Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1917-08-04

ito EIuWu udukhtrtt hio VNCtEIo"h
son, his father, his mother and his
hired mau.
First of all, It is school where men
and women may learn to read and
write, and, next, for those who are
already blest with these requirements,
but who desire to improve the edit
cation which they have.
When the, moonlight schools were
first established in all Of the school
houses in Rowan county, Ky, there
was much speculation as to whether
men and women on the farm-tired
and I-worn-would come ont to
school at night, even by moonlight
which makes walk enhancing. The
farmers and their families set iha
speculation at rest on the first even
ing, Sept. 5, 1911, and answered for
the rural people for all time. Instead
of the expected few. twelve hundred
came. In many dist les the moor
light schools were better attended
than the day school
The moonlight school is romantic in
name and in the rapidity with which
it takes men and women out Of the H.
literate class, but il is practical in pur-
p ,se and results. II purposes to re-
deem men and women from illiteracy,
and this it does so quickly as to seem
almost miraculous. was astonished
when a mother in Ro an county
wrote me her first letter after but two
weeks instruction and practice, but
so many have written since then, after
six or seven or eight evenings time,
that il makes her achievement seem
insignificant The moonlight school
has demonstrated that men and wo-
men can learn to read and write with
comparative ease, and that there is
less than a months time between any
normal illiterate who attempts to learn
and some degree Of erudition.
In Kentucky, the home Of the moon
light school, the legislature created an
illiteracy commission to promote ard
extend these schools to every section
OF the state Volunteer teachers con-
duct moonlight schools in mountains
and valleys, in schoolhouses, mills, |
mines, women's clubs, iails, peniten-
tiaries and distilleries. The public |
school teachers volunteered to teach |
all who will come, andl 90 to the
homes, or to send some assistant TO
such as cannot or will not come to
school. One young farmer, who had
never taught, gathered fourteen men
and boys together in ten-room house
and taught them to read and '@rite,
and then moved to the schoolhouse,
where better facilities were found.
Kentucky lis nearing the hundred
thousand mark in the number of illit-
crates redeemed and sounds with con-
fidence the slogan, mo illiteiacy in
Kentucky in 1920" Twenty-Five states
have moonlight schools and II have
illiteracy commissions to pros cute
with vigor statewide illteracy cam
paigns.
The moonlight school curriculum
contains more than reading, riting,
S }elling and arithmetic. It is woven
about agriculture, domestic science.
good roads, civics, health and santa
ton, and other things relating to :; rm
life. /
The moonlight school pupil reads,
from reader that tells of the advan-
tages of good roads. the disadvantage
es of bad ones, the need of spraying
fruit trees, building silos, raising pure
bred cattle, testing seed corn, rotating
and diversifying crops, the need of
banking, the value OF the newspaper, II
the tax system, and the privilege and
power of the ballot. They also read
OF varieties of ways to cook the COM {
mon vegetables, how to make good
bread and to cook meat, how to ex-
terminate the fly, why to let in sun
shine and fresh air, how to care for
the health, and the need of daily
bath. Z
This institution fills long-felt need
n the lives of the rural people. Any
who have imagined ambition confined I
o city folk, or night school a city