68
PARTISAN REVIEW
sonnel-we were a trammg outfit-had no high school education.
For men in this category the Army administers a test called the GED
or General Educational Development Test which,
if
passed, entitles
such persons to claim the equivalent of a high school diploma; per–
sonnel are encouraged to take the test. Actually, the examination
demands something like ninth grade performance, but, as in so many
other things in the Army, allowances have to be made for the stand–
ard of the material at hand, and for the altruistic
aims,
not the
least of which is to promote self-esteem, that are necessarily involved.
The examination consists mainly of questions about a paragraph of
prose which the examinee must read, a smattering of English gram–
mar, and the rudiments of arithmetic. Yet it is a test, and it exists
within that penumbra of mystery and heroics which surrounds all
examinations, even those taken by the educated.
To a Regular Army soldier a high school education often ap–
pears to be the key to all those doors which open upon the world
of glamor and influence and well-being. Possession of it would some–
how bring him closer to qualifying for Officers Candidate School,
the Oxford of the uncommissioned. It would be an insurance policy
taken against that fateful though anticipated day when he must
leave the service: it would, he thinks, enhance his opportunities
in
the "world of business." Then too, of course, it is an emblem of
personal accomplishment, the
primum bonum
of the deprived. The
fact of his having passed such a test will be duly entered on his
Enlisted Qualification Record, and his status as a non-commissioned
offic~r
and a career soldier, especially in a time of peace, will prosper.
The Officer in Charge of our section thought it would help
matters jf we offered a series of preparatory sessions for cadre want–
ing to take the test, and at one of the weekly Troop Information
Hours he announced a course of off-duty hour classes which would
prepare men for the examination in English and Arithmetic. Any–
one interested could enroll, and classes would commence the follow–
ing week. I was assigned to teach the course in English.
To prepare for this assignment I procured a number of exercise
books which the Army publishes and prepared a set of eight two–
hour sessions which included the fundamentals of grammar and a
certain amount of practice in reading. We also had some trainees
sent on detail to clean our large classroom and wax the floors, and
