ABSTRACT
'Adequate literacy' is a concept which has caused much vexation. If 'adequate literacy' can be given no universal definition, it would follow that the time needed to acquire it would similarly be indeterminate and dependent on what was judged to be adequate. There must also be an assumption that all forms of literacy can be learned in roughly the same amount of time. The adults generally have been helped to acquire the skills which a fourth- or sixth-grade child of between ten and fourteen years is expected to attain. The level of literacy which is adequate for the needs of an average citizen has to be determined within the context of a given society. In some societies, it may be well the level needed for 'permanent' literacy. The technology of literacy was coming to depend on an ever-widening range of other technologies.
