OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material can not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. ===================================================================== W. T. DODSON Vol. 3, p. 955 The first organized assault upon illiteracy in the rural sections of that part of Oklahoma that formerly was the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole nations is to be made this autumn (1915) through the activities of a commission that has been selected by State Superintendent Robert H. WILSON. This commission, of which he is chairman, consists of one professor from each of the six State Normal schools. Each commissioner is assigned to a district covering counties in this section of the state. The movement is to be statewide, but the most difficult task is that found in former Indian Territory, Adair County, part of the old Cherokee Nation, has an illiteracy standing of 20 per cent, while Bryan County, in the former Choctaw Nation, has a standing of 8 per cent. One of the originators of this movement is Prof. W. T. DODSON, of the chair of history in the Southeastern State Normal School at Durant, and he has already started the organization movement in the old Choctaw Nation. There are twelve counties in his district and over these he expects to travel during the next few months. Each of the county superintendents of schools is a lieutenant under Professor Dodson in the movement, and in turn each superintendent will select his own lieutenants among the teachers of his county. The commission will teach especially along the subjects of thrift, good roads, community organization, etc., and wherever necessary organize moonlight schools. After the groundwork of the organization is complete, probably in November 1915 there will be a rally held at every schoolhouse in the state, which will be attended by pupils and parents and addressed by the best speakers of the work of the commission. Later, there will be district rallies and still later county rallies, the speaking program being carried out in each. During Thanksgiving week, it is planned, when the State Educational Association holds its annual meeting in Oklahoma City, reports will be made of the character and immediate effects of the organization work. The investigation will be carried to the doorsteps of all rural homes and the reports will contain the best census of conditions that has ever been gathered. This information will be the basis of plans for continuing the reform work indefinitely. Illiteracy in Oklahoma is due largely to the lack of interest in education in Indian Territory before the days of statehood. Little provision was made for the common schools outside of incorporated towns and cities and the schools conducted under supervision of the United States and tribal governments. There are scores of men and women living in that section who can not read and write, and they have never had the proper conception of education. This movement is in part to teach them the advantage of educating their children. The era of the cattle range has passed and the lands of the Indians are being rapidly sold or leased to white farmers. There is now a schoolhouse and other school facilities in every neighborhood and the state normals are sending trained teachers by the hundred into the communities each year. The commission will seek to supplement the work of these teachers by inciting a greater interest in education in general. One of the important hindrances to education in the rural schools of former Indian Territory is the lack of good roads. In some counties section lines have not yet opened and bridges are scarce. Under a law passed by the State Legislature in 1914 townships are permitted to vote bonds for good road purposes, and this year the roads movement is getting more attention than it has had in a decade. The man who is largely responsible for this highly praiseworthy movement is W. T. Dodson, who was born January 16, 1871, at Hartville, Missouri, the son of Wilson and Adeline (RUDD) Dodson. P. W. Rudd, his maternal grandsire, fought in the Union army during the Civil war, as a captain. After the war he devoted much of the remainder of his life to the work of assisting veterans and their widows to secure pensions, and he was recognized as one of the chief pension experts in the country. W. T. Dodson had his early education in the public schools of Missouri, and he was graduated from college at Mountain Grove, Missouri, with the degree A. B. For three years thereafter he did post graduate work in the University of Missouri. His first teaching experience was in the eight grade of the public schools in Mountain Grove, and after that he was for nine years principal of the schools there. In 1906 he resigned that position to become superintendent of schools at Frederick, Oklahoma, a position he held for five years. During the first year he had a faculty of five teachers and 239 students and in the last year his faculty numbered thirty teachers with 1,200 students. While in Fredrick Professor Dodson organized the Southwestern Oklahoma Teachers Association, the first district organization of teachers in the state. There were three teachers in the organization at the onset, but in a few years the membership had reached the 2, 000 mark. Professor Dodson accepted the position of head of the history department of the Southeastern State Normal School in 1911, and by virtue of his incumbency of that position and his wide experience in public school work, he was made assistant to the president of the institution, which position he still holds. Professor Dodson was married in 1892 at Mountain Grove, Missouri, to Miss Katie Olive STEPHENS. They have seven children. Miss Grace, a graduate of the class of 1915 of the Southeastern State Normal, is a primary teacher in the public school at Boswell. Faye will graduate from the State Normal in 1916, and will also follow teaching as her profession. Merle, Vance, Jewell, Linnette and Ethlyene are yet at home. Professor Dodson is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and has been superintendent of its Sunday School in Durant. He is a member of the Masons and of the Odd Fellows, and while in Missouri filled all chairs in the local lodges of those orders. He is a member of Bryan County Teachers' Association, the Southeastern Oklahoma Teachers Association and the Oklahoma Educational Association. Typed for OKGenWeb by: Vickie Neill Taylor, January 5, 1999.