The work of the adult educators, Moses Coady in Novia Scotia (1920s and 1930s) and Paulo Freire in Brazil (1950s and 1960s) can be examined comparatively. Both men viewed adult education as a tool for social change. Both responded to endemic poverty, dysfunctional outside control, and lack of cooperative initiative from within. They would agree that the chronically poor see themselves as having the problem and do not attempt to find in themselves the solution. Both concluded that only the poor could effect meaningful change for themselves. The two men saw education as a process to examine what has gone wrong and what needs to be done. In the Coadian and Freierian philosophies, the learner's position is central, but not separate from the general community. The first goal in bringing about social change is to develop critical awareness on the part of the poor. Literacy education forms the contextual focus of Freire's efforts to promote the poor's active awareness; Coady's participants learn skills of economic cooperation to achieve active social awareness. Leadership for Freire and Coady is more a matter of being a change agent than a teacher. The differences between the two seem to be ones of degree, not of kind. (CSS)