New speed records were made in the time required to learn to read and write. The men in the first draft who had missed the moonlight schools were met by teachers at the station where they entrained and rendered “first aid” in reading and writing for a day or an hour as the time would permit. It was in one of these first-aid classes that the champion record was made. A bridegroom, torn from the arms of his bride whom he had married but the day before, sought to learn in one day’s time that he might write a love letter back to her. Not the next week nor on the morrow did he desire to write her, but it must be done that very day. According to the poet, Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s aid, Some banished lover or some captive maid, so surely it would not fail him now. From early morning until his train left that night he strove to master script, and not in vain. Before his train left, he wrote the letter, beginning it “Dear Darling,” and his exultant joy must have been equalled by her happiness and surprise when the letter arrived. In spite of the vigorous campaign waged, some were missed, and it was no uncommon thing during the late summer of 1917 for men to be arrested for their failure to register and brought before Federal officials. It was then disclosed that they were illiterate and did not know of the registration or the draft, and some of them did not even know that the country was at war. This added to the expense of the Government and to the burdens and annoyance of officials, but these were nothing in comparison with the humiliation and the anguish suffered by the innocent victims and their families at home. The exemption boards found difficulty in testing the eyes of illiterate soldiers. No provision having been made they invented devices of their own. Some boards substituted pictures for the lettered cards customarily used by oculists. Stalwart, finely developed men stood up before draft boards and answered questions like these: “Do you see this little dog or can you see best the larger dog above?” “Do you see the cat in this line best or the one below?” [Illustration: LETTER FROM MAN OF DRAFT AGE] A second and third session of the moonlight schools for illiterate soldiers followed the first. Nowhere else in America were illiterate registrants being taught. The camps were in process of construction. The time between the registration of soldiers and their encampment--some three months or more--could profitably have been employed by illiterates of draft age in every State in learning to read and write. The records revealed that there were 700,000 men between the ages of 21 and 31 in the United States who registered by mark.