The Anderson daily intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson, S.C.) 1914-1915, 1914-03-07
Woman DrQUe
NOlGf IlEiterQcy

+ PrOt w. Is. Tate, state supervisor OF
education addressed the students. of
tho University of South Carolina on
Tuesday moSning on the annual con-
vention of the National Educational
association held at Richmond, from
which he has just returned. Prof. Tate
spent most OF his time telling of, how
Mrs. Stewart, woman superinten-
dent of education, almost completely
drove out flliteracy from Rowan Coun-|
ty, kantuckys ,G a
Rowan county is a mountain coun-
ty and when the census was taken
there previous to theFlast census, 81
Iper cent of illiteracy was discovered.
After that census was published, Mrs
Stewart declared in her own mind
then and there that by the timo the
next census came illiteracy should be
rooted out OF her county. She told
there were only II people in Tpwan
county who were unable to read and
write. As the result Of tho achieYe-
ment, Mrs. Stewart has earned unique
fame and has b29n asked to tell OF
her experiences in educational con
ventions and before teachers asso-
Citations all over the country. Prof.
Tate said.,an effort Is being made to
get Mrs. Stewart to coma TO the meet
ing of the, State Teachers association,
to be held in -SpaEtanburg Its spring,
Mrs. Stewards first ae 'pI looking
toward the stamping out of illitsracy
In RowanSenunty5 5wRs to call, together
all the teachers andcask, for their. cpz
1 ippesation.G AS soon as she found that
they pyF are elltauBi BiastfEa1 1tysi with, her
Ishe organized county night schools
throughout, the county which were to
Imeat only the weeks in the month
Yhen there was moonlight For this
reason the schools were called Moons
Hight; schoola in contradistinctiop to
the moonshtne institutions. OF the
country. Feeling sure that the atten-
4 dants IN tho schools would request
Iusing first grade primer, Mrs. Stew
art had the county newspaper. printed
!. in words OF one syllable end us
led that as text book. She offered as
iprizes books to ali. those who wailt
BIZ able to read them and she stated
that she. gave away many hundreds
OF volumes during her Experiment.. Her
Oldest pupils were tive men 81 and SO
.Iycars old, respectively. and, she ex-
/ hibitcd letters at the convention that
each of them had recently written. 4
| At first many of the older people
were firmly set against the new
book lafningfi apd jipped ana jeeFed
their ,neighbors for trying to "git edr
! dieated.P butqso many of their fris1ds
lleft them lonesome and, went on, to
the night schools and as the. talk, OF
iitha neighborhopd was of nothing else
/ they finally began to feel, left out
aud SO they finally made their appear
/ ance in, the school halsa one by one.
4 Prof. Tate pointed cut sayeEaL copns
ities in this state which . accerding TO
tthe last census, reports showed SiS' and
] 20 per cent of ,tlie people who had TO
make their, mark. He said that he hop
Eod that many of the teachers IN this
lstata could be brought TO try the, eS-
pertinent Of Mrs, StewaIts's, The great
value of such an experiment, he point
! ed-pnt, was not the mere giving TO
those old people thu ability to write
Ito their grandchildren for the first
time, but Il was the fact that II chang.
led their attitude toward education,
and made them willing and anxious
I THAT their children should 90 70 the
ischpols. e