There was another reason for educating the illiterates which might well have been considered urgent from the Government’s point of view. The unrest following the War and the spread of radicalism, made a situation scarcely less critical than the War itself. The propaganda of these discontented ones found in the mass of illiterates, native and foreign-born, its most fertile soil. The day schools would instill their lessons of loyalty and patriotism, but the crisis to be met was one of the immediate future, and would be decided, not by the children, but by the adults. [Illustration] [Illustration: LETTER FROM A WAR VETERAN] Reconstruction gave a new motive and a new urge to the moonlight schools. There was much besides reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic to be taught in those days, and an unusual opportunity for correlation of those subjects with timely ones. There was the habit of waste and extravagance to be corrected, and the Nation’s war debt to be paid, which called for training in thrift, and intensive training at that; there were forests to be conserved, soil to be reclaimed; loyalty to the country to be instilled, the “Own your own home” movement to be emphasized, the better use of the English language to be secured, a higher appreciation developed of the benefits of American citizenship, disease to be stamped out and human life conserved. After the most destructive war in history all of these had their claim to importance in any school curriculum and in the one for adults could not be ignored. They had their place in the reconstruction course of study for the moonlight schools. They were taught in the reading, writing and composition lessons and in the drills. The cover of the new course of study told its own story of what the moonlight schools would try to do in reconstruction days. The school-house pictured there in the moonlight with many roads running from it, with signboards pointing to “Education,” “Sanitation,” and “Health,” “Good Roads,” “Thrift,” “Better Speech” and “Better Citizenship,” would undertake, wherever it could spread its light, to meet the emergency which followed the War. As the moonlight school session started the Governor of Kentucky issued this message: While the countries of Europe rebuild their ruined cities and rehabilitate their industries, it is our privilege in the United States to rehabilitate the lives of our fellow citizens. One of the most necessary and most noble of reconstruction tasks is to teach all those who are unable to read and write. We must do this before the commonwealth and the nation can make great advancement. The teachers and citizens of Kentucky are pioneers in the movement, which has now become nation-wide and has even been adopted in other countries. The movement which they have so unselfishly fostered demands the best that is in us all at this time when the last battle in the crusade against illiteracy in Kentucky is being waged.