A Proposed Adult Education Program For The ARP Colored School Community, ARP, Texas

It has been recognized as a truism that present-day problems resulting from advances due to an ever-increasing technology give rise to a greater need for adult education. This need has not always been accompanied by tangible effort toward complete satisfaction. Nevertheless, leaders in the field of adult education point out quite clearly the necessity for greater emphasis in this regard. For example, Strayer^1 has pointed out the significance of adult education to American culture. He states: As society advances in complexity, the need for adult education increases. The only type of society in which adult education has no place is one that experiences no technological or social changes, one in which there is no opportunity for occupational or professional advancement because everyone lives and works on the same dead level and one in which there is no hope for heightened appreciation or greater comfort. That type of society was left behind by our ancestors when they began their rise from savagery and each year we move farther from it. This explains why the pressure is so insistent to make adult education a constantly more important factor in our daily living. It will readily be conceded that the individual adult under the condition of life presently is in the midst of a large group of new conduct making and conduct-changing forces. Modern inventions have moved the barriers that made for social and individual isolation. Reeves and others describe adults in our present social order as: The adult who participates in some kind of educational activity includes all types of men and women: the type of person who could not or would not go to school in youth and must now attempt to gain the skills he lacks; the youngster who quit school early to go to work only to find later that he needs more study; the middle-age person who now has time to take up those interests which were formerly denied him; the parent who feels that the job of rearing children in a changing world is beyond the range of ordinary instinctive reactions; the foreigner who seeks to learn the strange language and customs of the United States in short, all persons who have a driving desire to keep abreast of complex and changing times. The agencies that contribute directly to educational activities for adults are many and varied; a partial list would include: the public school, agricultural extension services; libraries and museums; college and university extensions; including home studies; federal and emergency agencies; proprietary schools both resident and correspondence; special schools for adults, •religious, welfare, and service agencies; industries and other corporations maintaining personal training programs; and agencies operating in special environments, such as prisons, sanitariums, and settlements. The adult education activities are supported by tax funds, by gifts and endowments, by students for membership fees, or by a combination of these means. Torbert^emphasizes adult education as a public responsibility