In the later lessons there was a sentence which read, “The best people on earth live in Rowan County.” Provincial though this may seem to some and flattery to others, it had the desired effect of keeping the interest at white heat, as perhaps a sentence like--“Foreign birds wear pretty feathers” could not have done. One old man read the sentence and openly expressed his approval. He leaned back in his seat and with a hearty laugh exclaimed, “That’s the truth!” Continuing the lesson, he found a little further along a sentence that read like this, “The man who does not learn to read and write is not a good citizen and would not fight for his country if it needed him.” This was published before the World War when a vast number of illiterate soldiers were called into the American Army, and is a statement disproved, of course; for illiterate soldiers are courageous and as patriotic as their understanding will permit. But the sentence provoked students to their best possible work. The old man who had exulted in being one of those “best people on earth,” became very thoughtful after reading it, and then resumed his study with grim determination, for to a Kentuckian there is no accusation so humiliating as the one that he, under any circumstances will not fight. To a Kentucky mountaineer it is ignominy complete. The little newspaper had a fourfold purpose: to enable adults to learn to read without the humiliation of reading from a child’s primer with its lessons on kittens, dolls and toys; to give them a sense of dignity in being, from their very first lesson, readers of a newspaper; to stimulate their curiosity through news of their neighbor’s movements and community occurrences and compel them to complete in quick succession the sentences that followed; to arouse them through news of educational and civic improvements in other districts to make like progress in their own. News items such as “Bill Smith is building a new barn” and “John Brown has moved to Kansas” caused them quickly to master the next sentence to see what the next neighbor was doing and we found that curiosity was not confined altogether to the women. “They are building new steps to the school-house at Slab Camp and putting up hemstitched curtains” was the item that caused Bull Fork moonlight school to build new steps, put up hemstitched curtains and paint the school-house besides. Other elementary subjects were taught by the question and answer method--sometimes called the Socratic method. Only the minimum essentials were included in the course. For instance, the student might not be able to master American history in one short session; he could not learn the principal events of each President’s term, the dates of battles, and the flounderings of the various political parties, but he could at least learn a limited number of important facts that every American citizen should know.