Undergraduate Page
' THE ILLITERATE
By T. J. MASHITER (Emmanuel College, Cambridge)
MANY found their war-time experiences interesting and enjoyable. I was no exception ; but it was perhaps after the end of hostilities that my work was most interesting. On a grey vecember morning I left my war-time home to go as an instructor to some of the many recruits who had joined the Army so illiterate that they could not become efficient soldiers. They were to be taught to read and write in an intensive course of six or eight weeks. Some may say it was impossible. Perhaps it was ; the most we could hope to accomplish in the majority of cases was to brush up what had been forgotten since school days. It is not always realised that it is possible to forget how to read and write if these capacities are not constantly exercised. Many had found no need to exercise them.
Who, then, composed this large body of illiterates ? They were of many kinds. Some were intelligent, many very dull. Some were interesting, most quite ordinary. A few had personalities as colour- ful as their varied careers had been. They were of two main groups —the "constitutional" illiterate who is incapable of being taught, and the " accidental " illiterate hampered by lack of schooling, illness or some other chance difficulty. Of the constitutional illiterates, some had suffered head injuries in infancy ; a few were born morons ; nthers, from causes as yet undetermined by the psychologist, were Incapable of achieving the elementary attainments of reading and writing. Yet many of the latter group were not devoid of other capacities. One lad with whom I had vainly struggled for many hours came to say goodbye at the end of his course. He asked me to call on him if I was ever near his home. Proudly he gave me his printed card. He was styled an engineer. It appeared that Brown was quite a genius with the internal combustion engine. His " mate " managed the accounts, and the business partners had prospered.
The "accidental" illiterates constituted the majority. Many had left school at fourteen with a reading-age of a child of five or six Others had suffered from defects of sight, hearing and speech which had interfered with their normal progress at school. Quite a few had spent long periods in hospital. Very many just had not got on at school and had been left sitting at the back of the class doing nothing, making the fire or gardening. They had been sacrificed to the rest of the class. Yet since classes often number between forty and fifty it was perhaps natural and inevitable that they were sacri- ficed; it would be unfair to take the easy course and blame the teacher. Not a few had missed school because of the distance at which they lived. Inclement weather was often the reason ; perhaps more often it was a convenient excuse. Some had never been to school ; the sons of gipsies and bargees figured largely in this group. Some of these were undoubtedly lads of intelligence, who with a normal education might have done quite well. They had enjoyed that happy-go-lucky life which made their military life seem so restricted. Lads of resource, they often found an outlet for their bold spirits in a poaching escapade in the near-by countryside, thus earning a few shillings from the sale of rabbits to those going home for the week-end.
By far the largest group were those who had left school early. From early years they had played truant, and many from densely populated city areas had welcomed the war which, with schools evacuated, had given them permanent relief from scholastic pursuits. They had found jobs which were often quite lucrative. They con- fessed that their fabulous earnings had often been dissipated at a rate equal only to the speed of the dogs in which they have been invested. This group was the most colourful section of the com- munity and certainly the most difficult. By reason of their early and prosperous independence they felt they owed nothing to educa- tion, nor education to them. Many had been in trouble, and were proud of the escapades which had led them to Borstal. They invariably felt that, having managed well enough without reading and writing, they had no need of it. The advantages of being able to read the sign "Gentlemen" were being pointed out to a youngster. He said that he had managed well enough without it ; he just looked for two groups going their respective ways and then followed his group. Some individuals were able to understand without being able to read. One lad said he could not read a word. One or two words thought to be familiar to him were flashed before him. The words "Police Station" evoked the response "Copper 'ole," together with the remark that when he saw the sign he kept away from it.
It is not part of the present purpose to assess any results achieved by the Army's efforts to remedy defects. There were many diffi- culties, and not least the fact that many illiterates realised that if they "acted dumb" long enough they would get their discharge. The fewer cases of " constitutional " illiterates merit sympathy and specialist treatment of a high order. One such case may well be cited. A young man, having sustained severe head injuries in an accident in infancy, was incapable of remembering the simplest of words or even letters. After one had struggled with him for a week, he might be able to read a few three-lettered words. After the week-end break he could not remember anything of what he had previously just begun to master. A year after his first course he returned for a second. The results were no better. The psychologist and psychiatrist could offer no help. This was one of the tragic cases where the desire to learn was very keen.
The majority of " accidental " cases, however, were deserving of much less sympathy. Too often illiteracy was associated with delinquency. The problem is very difficult to tackle. Any solution would seem to lie with the two agencies—home and school. The home of the potential illiterate spiv will probably do very little for him ; his parents are often quite like himself. Many of our students had already created living social problems of the future. What hope could they, devoid of any parental responsibility, offer their children ? The problem of the illiterate who may be the menace of society tomorrow is aggravated by the fact that the seriousness of the problem is seldom apparent in schools where perhaps there are only one or two such cases in every class of forty or fifty. There is little time to give them much special attention, since they form such a small proportion of the whole, and since their attendance may be irregular and their attention, when at school, most difficult to rouse. But as the future and expensive failures of our national life, they constitute a problem of considerable gravity. The task of the teacher, the welfare worker, the probation officer and others is indeed formidable in such cases, the more so because the influence, for good they may have can be so quickly eradicated by the many pernicious influences to which so many are exposed.
It is now some two years since I left this interesting work. Often I pause and wonder about the quality of the present lives of so many of those who were then my companions. Many, despite the deficiencies which had caused their illiterate state, will be going along happily and respectably. Many others, I fear, will be living the sort of existence for which there can be little sympathy or tolerance. Yet even in these case; it is perhaps possible to understand how their lives came to be so grimly fashioned.
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