Rs for the R-less

The Army had more than 300,000 illiterates: in G.I. slang, they were called "jugheads." But they did not stay jug-heads long. The Army boasted that it could teach illiterate draftees to read and write in eight weeks.

The Army's way was a mixture of up-to-date gadgets (films, cards with words illustrated, teaching whole words instead of letters) with methods familiar to the little red schoolhouse. The Army had its pupils available whenever it wanted them (usually for 24 hours a week); and G.I.s had a compelling reason for trying to learn: they wanted to be able to write home.

Last week, at experimental centers in Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, D.C., 30 literacy classes along Army lines began for 500 of the 3,000,000 Negroes who comprise nearly one third of U.S. adult illiterates. The 500 are a "pilot group"; the U.S. Office of Education hopes to wipe out all adult illiteracy. Just as the Army primers had talked about jeeps and girls rather than cats and mice, the textbooks for the Negroes were tailored to fit the special interests of a community, e.g., cottonfields. The Army found that exercises like "see the dog run" only bored adults.

Dr. Ambrose Caliver, the U.S. Office of Education's Negro director of the project, does not expect as quick results as the Army got. His illiterates will be available for only four to six hours' instruction a week; many lack the incentive to learn that the G.I.s had. Dr. Caliver thinks a stimulus can be found. Says he: "Great advertisers have made people think they want a lot of stuff they don't want or need. We can do it with learning. Learning can be made popular if people are made to know that learning can help them get the things they want."

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