It was surprising how readily these grown folk mastered certain subjects. Despite the fears of some educators that violence was being done to psychology in the attempt to teach them, the grown folk learned, and learned with ease. One eminent psychologist, who early gave encouragement to the movement, wrote me saying,--“In the moonlight schools you are demonstrating what I have always believed, that reading, writing and arithmetic are comparatively easy subjects for the adult mind.” Some educators, however, declared preposterous the claims we made that grown people were learning to read and write. It was contrary to the principles of psychology, they said. While they went around saying it couldn’t be done, we went on doing it. We asked the doubters this question, “When a fact disputes a theory, is it not time to discard the theory?” There was no reply. The memory subjects were the most difficult for these adult students. They had passed the “golden memory period,” most of them, many years ago, and though they had memorized ballads, folk-lore and recipes to some extent, nevertheless, memory was in them a thing practically untrained. They were taught only a few memory gems. The first one was from Whittier’s poem, “Our State.” It was the motto at the head of the little newspaper which they used for a reading text: The riches of the Commonwealth Are free, strong minds and hearts of health, And dearer far than gold or grain Are cunning hand and cultured brain. The following lines from Longfellow’s “The Ladder of St. Augustine,” were popular as a memory gem, comparing as it did with their own ladder of enlightenment, of which they were just mounting the first round: The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. Another gem precious to them was this one taught them by a Louisville club woman, who at the age of seventy-five came and traveled over the hills at night, inspired by a desire to see and to help these men and women who had heroically begun their education late in life: He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. Only one complete poem was to be memorized during the session. What should it be? With the world so full of poet lore to choose from, should it be Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy,” Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl,” Lanier’s “Ballad of Trees and the Master,” Wordsworth’s “The Daffodils,” Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” or should some other gem of poetry be bestowed on those who possessed not even one? The one who introduces the first poem to students like these stands on holy ground, and should prayerfully make the choice. As literature, the selection made might be criticised by some, but as the needed inspiration, the choice was one that met the test.