The “school house debates” referred to were features of the Dyar school literary and debating society, which owed its existence to Kern’s initiative and bore the pretentious name of the Platonian. It was during the period when the country was torn over the problems of reconstruction, and these furnished the topics for the debates. The sixteen-year-old teacher invariably took part, and his chief competitor was usually Jesse Yager, described as “a solid, substantial citizen of the community and a man of great ability.” In these discussions Kern invariably took a positive stand in favor of a liberal policy toward the white people of the southern states who had returned to their allegiance, and the carpet bagger usually came in for an unmerciful scoring. One who often heard him in those days, Jackson Morrow, in recalling the earnestness and vigor of the boy orator, expresses the opinion that these speeches “would have reflected credit upon the best statesmen of the period.” Such views as were held and advocated by the young school teacher were bold indeed for the time and place. Passions still ran high, and Howard county was extreme in its republicanism of the Thad Stevens variety. Strangely enough, the boldness of the pedagogue in no wise detracted from his personal popularity and served to enhance his reputation. Many years afterward, when Kern, soon after his nomination for vice-president, returned to Kokomo to meet his old friends and neighbors in a great non-partisan reception, Jesse Yager, his polemic adversary of the Platonian days, then a very old man, occupied a place on the platform. It was during the summer of 1866 that the pedagogue, a member of the “Alto Dramatic Society,” made his first and only appearance “on any stage” as an actor in “The Demons of the Glass.” Mr. Morrow gives an interesting description of the occasion. “The entertainment,” he writes, “was held on a delightful summer evening in a grove not far from the village of Alto. The stage was built of rough lumber and lighted by kerosene lamps, but a full moon flooding the landscape with a mellow light, and the great spreading tops of centuries-old forest trees gave this primitive stage a beauty and dignity hard to surpass. The show was free and the people came en masse from far and near, and when the curtain rose on the entertainment a very large audience was waiting. Kern was easily the star of the evening. So realistic was his acting of the husband and father becoming a drunkard and bringing poverty and ruin on a happy home, that an unpleasant sadness stole over the audience and a strong temperance lesson was impressed upon the people present. As a boy John Kern was an enthusiastic ‘dry.’”