ABSTRACT
SO far in this survey of adult education, both in Britain and in those countries whose way of life follows a similar pattern, it has been possible to think in terms of advanced or further education for those who possess at least the elementary skills necessary for continued learning in adult life. But we cannot too often remind ourselves that those people who can profit by adult education in that sense represent a tiny minority of the total population of the world, and that there are still hundreds of millions of men and women in economically and politically backward countries for whom the written or printed word is meaningless and who lack the most elementary knowledge of the world in which they live and of the conditions necessary to enable them to live decently in it. This situation exists in many parts of Asia and the Middle East, in the whole of Africa except for the small enclaves of white occupation, in many countries of South America, in the island colonies or former colonies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, and even, although to a lesser degree, in some of the countries of South-east Europe. It may well be that, in an age which is rapidly passing, when communities lived in isolation, their lives regulated by age-long custom under relatively stable conditions, mass education in the modern sense was not necessary. But isolation is no longer possible and, in the midst of rapid change, mass ignorance in any country is a menace, not only to the country concerned, but also to the world at large. And of course to talk of progress towards democracy in these countries, as we are in the habit of doing, is merely pious nonsense so long as these conditions prevail.
