40,000 v. 2,000,000

"I am 59 years old and never was in school but two weeks of my life until this present time. I feel this has been a godsend blessing, not only to me but to many others who have not been so lucky as not to even know how to write their name."

Grateful Mrs. Emma Taney of Culleoka, Tenn. was one of 4,000,000 people upon whose schooling the education division of Federal Emergency Relief Administration spent $30,000,000 last year. Last week FERA was making ready to launch another year of relief education, at $2,500,000 a month beginning in September. To direct the program FERA borrowed from the U. S. Office of Education its service division chief, Lewis Raymond Alderman, a tall, baldish pedagog who has been State school superintendent in Oregon, city superintendent in Portland and organizer of an educational system for the U. S. Navy. Last week Director Alderman announced a five-point plan involving: literacy classes, vocational training, vocational rehabilitation, general adult education, nursery schools. Employment will be given to 40,000 jobless school teachers; education to 2,000,000 persons (mostly adult unemployed). In addition FERA will help 100,000 students through college with work-relief at $20 per month or less. In accordance with U. S. policy no relief funds may be used for local school budgets.

The 1930 census of the U. S. turned up 4,283,753 persons 10 years of age or over unable to read or write any language. Average illiteracy of the nation is 4.3% as compared with 6% in 1920. But experts in the Office of Education believe there are three or four times four million people in the U. S. who are in the illiterate class although they may read or write a little. The job of the 40,000 FERA teachers will be to form classes, lure illiterates into them with the help of local agencies and volunteer searching parties. They will find the search arduous in Iowa, where the illiteracy rate (.8%) is the nation's lowest, easy in South Carolina (14.9%), Louisiana (13.5%), New Mexico (13.3%).

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