Ignorance

Army intelligence-test questions given draftees are kept simple. Sample: Will a boat float in water?

The President, the U.S. Office of Education and Paul McNutt's War Manpower Commission were deeply concerned last week because a quarter of a million men, physically fit, had been rejected for illiteracy, lack of education, low mentality. Draft boards had turned up 177,000 more who did not know whether a boat would float in water, but who were not physically fit, either. Largest group of ignoramuses were neither aliens nor Negroes, but native whites.

Mr. Roosevelt, Education's Dr. John W. Studebaker and Paul McNutt put under study a scheme to give "the functionally illiterate" basic training in reading, writing and arithmetic. Most offensive to a nation proud of its educational standards were the States of Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. More than 30% of their populations, aged 25 and older, have had fourth-grade schooling or less.

Best-educated States: Idaho, Iowa, Oregon, Utah. Iowa was tops.

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