Our Growing Illiteracy

Across these United States there is heard the wail that the rising generation isn’t learning to read even tolerably well. Everywhere, or nearly everywhere, the standardized tests justify this complaint. Books about this affliction appear almost monthly. But only here and there can one discover any symptom of improvement.

We are told that some fifty million to sixty million adult Americans are functional illiterates—that is, in Mr. George Weber’s definition, they “lack the reading and writing ability to cope with the minimal demands of daily living.” There is a new book about the illiterates who left school years ago: Adult Illiteracy in the United States, by Carman St. John Hunter and David Harman (McGraw-Hill, $10.95). It was prepared as a report to the Ford Foundation; like nearly all such documents, it is not lively reading. These authors advocate “the establishment of new, pluralistic, community-based initiatives whose specific objective will be to serve the most disadvantaged hard-core poor, the bulk of whom never enroll in any existing program.”

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

Featured Tags

Across these United States there is heard the wail that the rising generation isn’t learning to read even tolerably well. Everywhere, or nearly everywhere, the standardized tests justify this complaint. Books about this affliction appear almost monthly. But only here and there can one discover any symptom of improvement.

We are told that some fifty million to sixty million adult Americans are functional illiterates—that is, in Mr. George Weber’s definition, they “lack the reading and writing ability to cope with the minimal demands of daily living.” There is a new book about the illiterates who left school years ago: Adult Illiteracy in the United States, by Carman St. John Hunter and David Harman (McGraw-Hill, $10.95). It was prepared as a report to the Ford Foundation; like nearly all such documents, it is not lively reading. These authors advocate “the establishment of new, pluralistic, community-based initiatives whose specific objective will be to serve the most disadvantaged hard-core poor, the bulk of whom never enroll in any existing program.”