360 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



in which he was interested, lumbering. At the end of the six- 

 weeks' session he was promoted at a salary double that which he 

 had received before. It was not unusual in traveling over the 

 county to find in the day schools here and there, after the moon- 

 light schools had closed, a man or a woman seated at the desk 

 with a child. 



In March, 1913, the teachers of Rowan county met in the office 

 of the county superintendent and declared their determination 

 to wipe illiteracy out of that county that year. First, the school 

 trustees were induced to take a census of the illiterates. When 

 this was completed, an illiteracy record was made. On the rec- 

 ord was not only the name and the age of every illiterate in the 

 county, but his history as well: his home environment, family 

 ties, religious faith, political belief, weaknesses, tastes and pe- 

 culiarities, and the influence or combination of influences through 

 which he might be reached in case the teacher failed with him. 



Each teacher was given a list of the illiterates in her district 

 when she opened her day school. She called on these people and 

 cultivated their acquaintance before the moonlight schools began 

 their sessions. The home department of the moonlight schools 

 was established that year, in which the indifferent, the disin- 

 clined, the stubborn and the decrepit were taught by the teacher 

 or by some one under the teacher's direction at home. "One 

 for every one," was the slogan which brought into service doc- 

 tors, who could teach their convalescent patients ; ministers who 

 might find a pupil among the members of their flocks; stenog- 

 raphers who could interest waitresses in the small-town hotels, 

 and any others who would seek and teach a pupil. Each dis- 

 trict was striving to be the first to completely stamp out illit- 

 eracy. 



We tried, by every means, fair and foul, to get illiteracy out 

 of the county to the last individual. At the close of the third 

 session, we had but a straggling few who could not read and 

 write twenty-three in all, mainly defectives, invalids and the 

 blind. 



Meanwhile, the moonlight schools had been extended to twenty- 

 five other counties in the state, and whether it was in distillery 

 section or among the tenant class, or in mining region or among 

 the farmers, it was ever with the same results. Men and women 



