Moonlight Schools for the Emancipation of Adult IlliteratesStewart, Cora Wilson
History
Moonlight Schools for the Emancipation of Adult Illiterates
Stewart, Cora Wilson
Education -- Kentucky; Literacy -- Kentucky
He deserved commendation and he needed encouragement, so I said,
“A young man who has made a success as you have done in that most
difficult of all places, his home district, who has enrolled one
hundred and eleven men and women in his moonlight school and has taught
fifteen out of sixteen illiterates to read and write will get the other
one. I have no fear but that you will succeed.”
We got the illiteracy record and looked up this old woman’s history.
We found that she thought she was a physician, and felt flattered when
anyone sought her services as such.
The young man went back to his district and there developed an eruption
on his wrist. He went over and consulted this old woman. She diagnosed
his case as erysipelas and proceeded to treat him. She concluded
that one who possessed such excellent judgment in the selection of a
physician, knew enough to teach her something; so while she treated
him for erysipelas, he treated her for illiteracy, and she learned to
read and write. He sent in her first letter, enclosed in his own, and
wrote in great glee, “Tabor Hill district is freer from illiteracy
than Boston; come at once and bring the Bibles.” It was the plan at
that time to give a Bible to each one who learned to read and write.
It was an offer that was made when our vision was small and we could
not anticipate the large numbers that would take advantage of it. When
hundreds began to claim it, we tried to keep the faith, and some of us
have not yet recovered from the strain on our pocketbooks.
I drove out to Tabor Hill one bright moonlit evening to witness the
celebration which marked the banishment of illiteracy from the
district. The scene was one good for the eyes of those who delight
in a real community center, although at that time such a thing as
a community center was known in few rural districts in the United
States. But here was the highest ideal of a community center being
realized. Every person in the district was at the school-house. The
men and women, who had been in their seats bright and early, were
gaily chatting; the young people stood around the organ, singing their
gladsome songs, and around the house, peering in at the windows, was a
cordon of spectators six rows deep.
The newly learned gave an exhibition of their recently acquired
knowledge. They read and wrote, quoted history and ciphered proudly in
the presence of their world. They did it with more pride than ever high
school, college or university graduates displayed on their commencement
day.
They were next presented with Bibles, and as they came up one by one,
some young and stalwart, some bent and gray, to receive their Bibles
with gracious words of thanks, it was an impressive scene--and when
the Jezebel of the community came forward and accepted her Bible and
pledged herself to lead a new life forevermore, there was hardly a dry
eye in the house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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