The illiteracy campaign was being waged for the removal of illiteracy which already existed but it was, also, creating sentiment for the prevention of illiteracy in the future. Those who led the fight to remove illiteracy had never doubted that “it is better to build a fence around the precipice than to wait with the ambulance below,” but so many had already gone over the precipice that in mercy’s name they must be succored. The very act of rescue had attracted sufficient attention to the calamity, it was hoped, to insure the building of the fence—the creation of school attendance officers who would enforce the compulsory attendance law. The county illiteracy agents had been given permissive power by the Legislature of 1918 to act as attendance officers and had pioneered such a measure and created sentiment for regular attendance officers with full power. This sentiment must be crystallized before the approaching Legislature convened. To this end two thousand speakers went into the field to urge the people to their utmost efforts in teaching all to read and write and also to advocate two kindred educational reforms—the attendance officer as a preventive of another crop of illiterates, and a living wage for those who had “borne the heat and burden” of the campaign—the public school teachers of the state. When the Legislature convened the following January the sentiment was overwhelmingly favorable and it was a mere matter of phrasing the laws, creating attendance officers and increasing teachers’ salaries, which were promptly passed.
Kentucky in a few years time taught 130,000 to read and write. This record of the number taught is based on letters of pupils, who stated that they had learned, together with the reports of teachers and county superintendents. The names of the illiterates had been obtained from the United States Census Bureau early in the campaign to be used in locating them and checking off their names as they were taught. Though assured by the United States Commissioner of Education that these were records that would not be divulged, we had invaded the Census Bureau and secured the names of Rowan County’s illiterates. It was only a step that led to the divulging of the names of all the illiterates in Kentucky, though some pressure had to be put on before the complete record was obtained. It was the first time in history that the Census Bureau had ever been approached with such a request. The names of illiterates formed a record hitherto unavailable to the states. This Bureau has since been flooded with demands and some states have paid thousands of dollars to have the names of their illiterates copied. Kentucky had secured this information, not easily, but free of cost to the state and in so doing was carrying out the mandate of the Legislature which had charged the Commission “to make research, collect data and statistics and procure surveys of any and all communities, districts or vicinities of the state, looking to the obtaining of a more detailed, definite and particular knowledge as to the true conditions of the state with regard to its adult illiteracy.”
Kentucky through an effective attendance officer law, one of the fruits of her illiteracy crusade, has secured herself against a recurrence of illiteracy in future. The thousands of illiterates she has redeemed have demonstrated both their ability and their desire to learn. There lies before her the task of redeeming the others and of providing opportunities for the newly-learned to advance through, at least, the elementary grades. This will be done in time by following her crusade with the establishment of an extensive system of evening schools, with teachers paid and a State school for adults where those younger men and women who can leave home may complete their education quickly and enter upon intelligent and useful careers.
CHAPTER XII
THE ILLITERACY CRUSADE SPREADS FROM STATE TO STATE
The crusade against illiteracy had extended rapidly to other states. Moonlight schools were organized in the fall of 1913 in Bradley County, Tennessee, to teach the mountaineers; in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to teach the people in mill villages, and in Grant County, Washington, to teach some German farmers to read and write the English language.
Alabama was the second state to wage a state-wide crusade against illiteracy. In 1914, Honorable William F. Feagin, State Superintendent of Education of Alabama, sent out this call:
It is my opinion that there are a number of people in this state who are patriotic enough to give themselves over to the task of making a crusade against illiteracy in their communities, if we only knew how to find them. For such as these, this pamphlet is being sent out and in the belief that any soul who gives himself to a task like this, namely that of bringing light and help and cheer to those who have never learned to know the independence, the self-respect, the information and the delight of the printed page, is worthy of honorable mention whenever we call to mind those true patriots who serve humanity and glorify the state.
