Chapter VIII: The Movement Extends to the Whole State of Kentucky

Twenty-five other counties in the State were, by this time, having moonlight schools, and whether it was in a Bluegrass County among the tenant class, in the Purchase among the farmers, in the coal regions among the miners or in mill or distillery sections, there was the same response; men and women thronged to the schools, strove to make up for the time they had lost, and pleaded for a longer term when the session closed. It seemed that the State should extend its aid to these unfortunate men and women and should support the volunteer teachers in their patriotic efforts. So I opened up a correspondence with the Governor on the subject of an Illiteracy Commission. The first letter read as follows:

Morehead, Ky.
Dec. 16, 1913.

Governor James B. McCreary,
Frankfort, Ky.

My dear Governor McCreary:--

I am taking the liberty of addressing you upon the subject of having
an Illiteracy Commission formed by legislative act to study the
condition of adult illiterates in our State and to give men and women
their freedom from this bondage; also, to place our State in a better
light before the world. For years there has been a constant cry about
Kentucky’s appalling percentage of illiteracy. It has been repeatedly
declared that we are near the bottom of the literacy scale.

The purpose of forming such a commission would be to promote
voluntary effort on the part of the teachers and others and to
co-operate with those who are already making an effort. Many teachers
have already volunteered, but they need guidance and inspiration and
other teachers need to be called upon to volunteer.

We have taught over a thousand men and women in Rowan County during
the past three years, and now some twenty-five counties are putting
forth an effort along this line. I have hundreds of letters which
demonstrate the fact that men and women can learn to read and write
in a very short time after their interest is quickened.

I have letters from octogenarians besides many middle-aged and
younger men and women. What has been done in Rowan County in three
years in reducing and almost wiping out her illiteracy, can be done
in Kentucky during the next six years--by the time the Federal census
is taken.

This movement started in Kentucky, and Kentucky is the State which
should take the initiative and form a commission to advance this
important work. I earnestly request that you will include in your
message to the Legislature the suggestion that such a commission be
formed.

Hoping that you will see the expediency of this matter, and believing
that you will stand for the enlightenment of the 208,084 benighted
Kentuckians who cannot read or write, I am,

Yours most respectfully,

By return mail came Governor McCreary’s answer:

Your letter, dated December 16, 1913, was received this morning.

I thoroughly endorse all you say on the subject of an “Illiteracy
Commission” “formed by legislative act to study the condition of
adult illiteracy in our State and to give men and women their freedom
from this bondage.”

I congratulate you on the strong points presented in your letter, and
I will be glad to assist you and to encourage any movement which has
for its object the elimination of illiteracy from our State and the
education of all our people.

I will refer in my message to an “Illiteracy Commission” and the good
work that can be performed by such a commission.

After some further exchange of letters with the Governor on the subject, on February 19, 1914, he wrote:

I congratulate you heartily, on the unanimous vote of both branches
of the General Assembly in favor of the bill providing for the
Kentucky Illiteracy Commission. Your address and the strong arguments
in favor of this much-needed legislation caused its passage without
opposition.

There is nothing in life more pleasant than to feel that you are
living for the benefit of humanity and to contribute to the welfare
of men and women.

I respect and admire you for devoting your intellect and energies to
your good work among adult illiterates in Kentucky.

The Governor appointed J. G. Crabbe, President of the Eastern Kentucky State Normal, H. H. Cherry, President of the Western Kentucky State Normal, Miss Ella Lewis, Superintendent of Grayson County schools and myself as members of the newly created Illiteracy Commission. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction was a member ex officio.

Here was a Commission new to the world, without chart, guide or compass, starting to attack adult illiteracy, a thing supposed to be invincible. Nobody had even undertaken to abolish adult illiteracy before, so there was no precedent and no literature. The State had not appropriated a dollar for the Commission’s work and there was not a dollar in hand. Scoffers stood on every corner predicting dire failure. Illiteracy statistics were challenged and disputed and much energy that could have been used in the fight on illiteracy was used by the opposition in trying to disprove the statistics, while the proof was lying buried in a vault in the Federal Census Bureau at Washington. The enlightening of public opinion, the quickening of the missionary spirit, the arousing of state pride and the opening of pocketbooks to finance the movement were some of the tasks which confronted this Commission of volunteers besides the actual instruction of illiterates.

The public school teachers being already at the helm were in better position to influence the people than any others. They must be the soldiers in this bloodless war against illiteracy but soldiers in the trenches must have organized and intelligent support from those back home. It was everybody’s war and volunteers from every profession and every walk of life must be enlisted.

The Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs led out. In recognition of the service rendered by those pioneer teachers of Rowan County, they sent them on a vacation trip to Niagara Falls and to visit the cities in the northern part of the United States and Canada. It was a novel thing to see public-school teachers traveling in a private car at the expense of the grateful people of a State and being sung to and fêted along the route. It served the purpose of more than a merited reward; it was a stimulus to other teachers and inspired a large number to volunteer.

The Colonial Dames and other women’s organizations made a whirlwind campaign for funds; editors agitated through editorials and news items on illiteracy; ministers celebrated, “No Illiteracy Sunday” in the churches and attacked the evil in sermon, song and prayer; bankers were on the alert for illiterates who made their mark on checks and made a campaign to teach each to read and write; jailers put their prisoners to the book; traveling salesmen carried the slogan of the crusade as stickers on their baggage and talked “no illiteracy” as enthusiastically as they talked dry-goods, notions, boots and shoes; college students placarded the walls of the colleges with illiteracy statistics, used illiteracy as the theme for their finals and each pledged to go home and teach someone to read and write. We even enlisted the politicians and put them to some use. A galaxy of speakers, headed by the Governor and State officials and composed of men and women prominent in politics and in other professions, went out over the State at their own expense fighting illiteracy and urging the establishment of moonlight schools. What these prominent ones advocated so openly, many great souls carried further in some quiet way, either by organizing a moonlight school in some isolated spot, by talking for the cause at some country store, or by going over the hill or across the field to teach some neighbor to read and write.

The Governor had issued a proclamation against illiteracy, and much of this activity was in response to it. As the first proclamation of its kind in history, it is a paper of unusual interest, and is here reproduced:

At the last meeting of the General Assembly of Kentucky, I
recommended that a Kentucky Illiteracy Commission be appointed and
authorized to inquire into and alleviate the conditions of the adult
illiterates in the State, and Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, Chairman,
Miss Ella Lewis, Doctor J. G. Crabbe, and Doctor H. H. Cherry
were appointed as members of the Commission. This Commission has
inaugurated a State campaign, Mrs. Stewart being the accepted leader
in the efforts to stamp out illiteracy through moonlight schools and
other methods.

Upon their call for volunteers about one thousand teachers offered
their services and are teaching or making arrangement to teach at
night, and others are daily offering their services.

The aim of the Kentucky Illiteracy Commission is noble and exalted
and of the greatest benefit, and there is no subject of more
importance or of more far-reaching influence than the elimination of
illiteracy from our State. We should educate all of our people, those
under twenty-one years of age, and those upward of twenty-one years
of age. The perpetuity of our free institutions depends upon the
intelligence and virtue of the people.

There are 208,084 men and women in our State who cannot read and
write, and of whose intelligent efforts along the lines of education,
religion and general development and advancement the State is
deprived, and this constitutes a deplorable situation and presents a
great and urgent need which should be promptly met and relieved.

Instruction should be offered to the mothers for their own sake and
for the sake of the children and the benefit of the State; it should
be offered to the fathers for their own sake and for the sake of
increasing their earning capacity and of promoting home comforts, and
for the sake of a more intelligent exercise of the right of suffrage
so as to help maintain good government for the State. Instruction
should be offered to the young men and young women who have missed
opportunities earlier in life, but may yet take hold of instruction
and make achievements.

The instruction of all the illiterates in the State will not only
give to Kentucky a higher rank, educationally, among the states, but
will give her a new and distinct position as the first Commonwealth
which has ever attempted to accomplish such a great and important
work.

I call upon all to help in the cause of education of those under
twenty-one years of age and those upward of twenty-one years of
age, and I appeal to every public and private school teacher, every
professor in our high schools, colleges and universities, all public
officials, every representative of the press, every professional man,
every farmer, mechanic and business man and every woman who loves the
blessings of education, and to all who desire to promote religion,
science, literature or art, or to advance progress or improvement in
any line, all who desire to lessen crime, to help in the great work
of teaching adult illiterates, both male and female, to read and
write and spell and to encourage them to seek knowledge and to add to
their acquirements through moonlight schools in illuminated school
houses where education is as free as the air we breathe, and where
all may come to edify themselves and to drink of the water of life
freely.

In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the Commonwealth to be hereunto affixed. Done at
Frankfort the 21st day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand nine hundred and fourteen, and in the one hundred and
twenty-third year of the commonwealth.

JAMES B. MCCREARY,
Governor.
C. E. CRECELIUS,
Secretary of State.

(seal)

CECIL H. VANSANT,
Assistant Secretary of State.

The United States Bureau of Education, at this time, made Kentucky’s campaign against illiteracy the occasion for a second notice to the public. In this bulletin, which was headed “Kentucky Wars on Illiteracy,” the Commissioner of Education said:

It will be a part of the lasting glory of the State of Kentucky that
it has taken the lead in this movement. It is the first state to
offer to all the people, of whatever age, an opportunity to learn to
read and write, and thus break away from the prison wall of sense
and silence within which the illiterate man and woman must live.
Whatever else Governor James B. McCreary may do for his State,
this proclamation and his recommendation to the legislature that it
provide for the appointment of an Illiteracy Commission must always
be accounted among his wisest and most important acts.