as with ball and chain and giving the educated laborer every advantage. In a Southern city illiterate and educated laborers worked side by side cleaning the streets. The illiterate laborers used clumsy hoes with rough, heavy handles, weighing twelve pounds, and the educated workmen used light and graceful ones weighing but two. Each laborer pulled twenty pounds on the average, at each stroke. The illiterate laborers pulled twelve pounds of hoe and eight pounds of mud while their educated companions pulled two pounds of hoe and eighteen pounds of mud. The result was more than twice as great when guided by intelligence as when guided by physical power alone.
Man’s daily bread is, in a measure, dependent upon his ability to read and write, which not only increases but creates earning power. Many a man has started out searching for work and found himself barred from one position after another because he could not read or write. Prior to the World War illiterate men were losing their jobs and being replaced by the educated, a tendency which is constantly on the increase.
Uncle Jeff, an illiterate darky of the old-time Southern type, had been drayman for years for a large manufacturing company and had come to consider himself a fixture when an order of the Illinois Central Railway company struck him like a thunderbolt. It was to the effect that no freight should be delivered to anyone who could not read and sign the freight receipts. The company felt obliged, of course, to part with Uncle Jeff. “Aunt Sally,” his wife, blamed this calamity on the schools and rushed to the nearest member of the school board to protest against the outrage, “Hit’s jist a gittin’ so a man cain’t do nothin’ ’thout he kin read and write,” she wailed. “Ef hit keeps on hit’ll soon be so a man cain’t even plow his cawn ’thout he kin read what’s printed on the plow beam.” The poor old colored woman spoke more truth, in her resentment than she knew. It is becoming next to impossible in this complex and highly specialized age for a man to hold any sort of position unless he can read and write.
The lives of laboring men are endangered by illiteracy. The “Safety First” movement is designed to instruct the people in care and watchfulness on every hand to prevent the destruction of life and property, but the first precaution of safety for the millions of illiterates is to teach them to read and write. All the danger signs put up before them might as well be held before the eyes of the blind, and yet the legal responsibility of employers in some states ceases with the posting of such signs. How much the removal of illiteracy contributes to the safety of the laboring man is indicated by this report from Henry Ford’s plant where educational work is carried on, “Accidents in this plant have decreased fifty-four percent since employees have been able to read factory notices and other instructions.”
Commerce is stifled by illiteracy to a degree little suspected by the average business man. The illiterates, being unable to sign their checks, usually hold their money out of the bank; being unable to read newspapers and magazines, they seldom put their names on subscription lists; realizing that their predicament is made more awkward by travel, they remain off of trains, as a rule, and the railroads lose the passenger receipts. Having no appreciation of luxuries and their earnings being too limited to buy, they restrict trade, in illiterate communities, to the coarsest commodities.
In a county where one-third of the population was illiterate according to the census of 1910 the assessor’s list showed less than $1,000 invested in household furniture, less than $500 in agricultural implements, although it was an agricultural county, less than $43 in watches and clocks, not a dollar in gold, silver or plated ware or jewelry, and only one diamond ring in the whole county and it was the property of a bride who had moved in. Lace curtains, china, rugs, and paintings had no market here, and chiffon, georgette and other delicate fabrics of feminine wear were things unknown. If there were but one such county in the United States it might not be a matter of concern to the tradesman, but with many such in existence and some with even forty and fifty and sixty percent who cannot read or write, illiteracy is something for the enterprising business man to consider when he is figuring profit and loss.
While waiting in a railway station in Mississippi in June, 1917, I noticed that every available foot of space was plastered with advertising asserting the superiority of certain products. Familiar brands of grape juice, soda, baking powder, flour, soap and cleansers were emblazoned there in all the well-known effectiveness of the American advertiser. Thirty to forty percent of the population of the six surrounding counties could not read, so thirty to forty cents of every dollar spent in advertising was wasted here.
The State collects no revenue save poll tax from ninety percent of its illiterate citizens. Uncle Sam has overlooked an important source of revenue which if streaming into his coffers from five million pockets would soon pay his enormous war debt. If all the illiterates in this country were taught to read and write, even did they average no more than one letter each month, they would pay into the treasury annually, at the present rate of postage, more than a million dollars.