India's Literacy Lady

"If I do say so myself," Welthy Honsinger Fisher once wrote, "I am a fair organizer and a bit of a hustler." And so at the age of 72, she went to work training Indians to teach their illiterate countrymen to read and write Hindi. That was 13 years ago. Now 85, "Lady Literacy," as she is known in the Indian press, is still a bit of a hustler, and the Literacy Village near Lucknow is training 450 teachers a year.

Welthy* Fisher first went to Asia 60 years ago. The daughter of a Rome, N.Y., Methodist businessman, she took a job as headmistress of a missionary school for girls in Nanchang, China. When she was 43, she married the Methodist Bishop of India and Burma, Frederick Fisher, and through him came to know Mohandas Gandhi. She first met the Mahatma in 1926, sat with him for five hours while he meditated. Years after she was widowed and just before his own death, Gandhi urged her to go to work in India's villages.

Lanterns & Bicycles. As the author of eight straightforward books, Mrs. Fisher is impressed by plain talk. She hit upon the scheme of teaching unlettered peasants to read and write a basic Hindi vocabulary, which she compiled by comparing lists of words most commonly used in the marketplace and household. At its opening in 1953, Literacy Village was one-half a bungalow in Allahabad, a few workers, and a few booklets within the vocabulary range. Today, it is a compound of 20 brick buildings on a country road outside Lucknow, with a courtyard, an ashram for prayer, and a well-worked-out philosophy.

At any one time there may be 100 students, most of them already educated Indians, taking such courses as "Literacy--Its Concepts and Purposes" and "Working with Adults." Some stay two months, others take a 15-day quickie course, many learn agricultural and medical techniques in the bargain; afterward, they are either assigned to a village or teach in their home communities.

Puppets & Bells. The Fisher-trained teacher going into a village does not make a sales pitch but lets puppets do his talking. The school has a puppetry department, and the performances never fail to draw crowds of willing listeners. Then the teacher is ready to begin. Paid between $4 and $13 a month depending on his duties, he usually works by day under a porch awning or in the evening by lantern light. He teaches by phonetic method, drawing the flowery Hindi characters on a blackboard and showing how they are combined into words. When the course is over, Mrs. Fisher's library workers will pedal into town on bicycles, ringing bells and advertising books for lending.

This technique has earned Literacy Village a $100,000 U.S. Government grant, half of which will go toward new literacy programs in other Indian languages. That's how Welthy Fisher wants it. Spry and quick-witted, she carries a walking stick she doesn't need, is planning to train agricultural workers on new acreage she has acquired near Literacy Village, and divides her time between leading her staff in Lucknow and raising funds in the U.S.

*A spelling switch on Wealthy, given in the Puritan tradition of naming girls for virtues (Faith, Content, Honor).

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