but textbooks. And there had been that lunatic theory that children
should be taught to read by recognizing whole words instead of
learning the alphabet. And more and more illiterates had been shoved
out of the schools, into a world where radio and television and moving
pictures were supplanting books and newspapers, and more and more
children of illiterates had gone to school without any desire or
incentive to learn to read. And finally, the illiterates had become
Illiterates, and literacy had become Literacy.

And now, the Associated Fraternities of Literates had come to
monopolize the ability to read and write, and a few men like William
R. Lancedale, with a handful of followers like Ralph N. Prestonby,
were trying--

The gleaming cleanliness of the corridor, as always, heartened
Prestonby a little; it was a trophy of victory from his first two days
at Mineola High School, three years ago. He remembered what they had
looked like when he had first seen them.

"This school is a pig pen!" he had barked at the janitorial force.
"And even if they are Illiterates, these children aren't pigs; they
deserve decent surroundings. This school will be cleaned, immediately,
from top to bottom, and it'll be kept that way."

The janitors, all political appointees, Independent-Conservative
party-hacks, secure in their jobs, had laughed derisively. The
building superintendent, without troubling to rise, had answered him:

"Young man, you don't want to get off on the wrong foot, here," he had
said. "This here's the way this school's always been run, an' it's