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have given you some comparative figures on illiteracy and per
capita income in my letter a month ago. But now I want to repeat
some of these figures with some additional facts which will help
you to grasp HOW DIFFERENT is our problem of getting the Gospel
into other nations around the world, than to the United States,
Canada, and Australia.
One factor that might be deceiving: Many countries where
the majority of the population are illiterate -- that is, virtually
no education at all -- are now introducing compulsory education in
the primary grades. But we must remember that this has been going
on only a very few years, and the UNeducated adults are still in
the big majority of the population. Many of these countries are
now having compulsory primary education even for illiterate adults,
but such programs have not yet made these adults reachable by the
Gospel. It does mean that we shall be able to reach much higher
percentages of the people in such countries in another ten or
fifteen years -- if this present world lasts that long.
But whereas the United States has almost NO illiteracy, and
the percentage of people of secondary education age-level is listed
as 100 percent and those of college age actually attending college,
university or institutional training, is rated as 49.23 percent
(Source: The Statistical Yearbook of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization).
But compare that to Thailand, with only 12 percent even now
receiving secondary education, and less than 2 percent higher
education. In South Vietnam 22 percent are now receiving secondary
education. In Indonesia, with 70 percent illiterate, and a per
capita income of only 53 dollars per person per year, 12 percent
are now in secondary education, and 2.21 percent in higher
education. In India, with a giant population of 584 million, 65
percent illiterate with an income to live on of only 73 dollars per
person per year, 15 percent of those of high school age are now in
secondary education, and 7.41 percent pursuing higher education
(college, university, etc.). In Ethiopia, where I shall hold the
next public appearance campaign, with 89 percent illiterate, and an
income of only 63 dollars per person per year, only 2 percent of
those of high school age are receiving secondary education, and
only about one-tenth of 1 percent are in higher education. Still,
as the guest of Emperor Haile Selassie I attended the University
graduation last year, where the Emperor himself passed out degrees
to some 5,000 graduates.
But this kind of education has been going on in most of
such countries only in comparatively recent years, and the
overwhelming majority of the people in such nations are simply
yet UNREACHABLE with Christ's Gospel message. They are doubly
unreachable because, 1) communications are government controlled,
and we cannot buy time on radio or TV, and 2) because they are
not sufficiently educated to understand it if they heard it.
So what it all means is, that to get the Gospel into those
nations means getting it to those at the top. Such nations have a
small upper-class (in education and financial income), almost no
middle class, and a huge but either illiterate or little-educated