Valley Girl Views: "Each One Teach One " - The Apostle Of Literacy, from Benton PA

On September 2 1984, a 30 cent stamp was issued, commemorating Dr. Frank Laubach of Benton, "The Apostle of Literacy".

"Dr. Frank Laubach was one of the most remarkable men of our time. He has devoted his life to teaching people around the world to read and write." - Lowell Thomas. Author Vincent Peale called him one of the world's five greatest men. On September 2nd 1984, a 30 cent stamp was issued in his honor.

Born in Benton, Columbia County, Pennsylvania, he was the son of John Brittain & Hanna Jane [Derr] Laubauch.

Laubach received a lot of schooling before becoming a missionary. He graduated from the Bloomsburg Normal School in 1901, then attended the Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1905. There he enjoyed playing football, as he did later at Princeton as well. He graduated from Princeton in 1909, receiving the McLean prize from the college president Woodrow Wilson, for a speech on peace among nations. From there he went on to attend Union Theological Seminary, New York ,graduating in 1913, and from Columbia University receiving his Ph.D in 1915.

Frank Laubach married Effa Emaline Seely, a nurse, in 1912. Effa, also from Benton, had grown up in a house across the street from Frank. She spent a year teaching in a one room school house in Jamison City at age 17, in 1898 and then graduated in 1901 from Dickinson Seminary, now Lycoming College, before going on to the School of Nursing at Presbyterian Hospital, Philadelphia.

Frank and Effa Laubach

In 1915, Frank and Effa sailed to the Philippines as missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

Laubach felt a strong urging to go to the Philippines due to the influence of Effa's first cousin, Harry Edwards, also of Benton. Edwards had married a woman from the Philippines. The Congregational Church commissioned Dr. Laubach as a missionary in the Philippines and for 15 years he ministered and educated Philippine Christians.

1929, Laubach began work at Dansalan in Mindanao, a Muslim area. After learning that the hostile Muslim Moros did not have a written language, he learned that their dialect only had 16 sounds. He transposed those sounds into 16 Roman letters, and in six weeks he compiled 1,300 Maranao words. As he struggled to reach the highly resistant Moros, he found that the system he had developed for learning Maranao could be adapted to teach the people to read their own language.

He created a phonetic method of combining letter and pictures into charts. It proved highly successful throughout the Philippines, and in 1935 Laubach began to introduce his method in other countries. He developed alphabets and written languages where none had previously existed. He would then spend the next 40 years visiting more than 100 countries creating literacy primers for 312 languages.

Of his achievements, Laubach said, "I haven't kept up with the birth rate, and besides, about 20 million or more who've learned to read have lapsed back into illiteracy for lack of reading materials."

Part of Laubach's mission included creating & distributing primers of simple reading material in a variety of languages.

During the great depression, there was a lack of funds available for Laubach to pay teachers to continue his literacy program.

According Laubach's son Richard, a Maranao chief, Kakai Dagalangit, ordered his people who had learned the system of reading "Each one teach one or die. My dad dropped the 'die' idea pretty quick", said Richard.

This began Laubachs “Each One Teach One” program. He encouraged every adult that learned the language to then volunteer their time to teach others. It's estimated that the Laubach method, combined with his "Each One Teach One" philosophy, has helped more than 60 million learn to read, around the world.

Laubach is often considered to be the founder of the worldwide literacy movement. In 1955 he retired from missionary work, returning to the United States, organizing Laubach Literacy International. He created the World Literacy Committee and helped found the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature of the National Council of Churches. He also founded World Literacy, Inc. and Laubach Literacy, Inc.

Dr. Frank C. Laubach died June 11, 1970, at the age of 85. His wife, Effa, died three years later, on March 28, 1973. The couple is buried in Benton cemetery under a monument inscribed with the words, "World Missionaries."

The "Christian Century" published an editorial in 1970 in which they wrote, "At a time when affluent fadsters question the importance of reading and when millions have led their reading skills atrophy, it is especially important to remember that literacy is liberation for disinherited peoples in our own society and around the earth. No one has been a more magnificent symbol of that concept to liberate through reading than Frank C. Laubach."

The stamp was formerly offered to the public on it's "first day of issue", on Sunday, in ceremonies at Benton High School. A week long celebration followed.

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Letters Frank wrote home to his father, in Benton Pa

https://amzn.to/3QYJYHU

"During his time at Dansalan, Laubach was alone, his wife and son remaining on another island for health and education purposes. Laubach combatted his loneliness by writing letters to his father about his work, his faith, and his "deep mystic experience of God."

Laubach was the author of several books - find a list of them here:

https://amzn.to/3PkBPMG