An incident in a trial for a capital offense, in Nashville, Tenn., is
thus spoken of in a news item:
A splendid, clean-looking young man was under examination
and Mr. Fitzhugh, of Memphis, of the prosecution, got to the
point of asking him which newspapers he had read at the time
of the Carmack killing. The talesman had testified that he
was thirty-one years old, a farmer, and the father of three
children. His answers had been bright and his face sparkled with
intelligence. But he hesitated when the interrogation concerning
the newspapers was put to him.
“I haven’t read any about it in the newspapers. We don’t take
any newspapers in our house. I--I kain’t read and I kain’t
write, but I can farm. I never got the show to go to school but
two or three days in all my life.”
A blush mantled his cheeks and for an instant there was a
glistening in his eyes, then, throwing back his head, he left
the witness-stand and marched out of the court-room, his
expression of defiance silencing the laughter of the unthinking
ones in the crowd. And this was only one of more than a score
of examples of illiteracy.
How many a life is thus handicapped. It is not a commendation of
parenthood that the child should thus be distinguished against in this
age of widespread learning. On the other hand, all honor is to be given
to the man who through diligent application in after life is able to
surmount the difficulty of scanty knowledge.
(1498)