Collegiate Schoolhouse

Hiwassee College, near Madisonville, Tenn. (pop. 1,480) runs a special class for U.S. veterans of World War II. Each one is at least ten years behind in his education. But last week their teachers reported that they were breezing through courses more than twice as fast as the average students in their grade. It was a record of which college and students could both be proud. Until they came to Hiwassee, some of the men were completely illiterate, none had gone past the fifth grade.

The little rural college has its share of regular G.I. students, but last February, Vice President George Cash decided there were too many veterans in the foothills of the Great Smokies who were unable to take advantage of the G.I. bill. Unfamiliar with the three Rs, most of them thought it too late to learn. A few had tackled trade schools, with no success. After getting the approval of the Veterans Administration, Hiwassee organized some elementary courses, and Cash put an announcement in the Madisonville Democrat. The prospective students had little contact with newspapers, but the backwoods grapevine passed the word. By the middle of this month, 21 pupils enrolled.

Now, four evenings a week, when the day's chores are done, they take off over the ridges to school. From Red Knob, five miles away, from Short Bark community, from Tellico Plains, where wild boar hunts are still held in the fall, they hike to the sloping green campus. In a classroom of the main college building, they sit in small groups, divided according to background and ability. Mrs. Frances Cope Murrell, the patient, even-tempered woman who does most of the teaching, moves from one group to another, coaching them through the rigors of long division, watching over their shoulders as words are scrawled on blue-lined practice paper. Their progress, she says, is amazing. "They sort of blot it up, as fast as you throw it at them."

As soon as they are ready, the new pupils get all the elementary school subjects: reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and spelling. Most of them do best in arithmetic. In geography, the usual teaching procedure is reversed. Mrs. Murrell works back toward home, beginning with the foreign place names already familiar to her far-traveled G.I.s.

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