It has been said that every great movement for freedom originated among mountain people. However true or untrue this may be, the movement to emancipate the illiterates of America originated among the people of the mountains of Kentucky. It is not something that America is doing for the mountain people, but something which they have contributed to the nation and to the world.

This was acknowledged by the United States Commissioner of Education in a bulletin issued in 1913 in which he said,

“I submit herewith, for publication as a Bulletin of the Bureau of Education, a statement showing in some detail the amount of illiteracy in the United States among men, women and children over ten years of age according to the Federal Census of 1910; also a brief statement of an experiment which has been conducted for nearly two years in one of the mountain counties in eastern Kentucky having a large number of illiterates in its population, to ascertain if it were possible to teach these illiterate grown-up men and women and older children to read and write, and whether other men, women and children with very meager education would respond to the opportunity to learn more of the arts of the school. The success of this experiment, made under very difficult circumstances, has been so great as to inspire the hope that, with the cooperation of schools, churches, philanthropic societies, cities, counties, States and the Nation, the great majority of the five and a half million illiterates over ten years of age in the United States may, in a few years, be taught to read and write and something more.”

MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS

Moonlight Schools