xt74qr4nkk1p https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt74qr4nkk1p/data/mets.xml Stewart, Cora Wilson, 1875-1958 1911  books b92-261-31826170 English s.n., : [Houston, Tex. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Education Kentucky. Evening and continuation schools Kentucky. Address of Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart before the Southern Educational Association, Houston, Texas, December 1, 1911  / Cora Wilson Stewart. text Address of Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart before the Southern Educational Association, Houston, Texas, December 1, 1911  / Cora Wilson Stewart. 1911 2002 true xt74qr4nkk1p section xt74qr4nkk1p 



















           AiDDRESS

              (F


MRS. C(ORA WILSON STEWART


           EIFORE THE


 Southern Educational Association


        Houiston, Texas

        D)ECEMBER 1. 1911

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-1-1. -1-1- - .... -.

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      The Twenty-Second Annual Convention of the Southern Educational
Association came to a close at the City Auditorium last night, and was
universally pronounced the most successful ever held in the Association's
history. As one of the leaders phrased it, "A new epoch for education ill
the South was begun here during the sessions of the convention," and on
all sides were expressions embodying just this sentiment.
      Dr H L. Whitfield, the president-elect. just prior to the close of the
final session, sounded the note which seemed to be in the air, when he said
that what was now needed was for the teachers to go back to their re
spective fields and do the things they had been talking about during the
convention. The applause with which this was greeted showed that there
were others who felt the same way about it.
    A large number of the delegates left last night for their respective
homes, and more will leave this Umorning. A number of them took ad-
vantage of the opportunity to visit Galveston before leaving this section
and went by excursion to that city yesterday.

                      Four Generations at School
      Athwart the gloom that characterized the attitude of the earlier
speakers of the Southern Educational Association, a clear rift broke at the
morning session yesterday. Through it shone the famous silvery moon-
shine of Kentucky playing an entirely new role from that for which that
Kentucky element has achieved renown in the past.
    In distinct contrast to the Jerimiac lamentations of those who occupied
the earlier programs, Msrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, mountain superintendent
and president of the Kentucky Educational Association, delivered a mes-
sage of reassurance. More than reassurance, her address bore a burden of
optimistic outlook, and promised the salvation of the country from the
afore described decadent tendencies of civilization through the sturdy,
untainted Anglo-Saxon and Norman strains of blood preserved in the
mountains of her State.
      She was introduced as the only school superintendent who had placed
night classes in every school in the county.
      The county she represents contains forty-five such night schools,
held every moonlit night in the year and attended simultaneously in some
instances by four generations  At some of these schools, she said, grand-
parents, bowed and gray, study at the same desks that their grandchildren
and great grandchildren worked during the sa-e day.
      While in other parts of the country, she said, people have to be
forced through legislative acts to take education, the mountaineers of Ken-
tucky press eagerly forward after it.
      She exhibited instances where adults had learned to read and write
within two weeks' and a month's time.
      With a graceful style and charm of manner she drew a pleasing pic-
ture, Though nothing sad was told, there was a sweetness of thought,

 






tone and delivery that caused eyes to water over the large assemblage of
hearers.
      The general topic of discussion was the education of the mountain
child.
      "The mountain child," she said, "so lone isolated and retarded, so
long enslaved by poverty and ignorance, so long inmprisoned betweeni high
hills and bridgeless streams, has miissed much in the march of civilization,
but has preserved the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and has guthered
strength to fit him for a development more rapid than the world has ever
witnessed.

                  Wonderfully Interesting Characters
      "He stands out before the world to-day a creature wonderfully in-
teresting in his possibilities for development and wonderfully pathetic and
appealing in his lack of opportunity, His intellect has never been weaken-
ed by wines, alcohol or dissipating narcotics, his perception has never been
dulled by the glitter and glare and tush of the niotey-mad world, and his
blood has never been infused with the sluggish, impure blood cf alien
races.
      "Commensurate with these natural advantages, a new and distinct
and powerful type of citizen will enter the arena of America's activities and
America's achievements to measure his abilities against those who have
inherited generations of culture and to add his quota of greatness and use-
fulness to the nation's citizenship.'
      Irs. Stewart pictured the mounstaitn child as inherently upright and
hottest, with atl inbred contenipt for pettiness of all kinds. The boy who
cheats in the mountain school, she said, is promptly batnished by his fellows.
      Her description of the new work being done itt KeutttekN was its-
tetisely interesting. The people, she said, were the dlescendetits of the best
blood of the earlier colonists, at.d inherit all their stalwart characteristics.
Antong them are poets swhso catt not reduce their ballahls to writing, and
orators who would thrill arty assembly of cultured people itt the costntry,
who are illiterate.
      Mrs. Stewart was preceded by P'rof J. C. T. NuOe, of Lexington, dean
of education of the Kentucky State Utniversity.
                                               -lfouslon P/st.

 














   THE CHAIR: It is with great pride and pleasure that
I present the next speaker, who is a Kentucky product, a
"live wire" of the Kentucky mountains. I have often
thought that if she in her environment can do great things,
how much more should we, who live in so much better
environment, accomplish. Her environment is to that of
yours what Helen Kellar's is to the normal child. The lady
whom I shall introduce to you is the only County Superin-
tendent in the United States who has established night
schools in every school of her county. In these schools
men and women students from 21 to 86 years of age have
learned to read and write. Last year more than 1,200 of
these older students attended the night schools.
    I now take great pleasure in introducing to you Mrs.
Cora Wilson Stewart, Superintendent of Rowan County,
Kentucky, who also has the honor of being President of the
Kentucky Educational Association. (Applause.)
    Mrs. Stewart held the closest attention of the large
audience during the presentation of the following paper, the
reading of which was frequently interrupted by applause.


    THE EDUCATION OF THE MOUNTAIN CHILD
          MRS. CORA WILSON STEWART, MOREHEAD, KY.
    The mountain child, so long isolated and retarded, so
long enslaved by poverty and ignorance, so long imprisoned
between high hills and bridgeless streams, has missed much
in the march of civilization; but has preserved the purity
of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and has gathered strength, fresh-
                                                       4

 



ness and receptiveness which fit him today for a develop-
ment more rapid than the world has ever witnessed. He
stands out before the world today a creature wonderfully
interesting in his possibilities for development, and won-
derfully pathetic and appealing in his lack of opportunities.
    His intellect has never been weakened by wines or dis-
sipating narcotics; his perceptions have never been dulled
by the glitter and glare and rush of a money-mad world,
and his blood has never been infused with the sluggish,
impure blood of alien races. When opportunities are added
commensurate with these natural advantages, a new and
distinct and powerful type of citizen will enter the arena
of America's activities and America's achievements, to
measure his abilities against those who have inherited gen-
erations of culture, and to add his quota of greatness and
usefulness to the nation's citizenship.
    An analysis of the character of an individual may guide
us in determining his worthiness, his needs and his possi-
bilities. Heredity, that powerful agent which, though it
may not fix a destiny against all environment, may invest
a character with such qualities of true greatness as will
forbid contentment with an inferior sphere, has lavished
upon the mountain child qualities of honesty, pride, origin-
ality, ambition, loyalty and reverence.
    Honesty is one of the most pronounced characteristics
of the mountain child. His contempt for dishonesty, in any
form, is always strongly manifested. The boy who cheats
in a mountain school is promptly banished from the play-
ground, an outcast from the associations and good offices of
his fellows; while the one who fights and conc uers is
eulogized and worshipped as a hero. And when the moun-
tain boy becomes a mountain man, it is because of this same
overwhelming contempt for dishonesty that he has earned
the reputation as juror for sending to the penitentiary the
man who has stolen a hog, while he oftentimes exonerates
the one who has taken human life. Locks and keys are
superfluous attachments on the doors of mountain homes.
Public sentiment is sufficiently strong to bar all attempt at
theft, and robbery is, in that country, a thing unknown.
The mountain child, backed by generations of honest men
and women and having the abomination for dishonesty so
strongly inbred, absolutely will not compromise wvith it in
5

 


any of its forms, whether it be petty thieving or legalized
graft. For this trait alone, his development would mean
much to a world which so much needs men, honest men.
        "'IMen who., the lust of office does not kill;
        Men whom the greed of office cannot buy:

        Men who possess opinions and a will;
          Men who can stand before a demagogue
          And scorn his flatteries, without winking;
          Tall men, sun crowned, who live among the fog
          In public duty and in private thinking

    The pride of the mountain child has militated somewhat
against his higher development, as well as against his pres-
ent welfare and comfort. Alms he will not accept, even
when confronted with dire straits of poverty and suffering.
Well did the author of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine"
conceive this trait in the character of little June Tolliver,
and well did he conceal John Hale's charity to her under
the guise of a payment of a debt for her father's coal lands;
for had he presented her as accepting charity knowingly
and willingly, his characterization would have been both
unjust and untrue. An example of this pride was wit-
nessed recently by a teacher in a mountain district school
in one of the poorer sections. The teacher, wishing to in-
culcate a lesson in charity, and to instill into her pupils the
true Christmas spirit, announced that the school would close
with a Christmas tree, from which gifts would be dis-
tributed to the poor children, and to the poor alone. The
announcement was received without comment or demon-
stration, but when the hour arrived for a distribution of
the gifts, all little hands were folded and every child sat
with eyes blazing with indignation, and lips set with deter-
mination; and sweets and fruits and glittering toys, so
tempting an appeal to childish hearts the world over, were
promptly and positively refused, for not one would confess
himself in a class more dependent than his neighbor. The
mendicants of the nation, if mendicants it must have, will
have to come from the low lands; the pride of the mountain
child will save him forever from that class.
    The originality of the mountain child has provided more
than one author with a cherished theme, and has led a read-
ing public into a new and delightful field of literature; and
                                                         6

 



yet it is a subject which has scarcely been touched, and
affords today a rare and prolific field for some gifted writer
of child stories. Untrammeled by the world's customs, and
having but a limited knowledge of its books, he is one cf the
freest and most independent of thinkers. His originality
stamps every crude composition, every invention, every
utterance, and every effort as something different from the
hackneyed phrases and efforts employed by the masses of
children of this age. It is a delight to read of the sayings
and doings of an original child; but it is better to develop
and utilize him, and to apply his originality to the science,
art. literature and invention of the world.
    Ambition and loyalty, two well-known traits of the
mountain child, have already been too widely advertised by
his fathers. Not to blood-thirstiness must be attributed
the feuds which have arrayed clan against clan, but to a
loyalty which knows no satisfaction in giving or requiring
less than life itself, and to an ambition which prefers
notoriety to obscurity, condemnation to oblivion, and which
accepts the world's scorn rather than escape the world's
notice. The call of the feud is but the call of this ambition
-an ambition to achieve, to excel, to display his prowess,
to overcome; or the call of a loyalty which has threaded
itself down to him through the generations from his early
ancestors, the Scottish clansman. Such an ambition, pro-
perly directed, might mean an achievement of no inferior
order; and such loyalty under cultivation, may become sup-
port of church, organization, State or nation so unswerving
that neither need fear his desertion, treason, or failure of
duty.
    Whatever may be said of the ignorance of the mountain
child, he is wiser than many learned men in his knowledge
of God. Religious fervor and reverence for his Creator are
instincts as lasting within him as his immortal soul. Men
of affairs and large responsibilities may feel that they can
assume and direct such without invoking divine aid and
guidance; but The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come knows
that when he is "only a boy" and must rise to the occasion
"and ack like a man," it will require the sustainirg power
of the Omnipotent. The mountain child is devout in the
days of his youth, and among his fathers you will find no
atheists.
7

 


    The tastes, talents and inclinations of the individual
should guide us somewhat, too, in his training for higher
usefulness.  TLe mountain child is by nature poetical.
What the child of the plains accepts as a matter-of-fact
occurrence, the child of the hills invests with mystery and
charm and weaves into crude rythmical verse or ballad.
His teacher can witness that the mountain child is a poet;
that he turns with indifference from prose to read poetry
with delight; that the preparation of prose composition is
regarded by him as a hardship, while the same subject will
be presented in verse with ease and often excellence.
"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" has many a counterpart
among the hills. Not only romance and tragedy, but even
trivial neighborhood occurrences and peculiarities are suffi-
cient to inspire descriptive ballad or verse. The ballad is,
in fact, his weapon of ridicule and again, his instrument
of eulogy. These compositions may deal with subjects as
sublime as love or war, or as ridiculous as the teacher's
faults and frailties. Even letters in rhyme and poetic sub-
scriptions are not rare among the first communications of
mountain boys and girls.
    Oratory is one of his richest gifts, there being many a
Cicero and Demosthenes among the hills whom even illit-
eracy cannot chain to silence. If he finds no other avenue
for the practice and display of this talent, frequently he
seeks the pulpit of a certain sect which welcomes unlearned
men as ministers, and permits six or eight speakers to
address an audience at one sitting, and there he displays
this natural oratory which fills and inspires him. Not a
dearth of speakers, but an overabundance of them may be
found in certain mountain counties. In some counties there
are very few men who will not attempt to express their
views or to preach or deliver an oration before an audience;
and a child omitted from the school exhibition program is
a child deprived, insulted and outraged.
    There are sufficient distinct characteristics and talents
of the mountain child to occupy a discussion of greater
length than the time allotted to this; but there are other
conditions of equal importance to the child and to those
who may be interested in his development.
    If there be one who can surpass the mountain child in
wealth of character and in brilliance and originality of mind,
                                                           8

 


there is none who can equal him in the insatiate desire for
knowledge. As one long starved eats ravenously, the
mountain child, long deprived of opportunity, embraces it
with unusual and astounding avidity. More than a child-
like curiosity must be satisfied by all with whom he comes
in contact. Every visitor is converted into an instructor,
and subjected to an examination or quiz. This remarkable
curiosity is not the only symptom of an eager, hungry mind;
for such brave and heroic efforts have been made by moun-
tain girls and boys in their struggle for an education as
would entitle them to an honored page in education's his-
tory. These incidents have never graced the pages of the
newspapers, however, which have devoted so much space to
his fathers' vendettas.
    For instance, journalism, one of the most crowded and
exacting professions, did not appear too difficult for one
little mountain couple, brother and sister, age 10 and 12;
so they started a little newspaper, styled 'The Young
Mountaineer". Having no equipment but a few galleys of
discarded type, they used a picture frame for a chase, and
wedged in the type with sticks, and published for several
years this crude little sheet to defray their expenses in
school.
    One mountain girl, living on a cliff twelve milEs from
any settlement, having no available means, and desiring a
college education, set herself up in competition with the
great hosiery factories of the world and knitted socks at
twelve and a half cents a day, and laid her hard-earned
fund at the shrine of education.
    Another girl, being denied employment in a college
town in any position requiring the services of a girl, sacri-
ficed her womanliness and her pride, over-reached her
strength and endangered her health by masquerading in
masculine attire and assuming the sterner, severer duties
of a boy. She had worked her way almost through school
when her identity was discovered, and she was forced to
retreat; and there was not a student in her class which stood
in scholarship above or equal to her.
    One other incident, a mountain boy in North Carolina,
learning that there was scholarship to be secured in a school
in the Kentucky hills, set out a-foot at once to claim the
coveted prize. He did not halt or hesitate, was not deterred
9

 


by distance or danger, but braved alone every peril of the
mountain fastness, and endured every hardship of its rough
and rugged road, and walked into the school with bare and
bleeding feet, but a happy heart, to claim the cherished
opportunity.
    Such incidents as these, and others equally as signifi-
cant, exonerate the mountaineer forever of the charge that
he is indifferent concerning education, or that he is content
or satisfied with his present condition. These incidents all
occurred within a small area; to enlarge the area and to ex-
tend the acquaintance with the mountain child, will but pro-
duce more overwhelmingly convincing evidence. The cause
of education has nowhere, indeed, so faithful an advocate
and follower as the mountain child, the goddess, Minerva,
has no subject so loyal and adoring worshipping at her
shrine. His allegiance to her should surely be rewarded by
her prompt and hearty recognition of him. There are races
and classes which have to have education forced upon them.
To force education upon the indifferent and the self satisfied,
while the most eager, hungry-minded children of the nation
cry for learning, is like taking bread from the starving and
forcing it upon the satiated. This organization, which is
pledged to the advancement of the cause of education in the
South, does well today to consider the thousands of children
within its Appalachian region. It does well to remember
who these children are-not the descendants of the African,
the Mongolian, or other inferior races, but the sons of the
Clays, the Jacksons, the Lees, the Marshalls, and all the
nobility of the South; boys and girls, who, like little Chad,
have kinsmen in the valleys more distinguished, but none
more proud and honorable.
    Who and what the mountain child is-his abilities and
ambitions are easier to outline than a proper and adequate
course of instruction suitable to his needs and environment.
His educational advantages, if equal in provision to those
of other children, must necessarily be limited by the topo-
graphy and climatic conditions of his country; for when the
short term public school is efficient, the child is deprived of
much of the session, for even the rain, which blesses flock
and field, renders mountain roads impassable and swells the
bridgeless streams between the mountain child and the
school.
                                                        10

 


    Faithful and efficient service on the part of the road
builder seems as necessary a condition in the education of
the mountain child, as faithful and efficient service on the
part of the school teacher, The educational advantages of
the masses of mountain children lie entirely in the short-
term public schools. Denominational institutions, scattered
here and there. have afforded for the last quarter of a cen-
tury superior advantages to some, and in several Southern
States high schools have been established, which add to the
advantages of those who live adjacent to the town, or can
overcome poverty and ignorance sufficiently to reach and
attend them. Even the institutions which he has, in fact,
are not always accessible, and will never be until he has
overcome to some extent the handicaps of poverty and rug-
ged roads.
    Good roads, longer and more efficient elementary schools,
with a more practical course of study, efficient secondary
schools with industrial departments, separate and well-
equipped industrial institutions, all have their part to play
in his education. Being more poetical than practical, he
needs the balance of industrial training. He needs to have
his ideals readjusted-the best and truest retained, the
lowest and most pernicious elevated or destroyed. He needs
industrial training, not merely as a balance and a force of
readjustment, but as an avenue of escape, emancipation
from pauperism to prosperity, from ignorance to intel-
lectuality.
    His course of study needs to be altered to meet his con-
dition and environment. Instead of the mathematics of the
stock exchange, the shipyard and the clearing-house, he
needs the mathematics of the field, the forest and the mine;
it will do him no harm to ascertain the boundaries of Liberia
or Manchuria, to read Cicero or Caesar, provided he also
learns the elements of the soil beneath his feet, "which
lifts bread to him and roses sweet". He had better know
how to discover the secret wealth of the hills than to know
the greatest depth of the Atlantic Ocean; should know how
to live in contentment, comfort, peace and prosperity among
the hills, as well as to recount the world's famous battles
and to enumerate its most successful generals. He should
be taught, not only how to construct a correct English
sentence, but how to convert each tree into its highest use,
11

 


whether for shelter, fruit or shade; and how to use each
furrow of the soil in his valleys and on his hillsides to their
adapted purpose. He may scan poetry with profit, but with
greater profit could learn to scan the secret wealth of the
hills, to drag forth and enrich himself with their hidden
treasures. Practical education and industrial training will
not woo him from his higher ambitions nor prevent him
from reaching higher attainments; they will only assist him
to greater achievements.
    The crying needs of the hour in the Southern mountains
are industrial training for the young mountain child, and
some provision for -at least the rudiments of an education
for the adult, those mentioned by one speaker previously as
being "children in the acquirement of knowledge", and I
will add, not merely in the lack of knowledge, but in their
childish eagerness for it, as well. While I would not add to
the burdens of the already over-burdened South, I must
declare it my conviction that we are responsible for the
development of more than its Appalachian youth; we are
responsible, too, for the education of his father and his
mother. There is in the mountainous section of the South
as great demand for intellectual development among those
who have passed youth's golden age without having shared
youth's opportunities and glory, as ever burned in the
breasts of any unfortunate, retarded people. Even if these
people were resigned to their fate, would it be good political
economy to overlook and neglect them, and shall the South
wait for its highest achievement and recognition, its greater
glory and completer culture, until this people of remarkable
vigor and longevity live out their quarter or half century in
ignorance and die  But, I wish to emphasize the fact that
they are not resigned; that the hearts of these adult moun-
tain children throb with a yearning for intellectual freedom
as great as filled the hearts of our forefathers for civic and
religious freedom. Whatever may have been the experi-
ences of others who are engaged in mountain work, whether
they have been confronted with the startling evidences of
this demand, I do not know; but to me it has appealed with
overwhelming force.
    In response to this great need, we have answered to
some degree in Kentucky with an experiment, already men-
tioned by the President of this Association, as "the rural
                                                        1 2

 


night school," or "moonlight school". Before I relate the
history of that experiment, may I take you into my con-
fidence and relate the specific incidents, personal experi-
ences which enlightened me as to the necessity of providing
some educational facilities for adult mountaineers.
    Mollie McGlothin, a mountain woman, bent with age,
came into my office one morning, fondling a letter tenderly.
Her daughter had grown up and secured an education, had
gone to Chicago and engaged in business. Her letters were
the one bright spot in the old woman's existence, and the
drafts which they contained were often the only means of
relieving her present necessities. When a letter came, she
usually went to the home of some neighbor and engaged
their services to interpret its precious contents. Occasion-
ally she came to town, some seven miles, to enlist my ser-
vices, and I anticipated that such was her mission on this
occasion. "A letter from Jane!" I exclaimed. '"Shall I
read it for you, Mollie " Her face fairly beamed. "No,"
she replied, "I have learned to read and write, and am
going to answer it myself." "Learned to read and write!"
I exclaimed in astonishment. Why, only a month ago she
was ignorant of the significance of the slightest literary
character. I questioned her and drew from her this simple
story:  "Well, sometimes the neighbors were busy and
sometimes the cricks were up, and I got tired, anyway,
runnin' round botherin' the neighbors, and, then, I jist
wanted to read with my own eyes what Jane had writ with
her own hand, so I went to the store and got me a speller,
and I sot up till midnight at night, and sometimes till day-
light until I larned to spell and read and write." And to
verify the statement, she spelled out slowly the words of
her daughter's treasured missive; and then, under my di-
rection, she sat down and wrote her first letter, an achieve-
ment which delighted her beyond all expression, and which
must have delighted Jane more.
    A few months later a prepossessing mountain man of
middle age came into my office, and while waiting for me to
dispatch some other business fingered several books wist-
fully, turning them over and over again, and laying them
down at last with a sigh. Knowing the scarcity of inter-
esting books throughout the country, I inquired whether he
wished to take one home with him to read, and he replied
13

 


with tears in his eyes, "No, I cannot read or write. I would
give twenty years of my life if I could."
    Again, a short time afterward, at a school entertainment
in the country, a tall six-foot sturdy handsome mountain
lad of twenty-one, stepped out and, without embarrassment
and with great force and power, sang a long and interesting
ballad, partly original and partly borrowed from his English
ancestors. When he sat down I went over and took a seat
beside him, and said, "Dennis, I should be pleased if you
would write me a copy of that ballad. It is worthy of pub-
lication." He replied, "I would if I could write. I have
thought up a hundred of them, some better and longer than
that, but I forget them before I could get somebody to write
them down."
    Each of these incidents were impressive; together they
were overwhelming. Opportunities must be provided for
them, but how  The day schools were already crowded,
and the mountain people must employ every hour of the
day, anyway, in toil to eke out an existence. Then came
the inspiration, "the rural night schools," or "moonlight
schools", as we have designated them, because they were
conducted on moonlight nights, when travel along steep
and rugged roads was not so hazardous. I gathered the
teachers around me, outlined the plan, called for volun-
teer service, and without any difficulty enlisted them
heart and soul in the cause. On Labor Day, September 4th,
the teachers observed as a real Labor Day, by walking
over their districts, explaining the plan and announcing the
opening, which was to occur the following evening. The
demand was great; the teachers knew it and I knew it, and
we confidently expected that there would be an average of
two or three pupils to each teacher, making perhaps 150
adult pupils in the county; but we never knew how great it
was until the doors opened and the school bells rang out
for the first moonlight schools in America, when twelve
hundred boys and girls, ranging in age from eighteen to
eighty-six, came trooping up out of the hollows and over the
hills, some to receive their first lesson in reading and writ-
ing, and some to improve their limited education. Illiterate
merchants who had been in business for years, ministers
who had been attemping to lead their flocks along paths of
                                                        1 4

 


righteousness, lumbermen who had engaged in commerce
without having in their possession the keys of learning
which would most successfully unlock its doors, took ad-
vantage of the opportunity, and actually learned to read
and write. Mothers came that they might learn to write
letters to their precious sons and daughters in distant lards;
fathers came that they might learn to read and write suffi-
ciently to exercise the divine right of suffrage with secrecy
and security. They came with different aims and purposes,
but, after all, inspired by the one great aim -the escape
from the bondage of ignorance and the stigma of illiteracy.
Almost one-third of the population of one little county was
enrolled, and it was a county which contained no greater
proportion of illiterates than many others in the South, both
lowland and highland. They had all the excuses and all the
barriers which any people might offer-high hills, bridgeless
streams, rugged roads, weariness from the day's hard toil,
the shame of beginning study late in life, and all the others;
but they were not seeking excuses - they were sincerely and
earnestly seeking knowl