The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-06
ENORMOUS CROWD
 AT NIGHT SESSION
 OF THE EDUCATORS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5


 thousand deprivations in the individuals so hampered, is appalling enough and sufficient. 1t seems. to arouse anyone to action; but when spec,sc incidents, pa thetic and appealing m their nature, are brought forcfbly to ones attention. they more than all the abstract knowl- edge demand a remedy and hasten ac- tion.
 Did any one of you ever have an aged mother como to ,ou with let ter in her hand from an absent son or daughter and an expression of long ing on her face which your best elo- cutionary efforts could not satisfy, and did you ever watch her countenance as you attempted to interpret the com munication which meant so much to her, but which she was powerless to decipher. and have you noted on her | face the baffled, mystif1ed unsatisfied l expression? Did you ever have a. tall and handsome promising youth. fit for | soldier or statesman, .r even for school | teacrer, whose every feature was ex- pressive of the highest intelligence
 quote poetry, sing ballads of his own composition, and when you have, In your imagination, followed him through a wonderful career, you have been in- ] formed by him in a sorrowful tone that hundreds of such productions have been lost to him and to the world because he could not write them down? Did you ever offer a tall, manly, proud, pre- possessing man pencil to sign his name and have him shake his head and confess in an apologetic, humil- lated way his inability to write, and have you ever watched him make the picture of that shameful burden and cross he carries-X, his mark? If you have never had any of these experi- ha fI1II ah fo realize the heed of moonlight schools.
 Directed to Day Schools
 'In puzzlng over the problem of bring ing relief to the thousands of mothers who are cut off from their beloved absent ones, and to the thousands of fathers who are deprived of the privilege Of intelligent suffrage and the delight of books, and 10 the thousands of youths and maidens whose rare talents are buried under the blight of illit9yacy, our attention was first directed to the day schools But there were several serious drawbacks to utiliz- ing them for the purpose-the overcrowd- ing of children, the oyertaxing of teach CTS, and the fact that illiterates, more | than any others, are chained to labor and must work by day to eSe out their
 bare existence. On q September evening | in 1900 the solution of the problem came - | the rural night schoo-and Immediately | following the thought came the spectre | doubt which always follows and tries to vanquish inspiration, and raised up an ob- | stacle in the form of dangerous. rugged
 roads, but just at that moment the moon
 came up over wonder hill and illuminated
 the earth showing every ptfall and prom thence in the road nearby, and making
 travel appear as safe as it coudl be dur ing the brightest light of day. IL was l the moons volunteer of her services,
 which were eagerly accepted. The ob-
 stacle vanished and doubt fled and there
 came no other to distress or hinder"
 Dr. Penniman Speaks
 Dr. Penniman was given close attention. | He said:
 Many of the purposes and ideals of education have changed from century to century, as new conditions have arisen ] In the relation of man to his physical surroundings and particularly of man in his relation to society. The preparation of men for the task of wrestling from their environment all that it can be made to yield for the benefit of the individual and the race. and of keeping in check influ- ences, of whatever kind, that would be harmful to the race, was not the same in the days of Socrates, for example, that it Is today
 ''The body of ascertained fact and truth with which man has to deal Is vastly greater than in the days of Socrates. The domination of the individual by the state and its gods resulted in education for cit izenship among the Greeks. The donina- tion of the individual by d corporate church made the chief aim of education religious. if not actually ecclesiastical in medieval Europe. The emancipation of the intellect and conscience of the in- dividual in the Renaissance overthrow deference to tradition simply as such and added to the world store of knowledge from sources from which knowledge had hardly before been sought. The spirit of curiosity, the desire to know more so characteristic of the Greek, reasserted itself after the Dark and Middle Ages as the spirit of enlightenment Such of the universities of Europe as antedate the Renaissance felt it's quickening infiu- ence. and other universities resulted from 1t. New subjects were taught-Greek took it's place beside Latin. which had reigned almost supreme. The individual studied not for the state. not for the church, but for the enrichment of his own life and that of others The largest views of life and its purposes resulted from the access sibility, in ordered courses of instruction, of all that the world knew. Alexander world conqueror, pupil of Aristotle was seen to be no more the ideal man than Diogenes, the cynic. The greatest end of education was to make men know. to make men think for themselves and show their knowledge and their power of in-