CHAPTER VII TO WIPE OUT ILLITERACY THE TEACHER’S GOAL

To wipe illiteracy out of the county was the goal set for the following year. First, the school trustees were induced to take a census of the illiterates. When this was completed, an investigation was made of each individual case. Soon we had on record, not only the name and age of every illiterate in the county, but his history as well, his ancestry, his home environment, his family ties, his religious faith, his political belief, his weaknesses, tastes and peculiarities, and the influence or combination of influences through which he might be reached in case the teacher failed with him.

Each teacher was given the list of illiterates in her district and told to go out and cultivate these people, like a good politician, before the moonlight schools began. The citizens of the county were enlisted. The slogan “Each one teach one,” was adopted and most of the people were glad to obey. Doctors were soon teaching their convalescent patients, ministers were teaching members of their flocks, children were teaching their parents, stenographers were teaching waitresses in the small town hotels, and the person in the county without a pupil was considered a very useless sort of individual. The district with an illiterate in it was a district in disrepute, while the child with an illiterate parent felt that he was a child disgraced. A man redeemed from illiteracy became at once a source of pride and admiration to his neighbors, as well as to himself and family, and, like most new converts to a cause, he exceeded the old adherents in loyalty and zeal.

Some of those who had learned were not only walking evangelists preaching the gospel of “No illiteracy in the county,” but became itinerant teachers, going from district to district giving lessons. Those fresh from their first contact with the printed page imparted what they had learned, meager though it was, with an enthusiasm, that was possible only to the newly-learned. They were successful teachers. They attempted to give lessons in reading and writing only and to create that self-confidence, which, with adult illiterates, was the first battle to be won. They had the advantage, too, of presenting themselves as examples, as living proof that illiterates could learn. Their visits to illiterate homes started the process of learning in most cases, and cleared the way for the teacher who was to follow with more complete and thorough knowledge.

Each and every district was striving to be the first to wipe out illiteracy. One school trustee, who had been campaigning strenuously all week against illiteracy, came in on Saturday and said with determination, “I’ll bet I have illiteracy out of my district before Monday morning. There’s only one illiterate over there, and he’s a tenant on my place; I’m going to run him out over into Fleming County.”

“Oh, no,” I protested, “That’s not the way to get rid of illiteracy. You must teach him before he goes.”

A young teacher who felt somewhat discouraged, came in for some advice. “You gave me a list of sixteen illiterates in my district,” said he, “and I’ve taught fifteen of them to read and write; but there’s one stubborn old woman out there who absolutely refuses to learn. I’ve exhausted my resources with her.”

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.

Lemonade was a thing rarely seen in those parts, a treat indeed, so it was served as the final reward, not from a punch bowl, as it is served in most places, but from the most available thing to be found on Tabor Hill--a lard can. As they passed in line around the receptacle to be served, an old man rose in the back part of the house and said in a loud voice, “Things certainly have changed in this district. It used to be that you couldn’t hold meeting or Sunday school in this house without the boys shooting through the windows. It used to be moonshine and bullets; but now it’s lemonade and Bibles.”

Some teachers found obstacles in their way, such as the prolonged absence of the illiterates from home, but they watched for their return, and even if they came back and tarried but a short time, they put them for the moment to the book and pen. One teacher said to me, “I have a father and three grown sons in my district who are employed twelve miles from home and are only at home on the Sabbath day. Do you think there would be any harm in my going over there on Sunday and teaching them to read and write?” Remembering those words of the Master when he was asked in regard to healing the withered hand of a man on the Sabbath day--and certainly these were withered hands--and His answer, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?” I said, “It is a holy day and I think it would be a holy deed.” The young man went Sunday after Sunday and taught the father and sons to read and write.

There are masterpieces of art that one would travel many miles to see, but to me there is no picture more beautiful than the one my imagination conjures up of that young teacher, with those four grown men grouped about him learning to read and write on the Sabbath day.

We tried by every means, to wipe illiteracy out of the county to the last individual. Every one was offered the opportunity and some were offered it repeatedly. The overwhelming majority accepted it with joy and gratitude--a few had to be coaxed. Some few, in their ignorance had a misconception of our motives and stubbornly refused to learn.

When the campaign closed, of the 1,152 illiterates in the county, only 23 were left, and these were classified; six were blind or had defective sight; five were invalids languishing on beds of pain; six were imbeciles and epileptics, two had moved in as the session closed and four could not be induced to learn.

One of the teachers who had taught fifty-six people in her own and other districts to read and write, went into the home of one of these stubborn four after the campaign closed and paid her an exorbitant price for board. She induced this old woman to teach her to knit, and one day when they were sitting and knitting together and had become fast and familiar friends and the time was ripe, she said to her, “Now you’ve taught me something valuable, something, in fact, that I’ve always wanted to know. I’m going to return the favor, I’m going to teach you to read and write, so that you can write to your son in Washington, and the one in Indiana and the one in Illinois. I know how glad they’ll be to have letters from their mother’s own hand, and how glad you’ll be to read letters from them.”

While she was speaking, she was placing the material in the old woman’s hands, and, almost before she knew it she was copying “E” the first letter in her name.

One morning shortly afterward, that little teacher knocked at my door; I opened and she entered. Without a word, but with shining eyes, she laid that old woman’s first letter on my desk.