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.
CHAPTER VI
THE RESULTS OF THE SECOND SESSION
The second session surpassed the first in every particular. We enrolled 1,600 students, and taught 350 to read and write. A man aged eighty-seven entered and put to shame the record of the proud school-girl of eighty-six of the year before.
There were many evidences of individual development and achievement. One man, foreign born, who had been working at a lumber camp at the meager wage of $1.50 per day entered the moonlight school and specialized in mathematics—that part of it pertaining to his business, and at the close of the six weeks’ session, was promoted at a salary double that which he had received before. Some of the school trustees, who were none too well educated, found in the moonlight school their opportunity to advance, which many of them embraced. One school trustee who went from the moonlight school into the day school sat in the seat with his own twelve-year-old boy and studied in the same books and recited in the same classes. Another accompanied his wife to the moonlight school, she being the teacher, and he was so delighted with his progress that he enrolled, also, in the day school—and his deportment was good, so the problem of discipline did not enter in to cause domestic infelicity.
