DearTIME-Reader:

WHETHER the news spins off high-- speed presses in Chicago or creaks off a missionary's Mimeograph in an African jungle, it is as essential to the mind and spirit of men everywhere as food is to their stomachs.

All over the world doughty little publications are informing their communities of the life around them, in many cases converting the illiterate to literacy in the process. One such journal turned up on my desk this week: Issue No. 259 of the Loma Weekly, a Mimeographed paper that serves the natives of the mud-hut village of Wozi (estimated population: 250) in the dense, equatorial rain forest of Liberia. Reading it in New York, some 5,000 miles away, I found Wozi's news lively, to say the least.

Take, for example, the story called "The Elephant Matter" (thoughtfully translated from the Loma dialect by the weekly's Editor Margaret D. Miller, daughter of a Lutheran missionary): "The women went to fish in a stream and the elephants came after them. They chased them the whole day long . . . We who went to meet the women were five. The elephants chased us too. We had to climb a tree. One man, whose name was Peiwala, took off his shoes and left them under the tree. The elephants took the shoes and spoiled them."

As this was an absorbing story to me, so one of TIME's recent articles evoked a certain perplexity among the natives of Loma. As Editor Miller tells it: "TIME has brought news of the world to our remote African door. TIME articles have been given recognition in our publication. For example, your very newsworthy story about the trade of rice for cement in Burma (TIME, May 21) met with stupendous lack of sympathy in this rice-conscious, rice-loving part of the world. No Loma man would even consider trading rice for cement."

The Loma Weekly, published by the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Wesley Sadler of the Lutheran mission in Monrovia, could not exist if Dr. Sadler had not created a written Loma language from the spoken dialect. Now the tribesmen are becoming literate in their own tongue, eventually will move on to the study of English, the country's official language.

In common with publications everywhere, the Loma Weekly has its problems. Reports Liberian-born Editor Miller: "We were pleased to read your article in the recent issue of TIME (May 21 ) under PRESS and note the increased circulation of newspapers throughout the world. We wanted to save the article, but a cow entered our outdoor bathing place and ate it."

To the Loma Weekly and its counterparts in jungles, mountains and deserts the world over, who communicate the news and whet the appetite for knowledge in the face of overwhelming obstacles and magazine-munching cows, a respectful salute!

Cordially yours,

Cordially yours,

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