Education: Double Your Money

In the illiterate backlands of the small (574 sq. mi.) state of Delhi this winter, UNESCO and the Indian government have been working on a pilot education plan designed to bring literacy and modern farming methods to India’s unlettered masses. Auto trailers, loaded with exhibits, stop in every village for a three-day show. The villagers get simple demonstrations of modern methods of poultry-breeding, cattle-raising and plowing. Moreover, though the trailer crews move on, they leave behind in each village a stack of books and a temporary squad of teachers. Aim: nothing less than 100% literacy among Delhi’s 1,900,000 people (now 82% illiterate) by the end of 1952.

The lessons that UNESCO and the Indian government learn from this experiment in the next two years are to be applied elsewhere in India as quickly as the means allow. The guiding spirit of the whole plan: Duane Spence Hatch, 60, UNESCO adviser, an enthusiastic, hardworking American.

Literacy & Progress. Duane Hatch began his career in 1922. He was a Y.M.C.A. worker with a new Ph.D. (in sociology) from Yale. As headquarters for his work, he picked the Travancore village of Martandam, in one of the most backward parts of southwest India. His mission, then as now: to teach the villagers how to help themselves.

Hatch spent 18 years in Martandam. The villagers soon nicknamed him “Double-Your-Money” Hatch. They learned to breed the best poultry in India, instead of the semi-wild jungle fowl that laid an egg every two weeks. They learned to build roads, how to control malaria and cholera, weave baskets, rugs and rope. Instead of their sticky, grimy jaggery (unrefined sugar candy), Hatch taught them to make clean palmyra sugar to be sold at double the price of jaggery. He introduced scientific beekeeping, revived the art of kuftgari (working designs on iron and silver). At the same time, he taught the villagers to read & write. During his 18 years, the Martandam area became one of the most prosperous in the country.

As the Martandam news spread, other states wanted advice from Double-Your-Money Hatch. He helped set up reconstruction centers in Baroda and Hyderabad, preached the twin gospel of literacy and progress for hundreds of miles. In 1940, Hatch and his family returned to the U.S. for a vacation. When the war made it doubtful that he could transport the family to India again, he carried on his work in Mexico. Last year he went back to India.

Hygiene & Devanagari. Delhi’s trailers and exhibits are designed as eye-catchers for the villagers, but the real work begins when the trailers pull out. It is then that the villagers, sitting cross-legged around kerosene lamps, assemble for classes with their new teachers. They struggle over the 46 characters of the Hindi Devanagari script, learn about hygiene and farming.

At first, Hatch wanted to limit classes to students between the ages of 14 and 45. “But then we found some men & women in their 503 who insisted on joining. Also girls between ten and 13 who claimed they never had a chance to attend school. So now we have students of all ages.” When the teachers move on to the next town after a month, the classes continue to get lectures over battery radios. So far, the government has provided sets for classes in 160 towns.

Last week Duane Hatch’s work was still spreading: the Ceylon government is starting a similar project with UNESCO help, has asked for Double-Your-Money Hatch to head it.