INDIA'S POVERTY AND ILLITERACY 19 



shows that half a million of villages in British India are 

 unsupplied by a primary school. (International Review 

 of Missions — October 1920.) The last census taken ten 

 years ago gives the degree of literacy as five and six 

 tenths per cent, where the test was the ability to write 

 a letter of four to five simple sentences in any one of the 

 languages of India, and to read the reply to it. This 

 shows that about ten per cent, of the men and boys are 

 literate, and about one per cent, of the women and girls 

 over ten years of age. Now when any people is so 

 largely illiterate it is an easy prey for oppression and 

 extortion. Wild rumors find ready credence. A lie 

 once started is not easily caught up and corrected. In- 

 dia suffers in full measure the penalty for so great a 

 degree of ignorance. Illiteracy immensely increases the 

 troubles of government, especially when the government 

 is a foreign one. A demagogue determined to make 

 trouble can go among an illiterate people and stir them 

 up into a state of frenzy by telling either deliberate false- 

 hoods, or by so twisting the truth as to misrepresent it. It 

 is very difficult for the Government to correct this, since 

 the harm is done before the Government is aware of it. 

 At the root of hatred, is fear, and at the root of fear, is 

 ignorance. Once the hatred and suspicion have been 

 aroused, it requires months of hard work to put out the 

 fiame, and to establish peace. Any one who is familiar 

 with modem India and who is watching with deepest 

 sympathy and good will the progress of the greatest ad- 

 venture in democratic government which the world has 

 ever seen, cannot but wonder at its chances of success 

 when ninety four and four-tenths per cent, of the popula- 

 tion is illiterate. The educated Indian is the peer of any 

 educated man anywhere, and as fit for self-government. 



