The people clamored for the moonlight schools to open the next year.
They, and not the teachers, took the initiative and pressed the matter.
The teachers responded heartily.
Prior to the opening of the second session, a moonlight school
institute was held--the first institute for night school teachers
in America, if not in the world. The methods of teaching adult
illiterates, materials to use, ways and means of reaching the stubborn
and getting them into school and other things relative to the problem
of educating adults were discussed. Teachers were not compelled by law
to attend this institute, as they were the institute for day-school
work but, nevertheless, they did attend, paying their own expenses
during the session and participating more earnestly than they had
ever been known to participate in any other institute. They compared
their experiences of the previous session, and some cases of supreme
sacrifice and rare heroism were unconsciously revealed. Most of them
had succeeded with but little effort. They had but to meet the rising
tide of eager, hungry-minded adults who came rushing to the schools in
almost overwhelming numbers. Others had been misunderstood, but had
stemmed the buffeting waves of criticism and misunderstanding and,
after being tossed about, had ridden to success. None had failed--not
one, though some had been compelled to make two or three efforts
before they finally succeeded. One had tried it alone and failed, then
enlisted the children as recruiting officers and sent them far and wide
to gather in their elders, which they did with remarkable success.
One young woman--a perfect blend of the Scotch-Irish type--who was
teaching her first school when the moonlight schools were inaugurated
told her story with a twinkle in her eye that seemed to belie any
suggestion of hardships endured.
“I went to the school-house the first evening,” she said, “and nobody
came. I went the second and there was nobody there. I went the third,
fourth and fifth and still no pupils. I said, ‘I’m going to be like
Bruce and the Spider, I’m going to try seven times,’ and on the seventh
night when I got to the school-house I was greeted by three pupils.
Before the term closed I had enrolled sixty-five in my moonlight school
and taught twenty-three illiterates to read and write.” This, like
all the stories, was modestly told. No mention was made of the day
by day visits to the homes of illiterates, the long walks, the hours
on horseback, the earnest persuasion, the chill of disappointment
when waiting at the school-house alone. The Scotch determination was
revealed in the words, “I said I’m going to be like Bruce and the
Spider, I’m going to try seven times.” The twinkle of humor in her eye
was at the recollection, no doubt, of the schemes and designs by which
she had outwitted those illiterates and brought them into the school.
One youthful teacher was inclined to apologize for the few she had
enrolled and said, “I didn’t have as large a school as the others--just
four--but they were in earnest, and I did my best with them, and told
them I would teach as long as one of them would come,” and then she
added with an evident thrill of pride, “but I taught a preacher to read
and write, and that was something, wasn’t it?”
There was no lack of interest or enthusiasm on the part of the
volunteer teachers or their pupils, but there was a pitiful lack of
suitable text-books and school material for adults, which was voiced
many times during the institute as chief of their handicaps. The
little newspaper with its reading lessons and drills, a simple copy
book, arithmetic taught from the day-school text, these, supplemented
by whatever knowledge the teacher could impart or could draw from the
community, constituted our supply.
Out of that first institute for night-school teachers we emerged with,
perhaps, a few things gained. Our position was strengthened, and we
presented a united front, if possible to bring about more unity than
had existed the year before; there was a renewed consecration, a common
knowledge of all the plans and devices used in the different districts
the year before to gain the confidence and secure the attendance of
illiterates, and a determination to excel the record of the previous
year. Back of us was a battle won; it was the convincing proof that
hundreds had been taught, a strength and stay that we had not had in
the first year, a mile-stone gained that made the next mile easier to
travel, a precedent, which to many is the most powerful argument of
any in the world. Some had learned, even the aged and infirm, the poor
of sight and dull of mind. Glory be! others could learn, or else must
admit themselves more stupid than their neighbors. Each teacher had all
the facts, the arguments and the experiences of his fellows, and they
knew his, and there was a crystallization of their enthusiasm, which
made them well-nigh irresistible.
In those days of earnest discussion and planning for helping a people
who had been abandoned by the educational forces of all time, and a
people who, themselves, until the moonlight schools burst upon them,
had abandoned hope, there was never a doubt expressed, a complaint
made or even a suggestion that this volunteer service was a sacrifice
or a hardship, or anything but a holiday joy. To them it was a high
adventure, not without its tests of endurance and sincerity, but one
whose tests they fully met, even the frailest of them, because their
faith was absolute; this faith and one other thing they possessed that
gave them victory over all hindrances and obstacles--the right spirit.
These two are well-nigh unconquerable elements in any noble endeavor.