Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/178

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man two lessons only on condition that he would go out and teach two others what he had learned before receiving the third and fourth lessons, and so on down the line. The result has heen that in some five years' time nearly half the adult population has been taught to read! The people have become enthusiastic learners, and are now demanding schools and literature. The hunger for education has been aroused. Today, Dr. Frank Laubach is looked upon by these Moros as their greatest friend. So striking have been the results of his work in the Philippines that he has been asked to visit many other countries in Asia and Africa to develop similar methods.

Even in a country like India the challenge of appalling illiteracy staggers one. After all the efforts made there by mission and government agencies, it still can be said that ninety per cent of the Moslem men are illiterate and ninety-eight per cent of the women and this among a Moslem population of seventy-eight millions! Mission schools in Iran, India, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Turkey are thronged with Moslems who cannot be accommodated in other institutions. In many cases, or rather, in most cases, mission schools have been the pioneers in modern education in every one of these countries, and have contributed materially to the awakening and to the demand for constitutional government and constructive reforms.

In Iran, we are told by President Samuel M. Jordan of Alborz College, Teheran,