The present status of literacy in China is revealed by official figures from the Ministry of Education, which may err somewhat on the side of optimism. These put the total population of China at 450 million (Manchuria presumably remaining unmentioned), of which 90 million are literate and 360 million illiterate. Such an estimate would give China about the same absolute number of literates as the United States. The remaining 360 million illiterates are broken down as follows: 40.05 million children below the age of six; 45 million aged six to twelve; 29.25 million aged twelve to fifteen; 79.43 million persons over forty-five; and 1.57 million dumb, deaf, cripples, or insane. The adults to be reached by the mass literacy movement amount therefore to 165 million; government estimates state that 46,348,469 illiterates were educated since 1938, of whom 25.2 million were adults between fifteen and forty-five, leaving roughly 140 million to be educated.[1] [Footnote 1: The China Information Committee, _News Release_, April 1, 1940.] The mass education program is supplementary to the education of children, which is far from complete or even adequate. The literacy imparted is of the most elementary kind; but in a civilized society such as China this has immediate effect. The author never knew a Chinese who could read and was not addicted to it; a common sight in Western China is a knot of coolies deciphering a newspaper together. The intense reverence for learning and scholarship makes the training welcome, and the teachers who seek to teach the minimum of one thousand ideographs in six weeks never lack pupils. The program of the National Government was summarized by Ch'ên Li-fu, the Minister of Education, speaking over the radio after the Mass Education Conference of March 1940: Accordingly, our first step is to wipe out illiteracy. In this respect we proceed simultaneously with the enlightenment of the masses of adult illiterates, both men and women, and with the education of children in order to put an end to illiteracy that may otherwise arise in the future. At the National Conference on People's Education held from the twelfth day to the sixteenth day of this month in Chungking, the _five-year plan for the people's education_, adopted by the Executive _Yüan_, was further deliberated and promulgated. The proper enforcement of this plan will help to convert at least one hundred and forty million (140,000,000) adult illiterates into intelligent citizens for China within the coming five years.