Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1915-02-02

President Kentucky Iliteracy Commission, Before the
Kentucky Press Association, at Its Mid-Wnter Meet
Ing, December 20, 1914.
established and properly organized

, established and properly organized
Many pei s)ns have been reache
by individual instruction. making
beginning under the direction of tn
teacher at home, and some have beef
made more thorough after the session
closed by continuing under the 10
struction OF the teacher privately
Many former teachers have enlisted
to instruct one privately. severa
lawyers have volunteered TO teach II
literate clients. a few women have
volunteered to teach in their homes
and school children in some case'
have enlisted to teach one or more
So gradually we are securing and
will secure from these ranks und 9TH
ers force for picket duty.
In several jai s in the State. classes
of illiterstes are being taught. and
this work is to be extended to all the
jails. The Reformatory at Frankfort
has passed resolution that none
shall leave its walls illiterate and in
struction is now being provided for
all iliiterate inmates.
A beginning has been made in
some of the mining camps in the
State, and the milling districts have
been invaded.
The speakers campaign soon to be
launched next by the Kentucky Hit
carey Commission is one in which one
hundred and twenty of the states
men. educators and talented orators,
men and women Of the State. will
join iu a campaign of oratory against
illiteracv.
There are, perhaps, but two dam
gers to the campaign against Hitter
acy in so far as it's interest lie in the
support of the press. The one is that
the press may grow inert before the
task is accomplishe d, and the other
that it may dilute or weaken its eff.
forts by adding too many other feat
ures and other phases of the same
subject. There are persons who
would overshadow or mir irnize this
movement by attaching to or confus-
ing with it sundry and divers 9th.
er things pertaining to school work,
who would belittle it by assuming it
an incident to something else or by
recognizing in it only a means to
some other long-desired and unreal
lied end. 1t is incident to nothing,
but is scheme and plan and effort
all in itself. 1t is a means to no end,
orly the one for which it was design
ed-the eradication of adult litter
acy.
The moonlight school is for the 3D.
ucation of adults. The iIliteracy
campaign is for the purpose of eman-
cipating illiterates. to give them
their freedom and power, to fill their
barren lives with hope and joy and
beauty and usefulness. 1t is to af-
ford them an opportunity at what
ever age they choose to seek it, and
If they do not choose to seek it all. to
induce or persuade or allure them,
1t is to convert the waste materialin
citizenship into intelligent. useful,
disable msterisl. Ii is to educate, not
ten or twenty years hence, but i'm
mediately. for better homes, better
ballots, better roads. better bust
ness. 1t is for the purpose of placing
pen in every hand. to give express
sions to thoughts long repressed, and
to place a newspaper and good books
in every home, to give the inmates
new ideals and broader conception
of life. The 208. 084 men and women
who have eyes to see and see not and
who have hands to write but write
not. and perhaps 208,OS4 more who
read but poorly and write but labor
iously. are to be the immediate ben
efciaries Of this movement. but in
the end. as after effects, it should
bring the antagonistic and the irdii.
ferent into sympathetic and intelli-
gent cooperation with the school.
should increase the attendance and
promote regularity of attendance.
should create demands for more ef-
ficient schools and a stronger com.
pulsory school law. should make il.
literacy appear a calamity when un-