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 thanthey 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 eyethat 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 bywhich 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 knewhis, 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.