Some used to say that laboring men worked better and were more contented, if illiterate. There never was a greater fallacy. Illiteracy never plowed a furrow straighter nor produced an extra bushel to the acre. It never turned out a better product from factory, field or mine. It handicaps the laborer, making his task more difficult, his position less secure and his life less safe. Not only is he handicapped in carrying out the instructions of his employer, but, also, in the safe and skillful handling of machinery and tools. Illiterate and coarse workmen cannot be trusted with the delicate tools and, as a rule, are given the clumsy sort that will endure the rough handling without breakage. This hampers them, at the outset, burdening them as with ball and chain and giving the educated laborer every advantage. In a Southern city illiterate and educated laborers worked side by side cleaning the streets. The illiterate laborers used clumsy hoes with rough, heavy handles, weighing twelve pounds, and the educated workmen used light and graceful ones weighing but two. Each laborer pulled twenty pounds on the average, at each stroke. The illiterate laborers pulled twelve pounds of hoe and eight pounds of mud while their educated companions pulled two pounds of hoe and eighteen pounds of mud. The result was more than twice as great when guided by intelligence as when guided by physical power alone. Man’s daily bread is, in a measure, dependent upon his ability to read and write, which not only increases but creates earning power. Many a man has started out searching for work and found himself barred from one position after another because he could not read or write. Prior to the World War illiterate men were losing their jobs and being replaced by the educated, a tendency which is constantly on the increase. Uncle Jeff, an illiterate darky of the old-time Southern type, had been drayman for years for a large manufacturing company and had come to consider himself a fixture when an order of the Illinois Central Railway company struck him like a thunderbolt. It was to the effect that no freight should be delivered to anyone who could not read and sign the freight receipts. The company felt obliged, of course, to part with Uncle Jeff. “Aunt Sally,” his wife, blamed this calamity on the schools and rushed to the nearest member of the school board to protest against the outrage, “Hit’s jist a gittin’ so a man cain’t do nothin’ ’thout he kin read and write,” she wailed. “Ef hit keeps on hit’ll soon be so a man cain’t even plow his cawn ’thout he kin read what’s printed on the plow beam.” The poor old colored woman spoke more truth, in her resentment than she knew. It is becoming next to impossible in this complex and highly specialized age for a man to hold any sort of position unless he can read and write.