CHAPTER IX THE FIRST TEXT-BOOKS FOR ADULT ILLITERATES

Attractive and easy texts and school supplies for adults which would enable them to learn quickly and would stimulate them to further endeavor was a manifest need. The little newspaper had been valuable for a county campaign, but was not so easy to carry out for the State, with its varying conditions and its remote sections to be reached.

Someone had to provide the tools with which these men and women could dig their way out of the mental dungeon in which they were imprisoned. A reader was prepared for them and brought out as quickly as possible. The first lesson was:

Can you read? Can you write? Can you read and write? I can read. I can write. I can read and write.

This lesson contained but six words. It appealed to the ego, referring as it did to the student himself, and related to the activity in which he was, at the moment, engaged.

As the lessons progressed, farm improvement, good roads, civics, health, home economics, horticulture, sanitation and thrift were woven into them, and each lesson accomplished a double purpose, the primary one of teaching the pupil to read, and at the same time that of imparting instruction in the things that vitally affected him in his daily life. It was a correlation of subjects which, in adult education is even more necessary than in that of the child.

The lessons on the road, placed side by side, compared the advantage of the good and the disadvantage of the bad roads. The first was:

This is a road. It is a good road. It will save my time. It will save my team. It will save my wagon. The good road is my friend. I will work for the good road.

On the opposite page appeared this lesson:

See this bad road. It will waste my time. It will hurt my team. It will hurt my wagon. The bad road is my foe. I will get rid of the bad road.

The key-note sentence in each lesson appeared in script form at the bottom of the page and was to be copied by each student a number of times.

When a man has repeatedly written the sentence: “The good road is my friend. I will work for the good road,” and “The bad road is my foe. I will get rid of the bad road,” he becomes something of an advocate of good roads through suggestion, if through nothing else. The copying of the script sentences in the book pledged the student to progress and impressed upon him certain evils with fine psychological effect. In the reading lessons on voting, the key-note sentence to be copied was: “The man who sells his vote sells his honor.”

This type of copy which was carried throughout the book had, like the reading lessons, a double purpose; the necessary practice in writing and the dwelling on and emphasizing of some vital truth. These took the place of the axioms commonly used in the copy-books for day schools. Instead of writing, “Many men of many minds, Many men of many kinds,” these folk wrote, “I will build a silo,” “I will rotate my crops,” “It is a waste of time and money to raise scrub stock,” “We must protect the forest,” “I will take a newspaper and read it,” “I will keep my money in the bank.”

Taxation is the cause of much unintelligent complaint, and some enlightenment on the subject seemed worth while. One lesson read:

I shall pay my taxes. I pay a tax on my home. I pay a tax on my land. I pay a tax on my cattle. I pay a tax on my money. I pay a tax on many other things. Where does all this money go? It goes to keep up the schools. It goes to keep up the roads. It goes to keep down crime. It goes to keep down disease. I am glad that I have a home to pay taxes on.

The climax of this lesson was truly as much a surprise to the readers as any fiction. As they read of the many things on which they paid taxes and the query, “Where does all this money go?” they expected denunciation to follow, such as the demagogues revel in to confuse and inflame the minds of ignorant voters. Instead they found a reminder and an explanation of the benefits derived from wise and just taxation.

One page in the reader was consecrated to the tooth-brush, which was pictured at the top in all its pristine beauty. This lesson was as necessary in some places as the fire-drill is in the city schools.

One of our field workers had found on her visits to the different homes in a certain county that brushing her teeth was a performance viewed with wonder, and one that never failed to draw a crowd. At one place where the children of the household gathered round watching this performance one little girl let her curiosity get the better of her and called to her mother indoors, “Mother, what’s she adoin’?”

The mother answered in a humiliated tone, “Oh, hush, honey, she’s a brushin’ her teeth. When you git to be a school teacher you kin brush yours.”

The farmers were partial to the lessons on conservation of the soil such as, “Run and tell the farmer that the brook is stealing his soil”; the lumberman preferred the one on keeping down the forest fires, and so the different lessons appealed to different students. I had occasion to note their preferences when at the reading contests in various counties each student was permitted to choose the lesson that he would read.

In Cumberland County in a contest among the pupils of the colored moonlight schools, “Uncle Ike,” a great character among them, was given the honor of being the first to read. He mounted the platform with book open in hand and began the reading of a selection which seemed very appropriate.

I will take my bath every day. It will keep me fresh and sweet and clean.

In Clay County, another of the mountain counties, a large crowd of men and women gathered for a contest. Among them was a tall, lank, under-nourished man, who rose and with a look at his wife that carried indictment read this lesson with peculiar emphasis:

God made man. Woman makes bread. It takes the bread That woman makes, To sustain the man That God made. But the bread That some women make. Would not sustain any man That God ever made.

In the same contest a little woman with a baby in her arms rose to read and in a gracious manner worthy of a Frenchwoman said, “This is my favorite lesson,” and read the author’s letter to the pupils of the moonlight schools:

Frankfort, Ky. Nov. 5, 1915.

DEAR FRIENDS:

This little book was written especially for the dear boys and girls of the moonlight schools, not the youngest perhaps, but the finest school children on earth.

You have set a fine example for both young and old, and one which many will surely follow.

You have been faithful and have finished the first of the series of the Country Life Readers. The second is now ready for you, and the author hopes that you will read it with profit and pleasure.

The world has great need of men and women who read well and write well. These are two of the greatest arts, and remember that they can be acquired only by constant practice.

The preparation of this book has been truly a labor of love. If you have received any benefit from it, the author is fully repaid.

Yours sincerely, CORA WILSON STEWART.

This reader, known as the _Country Life Reader, First Book_, was followed by others in the series, but none could do for the illiterates what this first book did for them, and none to them would ever be so precious.

The reader ended, as did the later ones, with appropriate Bible selections. The climax of each book was a Thanksgiving hymn.

The Moonlight School Tablets in their outer appearance were blue with red binding, the identical color scheme of the old “blue-back speller,” which, to my mind, was one of the things that made that book so popular. Its cover of heavenly blue with the rich contrasting binding of scarlet prepossessed many a beginner in its favor before they had even opened the book and peeped inside.

The tablet contained, first, a white sheet of blotting paper into which the name of the student was to be written in indented letters a number of times, that his first writing exercise might be his name, the thing which he craved most to learn. Next, there were sheets of delicate pink, violet, yellow and green blotting papers filled with sunken letters which the students traced in grooves to gain form quickly, having already acquired facility of movement in their daily duties, by constant use of fingers for manual work. In this respect they had the advantage of the child who must learn movement as well as form, from the start.

These colored sheets with their sunken letters that kept the pencil in grooves while writing had a remarkable fascination for these people, many of whose lives were devoid of color and interest. Tracing in the grooves permitted of no awkward or straggling letters, and this was most encouraging to them. The remainder of this beginner’s tablet was composed of plain, smooth paper, widely spaced, on which they wrote the script copies from the _Country Life Reader_.

On their pencils was printed the slogan of the Illiteracy Campaign, so even these were useful for more than one purpose. One woman wrote, “I’ve read everything in my book and even what’s printed on my pencil.”

The moonlight schools have many lessons to teach besides reading and writing. Their message is broad and deep and high. What they teach is fittingly expressed in this poem of L. H. Bailey’s:

I teach The earth and soil To them that toil; The hill and fen To common men Who live right here.

The plants that grow, The winds that blow, The streams that run, In rain and sun, Throughout the year.

And then I lead Through wood and mead, Through mold and sod, Out unto God, With love and cheer, I teach!