The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-06
Moonlight Schools

What is a moonlight school?
 That is the question asked by any mum Der of the visiting teachers in looking over the programme for yesterdays ad- dresses. There were all sorts of vague Ideas floating around and each person had different answer to the question: But last night at the Jefferson theatre Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, president of the Kentucky Educational association answered the question In full and brought | before the thousands of visitors an idea or the moonlight schools that was en- trely different than the popular belief
 The idea is heroic in saving the many illterate whites of the mountainous dis tricts of Kentucky and giving them the | blessing of education. Thought of on the spur of the moment, the idea of a moon- light school Is ono that will no doubt be copied throughout the entire world, for it is the direct means of reaching the unfortunate older people who have been brought up without the knowledge of the A, B, Cs
 In her address at the Jefferson theatre last night Mrs. Stewart. who. by the way, Is the first woman ever elected president of the Kentucky Educational assocla- ton and who is direct descendant of Robert E. Lee on the paternal side and Jefferson Davis on the maternal side, described the innovation of moonlight education as follows:
 MT. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
 Moonlight schoolsl This subject may have provided you with some material for speculation Whether you have conjured up a vision of children studying, recit- ing, seampering and playing in the noon l light, or whether you have imagined | moonlight schools to be ideal courting schools, where lovers sighed, made vows, quoted poetry repeated the old, old story and strolled arm in arm, while the moon looked on with her bewitenmg, approV- ing smile; or whether you have fancied them to be schools where moonshiners, youthful and aged, were trained in the most scientific methods of extracting juice from the corn, and the most secretlye one or disposing of if to avoid govern men interference. l cannot conjecture The term will admit of many different conceptions 1t is true. But moonlight schools, as I shall deal with them this evening, are none of these They are schools where men and women grown tall in stature and nature in years, but children yet in the requirement of llnowl- edge where men and women bnrdened oppressed and humiiated by the enslaved condition of ignorance may Wend their way by the light of the bright and bene- hcient moon, and may yet grasp oppor- tdhity may yet revive hope, may yet Jpiii III Ailt iiflItl OI progress and be- come free and independent and useful citizens,
 Their Origin
 Moonlight schools had their origin. not In any foreign land, but in Amer ica, the land of the free and the home of the brave and yet in the land where many thousands of It's citizens are in bondage and have never tasted inde- pendence in it's highest truest sense. and many of it's teachers have not had the courage to make a faithful determined ef- fort to emancipate these unfortunates Moonlight schools had their origin. not In the east, where the standard of educa- ton Is SO high; nor in the north, where advantages are so superior: nor in the west. where progress goes at a galoplng pace, but they originate in the south where we are already said to have the advantage of the favoritism of the sun. and where the provisions and advantages or such schools are, doubtless, destined to apply more generally than to any other section. It seems but fair and just in the equation of things, that moonlight schools should have had their origin where moonshine stills had fourished and that among the very people where the moon had been misappropriated her power for usefulness and for the upllft of hu- manity should be discovered and applied
 III nIdhlHS lH6 ITSl experiment II was the will of Providence which in spires and directs every earnest ef- fort that the experiment should not be made on the plain or in the val ley or anywhere on the level. where conditions were most favorable and equipment adequate, and where roads were so smooth and safe that distance was no barrier to effort, but 1t was destined to be tried out in the monu- tains, where rugged roads, high hills steep decliYities, bridgeless streams. a tired and toll worn people, extreme pov- erty and all the barriers that could ex- ist or might arise to defeat plan or to brand 1t as impracticable or impos- sible could present themselves at once In one solid phalanx. Then those in the mountains could uever declare such schools but adapted to the lowlands and those in the valley would not shame themselves by declaring 1t was an un- dertaking too difficult for them
 Assured of Permanency